Author: JD
Drake’s Surprise Album Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200
Drake‘s surprise album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart as expected, easily scoring the hip-hop star his fourth chart-topper. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late moved 535,000 units in the week ending Feb. 15, according to Nielsen Music, with pure album sales comprising 495,000 of that figure — all from digital downloads. Drake’s Surprise Album Sets Spotify Records Industry forecasters had projected the set to sell over 500,000 copies, but it fell just short of that half-million threshold. Still, it’s a remarkable start for an album that arrived with no notice, was sold only through digital retail, is termed a mixtape by Drake (and not a proper studio album) and only had a little more than three days of sales powering its debut. The new set was released in the evening of Thursday, Feb. 12 through Young Money/Cash Money/Republic Records. The tracking week ended at the close of business on Sunday, Feb. 15. A physical release for the album on CD or vinyl has not been announced. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late follows Drake’s three earlier No. 1-debuting albums, which also happened to be his first three full-length efforts: Thank Me Later (released in 2010), Take Care (2011) and Nothing Was the Same (2013). Drake’s fourth studio album, Views From the 6, is due out later this year. It was announced last July. Here are some notable facts and figures about Drake’s latest No. 1 album: — If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late sold 495,000 copies in its first chart week, marking Drake’s third-biggest sales frame. Only the bows of Nothing Was the Same (658,000) and Take Care (631,000) were larger. — If You’re Reading This logs the largest sales week for an R&B/hip-hop album since Beyonce‘s own surprise self-titled album debuted with 617,000 sold after a little more than three days on sale (in the week ending Dec. 15, 2013). The Beyonce set was released at 12 AM on the morning of Friday, Dec. 13. If You’re Reading This also nets the biggest week for a rap album since Eminem‘s The Marshall Mathers LP 2 bowed at No. 1 with 792,000 in the week ending Nov. 10, 2013. — Drake’s opening is the second-largest sales week among all albums in the past year, behind only the debut of Taylor Swift‘s monster 1989 album (1.27 million in the week ending Nov. 2, 2014). Drake Covers, Performs With Kanye West in NYC — In a little more than three days, Drake’s set has already sold more copies than any other album in 2015 except for Swift’s 1989 (which has sold 696,000 so far in 2015). — Only two hip-hop acts have seen their first four full-length albums debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart: Drake and DMX. The latter did it with his first five studio projects between 1998 and 2003 (It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot, Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood, …And Then There Was X, The Great Depression and Grand Champ). — If You’re Reading This is the 10th No. 1 album for the Cash Money label, and the seventh for Young Money. (Cash Money’s first leader was Big Tymers‘ Hood Rich in 2002, while Young Money’s was Drake’s own Thank Me Later.) As Drake starts at No. 1 on the latest Billboard 200, he blocks the also-arriving Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack from starting in the top slot. The multi-artist compilation — featuring songs from Ellie Goulding, The Weeknd, Annie Lennox, Beyonce and more — bows at No. 2 with 258,000 units (of which 210,000 are traditional album sales). The album’s 210,000 start is the largest sales debut for a soundtrack since Michael Jackson’s This Is It danced in at No. 1 with 373,000 in the week ending Nov. 1, 2009. This Is It was an all-Jackson effort, however, and behaved like a greatest hits album, so it’s a bit unfair to compare it to Fifty Shades of Grey. So, scrolling back farther, the last multi-artist compilation soundtrack to debut bigger was Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, which arrived with 317,000 at No. 2 in the week ending Nov. 13, 2005. Between Get Rich and This Is It, there were four soundtracks (of any kind) that bowed larger than Fifty Shades, and all were from Walt Disney Records: Hannah Montana (281,000 in 2007), Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus (326,000 in 2007, both Montana albums were performed by Cyrus), High School Musical 2(615,000 in 2007) and High School Musical 3: Senior Year (297,000 in 2008). The latter two albums were performed by the cast of High School Musical cast (Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, etc.) and are not comparable to a compilation soundtrack like Fifty Shades or Get Rich or Die Tryin’. Madonna Talks ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ (‘Not Very Sexy’), the Pope and More With both Drake’s If You’re Reading This and the Fifty Shades of Grey album released on Republic Records, it’s the first time one label has owned the top two albums since the July 19, 2014-dated chart, when Atlantic Records had the debuting Trigga (on Songbook/Atlantic) from Trey Songz at No. 1, while Ed Sheeran‘s x (on Atlantic) fell 1-2 in its second week. Further, this week marks the first time one label has concurrently debuted albums at Nos. 1 and 2 since the April 12, 2008-dated chart. That week, Atlantic (again!) arrived at No. 1 with Day26‘s self titled album (on Bad Boy/Atlantic) while Panic! At the Disco‘s Pretty.Odd. entered at No. 2 (released on Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen/Atlantic). Back on the latest Billboard 200 chart, Sam Smith‘s In the Lonely Hour rises 4-3 with 164,000 units (up 91 percent) in the wake of Smith’s four Grammy Award wins on Feb. 8. The set sold 124,000 copies in the week after the show, earning a gain of 118 percent, and tallying the album’s biggest sales week since its debut frame (166,000 in the week ending June 22, 2014). Smith’s four Grammy wins included record of the year, song of the year and best new artist — but not the coveted album of the year trophy. That went to Beck‘s Morning Phase, which vaults 39-8 with 71,000 units (up 483 percent). Of that figure, it sold 64,000 were traditional album sales (grabbing a gain of 466 percent). Like Smith, Beck’s album earns its largest sales week since its debut, when it arrived with 87,000 in the week ending March 2, 2014. As for the rest of the top 10, it is comprised mostly of holdover titles, many of which post big gains. Ed Sheeran’s x moves 3-4 (140,000 units; up 44 percent) while Taylor Swift’s 1989 dips 1-5 (125,000; up 16 percent). The latter album falls out of the top two for the first time in its 16-week chart run. Meghan Trainor‘s Title is steady at No. 6 with 72,000 (up 21 percent), the Now 53compilation descends 2-7 with almost 72,000 (down 28 percent) and the 2015 Grammy Nominees compilation zips 15-9 with 65,000 (up 92 percent). Maroon 5‘s V closes out the top 10, falling one spot to No. 10 with 63,000 (up 35 percent).
#prayingforrochellie
Rochellie has breast cancer that has metastasized to her brain and lungs, one of her wishes was to meet Jagged Edge and we made it happen this past Friday! Thank you to her sister Rochelle for contacting us! #prayingforrochellie #hope #jeyall ™@official_je
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Even if things don’t unfold the way you expected, don’t be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.” -Daisaku Ikeda
LDM & Jason Imanuel – Nice & Slow (Usher Afro Cover Remix)
http://youtu.be/6wGTR3139RY
This tool could make your tweets more popular
Style may trump substance when it comes to Twitter popularity, according to researchers at Cornell University. A study backed by the National Science Foundation and Google used an algorithm to parse the sentence constructions, rhetoric and keywords that makes certain tweets get more attention than others. The researchers used their findings to create an online tool that weighs two wordings of the same tweet against each other and spits out a percentage chance that one is likely to be more popular than the other. SEE ALSO: Twitter introduces TweetDeck Teams to make managing accounts easier Controlling for the popularity of the user and the subject matter of the tweets, the study’s authors collected thousands of pairs of tweets across many different accounts and analyzed the number of shares in relation to key phrases, online communities reached and other factors. The researchers used Twitter because it was the easiest platform to set up a controlled experiment, but they are hoping the results will apply to other forms of communication as well. “We’re looking at persuasion everywhere,” Lillian Lee, a computer science and information science professor at Cornell, said in a press release. So what makes for a perfect tweet? According to researchers, politely asking followers to retweet can go a long way. Including the words “please,” “pls,” “plz” and “retweet” topped the list of factors that make up a successful tweet. Adding the words “please retweet” to an otherwise identical message in the popularity calculator seems to make a tweet around 95% more likely to be shared, according to the algorithm. Indeed, just the words “please retweet” by themselves seem to have an 85% chance of sharing better than any other text. IMAGE: SCREENSHOT Other strategies for success include using language that is familiar to the target audience and consistent with past tweets, as well as mimicking the abbreviated style of headline writers. The study also recommends giving a tweet a positive or negative spin, making it easy to read and informative and staying away from the first person. Adding the word “I” to an otherwise identical phrase seems to cut down on a tweet’s sharing potential by about 50%. The tool isn’t infallible, of course. For one thing, it equates the length of tweet with how informative it is — so tacking on an extra word at random will usually make the algorithm think the tweet is around 50% more retweetable. IMAGE: SCREENSHOT Also, the researchers admit one glaring drawback in the research: Their machine has yet to master a sense of humor. “We would love to capture amusingness or cleverness, but we haven’t found a way to do that yet,” Lee said in a press release. The website also offers a quiz where you can test your Twitter skills by guessing the more shared tweet.
IN THE STUDIO
IN THE STUDIO LAST NIGHT WITH DA BRAT,SHE COMIN!!!!!
Outperform Your Competition With 3 Small Daily Adjustments
Entrepreneurs tend to thrive in environments of healthy competition. Without challenges, there is no growth, so it’s within the hotbed of competition that many entrepreneurs truly find their stride and earn their stripes. We all have 24 hours in a day, so how is it that some competitors stand out while others can’t seem to get ahead? When it comes to entrepreneurship, it’s not about what you’re given, but what you do with what you have that will help you go the distance. How are you going to rise above your competition? Related: 10 Ways to Make This the Year You Sleep Better Here is an incredibly simple but extremely powerful tried-and-tested list of the three things you can start doing today to outperform your competition. 1. Wake up 30 minutes earlier It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth and wisdom. — Aristotle What drives you out of bed in the morning? Is it the alarm clock? Or the knowledge that somewhere out there a competitor is probably already cranking on something? If it’s not the latter, then you may want to consider adjusting your mindset and your alarm clock. No matter how early you’re getting up, odds are pretty good you could be waking up at least 30 minutes earlier. Doing so gives you a leg up on your competition. If you really want to go for broke, make it an hour earlier, but you can ease into that 30 minutes at a time. The truth is that waking up early sets you up for success the rest of the day. This is often when you’re going to find the time to exercise, eat a real breakfast and do many of the other morning rituals that ultimately build your success. Try it. Waking up early will change your life and give you more time in your working, waking day to get a head start on your competition. 2. Exercise seven days a week, no exceptions To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving. — Jerry Seinfeld Seinfeld could have been speaking about metaphorical movement or physical movement, but either way, moving your body will change your life. There is no excuse for every entrepreneur not to move every day. Related: 8 Ways to Stay Fit Even on Your Busiest Days Movement gets your brain going, your blood flowing, the oxygen circulating and the ideas flowing. It keeps your body healthy so your mind can stay healthy. You have to have a strong mind and a healthy body to outperform your competition. If you’re sick, tired, run down, stressed, filled with anxiety or in any other way impeded by your physical health, you are not going to be able to keep up with competitors. If you follow step number one and start waking up 30 to 60 minutes earlier a day, you can use that time to go for a walk, a jog, a yoga session or the gym. You choose your movement of choice, but no matter the weather or how hectic the workday, choose to build exercise and movement into your routine daily to outperform your competition. 3. Give back every day Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If you want a powerful, foolproof method for jumping out of bed in the morning instead of reaching for the snooze button, ask yourself this one question by Dr. King: What can I do for others today? Often, we as human beings try to make this question mean something so big that we let our egos cop out of answering the question. If you can’t change the world today, is there any action worth taking? The answer is yes and it starts much smaller. Ask who you can help today when you get out of bed (30 minutes earlier, of course) then notice how that tees up your perspective all day. You can unload the dishwasher, you can give the guy on the corner a few dollars as you pass, you can spend a few minutes writing an email connecting two people that would benefit from the introduction — there’s a long list of limitless options to help. While you might think this has nothing to do with outperforming your competition, it does. Not only will it improve your life, but you’ll be simultaneously building a network and reputation based on improving other lives. That can only benefit you in the long game.