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Eminem made a predictably massive return with Relapse, easily grabbing the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 for a fifth straight time in his career with a smash 608,000 copies sold in its first week alone. Not only is it the biggest sales week of the year for any album, but the best since AC/DC's Black Ice hit with 784,000 copies last October.
Kenny Chesney's Greatest Hits II lands at #3 with 89,000 units moved, while Method Man and Redman pair up for another top 10 album as Blackout! 2 opens at #3 with 63,000.
Comedian Dane Cook kicked a little ass with ISolated INcident, opening at #4 with 61,000 copies sold, and Busta Rhymes returns to the chart after nearly three years with Back On My B.S. entering the charts at #5 with 59,000. His last set, 2006's The Big Bang, did a hell of a lot better, landing at #1 with 209,000.
Kanye West spilled a bit of info to MTV about Jay-Z's upcoming new album, The Blueprint 3, which West is producing. According to Yeezy, Jigga's album won't be anything like 808s And Heartbreak. In other words, Autotune is nowhere to be found (thank sweet baby Jesus).
"We actually removed all the songs with Autotune off his album to make the point that this is an anti-Autotune album," he said, "even though I released an album that has all Autotune. It doesn't matter to me. It's music, it's just sonics."
With everything shifting in Jay-Z's professional life at the moment, there's a level of concern that he'll be too distracted to put out a proper bomb-ass record.
"Jay is in control of everything in his domain. He's just been working on (the album), and it's gonna be amazing when he drops it," Kanye said. "I think it's good he's taking his time to give people the best product possible and not being rushed by this fast-food, media-outlet, internet, everything-is-getting-leaked, people-stealing your songs-before-you-can-mix-them-and-put-them-online world we're living in right now."
Jay-Z is close to finalizing a new deal with Sony's Epic Records that will link Jay-Z's Roc Nation label under the Epic umbrella. As we previously reported, Jay-Z left Def Jam last week.
Speaking of Kanye, Mr. West has a new book due out called "Thank you, and You're Welcome". According to Amazon.com, "Thank You" is a 52-page book of "Kanyeisms" and "the creative, humorous, and insightful philosophies and anecdotes used in creating his path to success. It captures the same wit, playful irony, and piercing insight found abundant in his lyrics."
What it doesn't tell you is that the egomaniac recently put forth this revealing little nugget of wisdom: "I am a proud non-reader of books. I get information from doing stuff like actually living real life.”
Nothing screams "Make sure you go out and buy my new book!" like putting down literacy. Go Yeezy, go!
Green Label Sound, a free singles label, announced that U-N-I's "Land of The Kings" will be its first single release of 2009. The song, available for free download GreenLabelSound, is the Los Angeles-based hip-hop duo's first offering since the release of their self-released album A Love Supreme.
Green Label Sound has also unveiled a select sampling of upcoming releases which include tracks from Chromeo, Amazing Baby, Holy Ghost!, Solid Gold and many more.
"Green Label Sound is giving us a stepping stool into the next league with an official team behind us," remarked Thurzday of U-N-I. "Until now we have been doing everything independently and we can only expect greater things with this opportunity and the support of Green Label Sound."
Green Label Sound's earlier releases have featured a diverse roster of talented artists, including Brooklyn-breakouts Matt and Kim, Chicago rap duo The Cool Kids, former touring member of MGMT and founding member of The Whigs Kuroma, as well as the collaboration from production duo Flosstradamus and Chairlifts' Caroline Polachek
