Firstly i wanna address the issue about abolishing albums.
I understand that not every album is a gem. I know how ridiculous it sounds when there are no concrete arguments to support myself with, but I could never forgive the hip-hop industry if it abolishes albums all together. I’m only 15, and even I, growing up in the internet age, know that nothing could replace the sensation of owning a hard copy of your favorite artist’s actual work. We all use zshare and megaupload and all that, but if I’m anticipating an album, then by all means I will get that album.

Now onto more important arguments.
If there was one argument (besides the abolishment of cds) that I’d oppose it’d be the one of having major artists liquidate their work. I have two words for anyone who thinks that’s a good idea: Lil Wayne. I am not a Wayne stan, nor am I a blind Wayne hater. I feel that he is creative and knows how to make good music if he is in the right frame of mind. HOWEVER, he vomits out tracks at a dizzying pace, and this leads to the inevitable argument of quantity over quality. Nowadays, I feel that maybe only 1 in every 10 leaked weezy tracks are above average – I don’t want this to happen to other major artists. Definitely, artists should supply their fans with tracks in between tapes and cds, via hip-hop blogs. However, we can not allow the people making our music to think that we’d enjoy anything and everything they’d throw our way. This is why I enjoy Lupe Fiasco so much: very little in terms of quantity, yet his quality is stellar.
Tupac is another brilliant example of the “wayne syndrome”: he dropped an immense amount of material, but you cannot honestly tell me that the majority of it was good (now i’m gonna get people breathing fire down my neck because i said it haha).

Next, the hip-hop blog. Labels need to realize that they need to get their asses on the ball when it comes to this. The advertising revenue potential is insane (as mentioned in the “hip-hop stimulus package” article). The only thing is that I don’t want is for the industry to flat-out control these blogs or implement their own. A solely def jam blog competing against a solely interscope blog would be nonsense, as it would never eliminate competition from places like 2dopeboyz and nahright. The hip-hop blogging circuit is going to get more competitive in the near future, and as this happens the quality of blogs will improve ( for example, we’ll see a diminish in the amount of wack-ass cut-and-paste mixtapes thrown at us daily).
I can’t believe how much untapped revenue is in hip-hop blogs still – we’re in 2009 now. This dude I go to school with is the co-founder of hear-it-first.net (it has ties with jumpoff.tv and it’s gotten like 5 million+ views, so it’s definitely making a name for itself ). It’s been like 2 years since he got into the hip-hop blog circuit, but he says he doesn’t make more than $10 a month from his site!!! This is what I mean when I say untapped revenue.

Finally, I’d like to state two things not mentioned in the article. Firstly, Hip-hop needs to start looking from the inside out. We should look at what factors are stimulating still succesfull genres such as country and learn from it. I know the demographic and the market couldn’t be any more different, yet lessons could still be learned.
Second, I see big money nowadays lying dominantly in tour sales. People still pay top dollar to see their favorite artists, which is why artists need to bust their asses for recognition.

In conclusion, hip-hop is a TOUGH market, especially nowadays. I think that the hip-hop stimulus package article was for the most part on point, and the industry needs to start paying more attention to the dominant technology of our day and time: the internet.

(one last thing mentioned in the article i wanna point out quick: the dude was right when he said hip-hop isn’t dead, it’s just boring – on the mainstream circuit anyways)

I defintely agree that hip-hop needs to find new revenue streams and that other genres should be looked at for possible ways on how to fix the problem and this is why I have advocated touring as a possible replacement. This would involve hip-hop shows really stepping up their game though and actually entertaining a crowd.

Hip-hop shows are generally boring compared to other genres and something needs to be done to want to bring outside fans into the experience. Wale is a perfect example of someone doing a great live show with his go go band backing him up on stage. I realize live instrumentation isn’t always an option for unsigned artists but the live show needs to step up their game in general. Thankfully, I think some of this is starting to swing with the new school and old school embracing live instrumentation and even playing instruments themselves (BoB, Jay-Z with a live band, Wale, and always The Roots etc) and just more in tune with how to bring energy and entertainment on stage. Also another thing that really gets me about live performances is when an artist uses a track where they make chorus about half the song and it is recorded. I’ve even seen artists play their song with vocals in the background and them rapping louder than it, none of that is entertaining.

If we step our game up on stage then hip-hop acts can book more and more tours and make more money that way. This requires an overhaul though of what we will pay to see and I honestly think it has swung a little bit and with the economy being so bad people are going to demand more for what they pay for anyways, so I’m hopeful but not sold yet.

Now the internet problem, that is a whole separate issue. For years, music has simply worked against the grain of how the internet functions. There is relatively little structure and profiting is based largely on ad revenue structured on the number of views and clicks. Xplosive really proposes the most realistic way to make the industry profitable as I have seen to date. I’m sure there are kinks to be worked out but I think it is possible to do it. This would then change the pay out structure of the net and allow musicians and websites/blogs to profit for what they each do well and no longer relies on the hopes that you guys see ads and every now then someone clicks them (which if you’re reading please click them lol).

As for mixtapes/albums I’m with you that there will always be artists who will want to bundle songs together to tie together a concept. Xplosive and I have argued about this and I thought he wrote that part in specifically for me haha. Agree to disagree. Mixtapes though are such a great promotional tool and a great way to keep an artist’s buzz going in between albums. They should be for free on the net but agree that there shouldn’t be an over saturation (a la Lil Wayne). It seems that some artists forget that ANOTHER way to keep their hype going is also touring and even guest features on other artist’s mixtapes and albums (get your networking up, if you don’t know how to do it ask Donny Goines haha).

Finally I don’t think the artists will release a ton of free music because I think this is one of the hardest parts of the whole plan. Trying to get people who have been trying to get money their whole lives to give up part of their music for free probably won’t happen but man do we need it. People like Jay could’ve released mixtapes instead of some of the songs on his last albums and kept the people hyped. Also established artists forget that mixtapes are judged with a much different standard than albums, so good reviews will be easier to come by from critics and the public.

I am sure there are a lot more problems with some of these hypotheticals but that is all I can type for now lol. Damn this comment was longer than almost all my posts!