I came acrossed this thread on the www.reggaetonline.net forum and felt I needed to set some things straight.
53,000 units sold is an awesome number for the first week of a Reggaeton album.
Many of the new members to this forum aren’t privy to the old threads where numbers were posted when Reggaeton pit a peak a few years back. If recall correctly 25,000 or 30,000 units sold was a big deal for the first week of sales. It took a few weeks for even Daddy Yankee to sale 200,000 copies of Bario fino or whatever, maybe even more than a few weeks.
One huge factor in record sales for Reggaeton is everyone that goes to different forums to download music; not just songs but whole albums that come out. This definitely hurts sales. The same people who download for free are the majority who want to nit pick about the numbers when it comes to sales. When you compare Reggaeton sales numbers to hip-hop, of course there is no need for comparison, because of the huge gap in the number of sales in each genre. Hip-hop has been around for a while and no one should compare Reggaeton sales numbers to those put down by Hip-hop records. Hip-hop blows Reggaeton out of the water with this.
Wisin and Yandel had a nice opening week for a Reggaeton CD. Let’s see if the number of sales from their album continues to grow and that will let us know how good they have truly done. With all that said Reggaeton fans accept Wisin and Yandel’’s style. This is why fans like me continue to support them no matter how cocky they can be at times.
Artists old and new need to find their place in this genre, stop copying and allow the genre to continue to evolve. Reggaeton from years is GOOD music, but lately artists are slacking off. Artists need to get back to humbling themselves and make new fans. They need to stop charging concert promoters an arm and a leg to put on a concert and stop being greedy. Think about the fans rather than filling thier pockets with with quick money. Common sense, you take care of your fans the fans will stick around for the long run. Treat your fans like gold they will buy your album and sales will go up.
Old and new artists need to think more about the music now than perreo and fake tiraera. You have a chance to speak to the world and tell people about you, where u come from, social issues, and life in the hood. Many artists followed Vico C’s footsteps but you didn’t hear Vico C talking about grinding on booties in every song on his album. Young Latinos are asking you to take Reggaeton to the next level and speak for them. Speak for them and they will buy your music. They are bilingual in many countries. Diversify yourself, but remember where you came from and they will buy your music. Yaviah…. show the world what it means to be creative because you do it so well.
And damnit, people keep saying they are sick of the beat! Listen to what the people are saying and be creative. I was listening to a few old songs where the boom tap tap was there but not so overbaring, and the song was a hit. I have heard songs where the boom tap tap was strong but the lyrics were so strong that it was a hit. Where the heck is Danny Fornaris and why aren’t artists embracing his creativity? LG’s Cuchi Cuchi, is a great example of his work. DJ Giann, Mr Greenz, and Dexter for live music are not scared to be creative and because of that you can’t deny that the music coming from artists like Jowell and Randy, De La Ghetto and others is not HOT. Noriega… this man is talented and no matter what genre of music he is producing he seems to have a great formula.
Wisin and Yandel have it going on. I hope they stay humble and their fan base continues to grow. I hope others continue to evolve and get this genre back on the track. Stop being greedy and go back to the basics and regain the trust and love of your fans. Think long-term not short term. To all the so called fans, stop down loading the music and buy the albums. Fans know who is hot, but you need to let the music industry know who you like by purchasing the CDs. Support those people like Danny Fornaris and Fussion Music. Stop saying how great your downloaded version of Casa de Leones was and buy the album. The industry has no way of tracking the stolen music for statistics, they can only estimate. Once artists and fans alike get with the program we can all sit and critique the Reggaeton genre by buying music instead of stealing it, CD sales will get better.