Mr Young Thug is an artist that truly and whole-heartedly baffles me. Never has an artist been truly as confusing to the mind.
Young Thug is an artist who is super famous. Like superstar level of fame with a cult following. He is called the GOAT by many, while many have called him one of the pioneers of the new generation. His features on Travis Scott songs are, elite level if I may say. From Maria I'm drunk to Pick up the phone to Mamacita to Skyfall. His features on the Drake tracks on that useless playlist were elite level. His feature on T.I.’s About the money will make you croon your heart out. On Tyga’s Hookah track, he is truly magnificent. He has a great album in Barter 6 that, I have to say is one of the best albums I've heard. He has over 10 million monthly listeners on spotify. He has the critical acclaim with websites like pitchfork giving him 8.4s for barter 6 and 8 for Beautiful Thugger Girls.
His influence on the culture and fashion is crazy. When he does something, people talk about it and when he is about to release an album that’s all people talk about on social media. It is much anticipated when they are about to be released.
And then they are released.... and its cricket
These are his first week sales for his last few albums
· Barter 6 (2015) - 18k
· I'm Up (2016) - 21k
· Slime Season 3 (2016) - 38k
· Jeffery (2016) - 37k
· Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017) - 37k (billboard magazine)
For an artist that big... this is horrendous. Let me put it in perspective for you:
Lil Uzi vert’s love is rage 2 did 135,000 equivalent album sales first week. And we'd all agree he is not as good or as big as Thugger. Lil Yaghty did 64000 for lil boat 2. These are people Thugger helped pioneer. They don't have the critical acclaim of young thug or the co-signs from major artists he has. It is truly a confusing predicament.
So, what is the cause of this? I have a few theories
1. His marketing-well there's none really. You barely ever see promos, or billboards or anything. You won’t see him doing interviews with stations for weeks before his albums or releasing singles to hype up his albums. This works for some people, but it seems not for him. His albums might be critically acclaimed, but he mustn't think he is a Carter who can just release an album out of no where.
2. His voice- I believe there might be oversaturation of his voice in the industry. The autotuned crooning thing is very overdone in the industry these days. It works well on a feature where in small doses its nice... but some might be put off by a full album of autone without the variety one might get from a Travis Scott. His kind of crooning doesn't allow much variety in the sound.
3. Features- some people look at the features on an album and use that to gauge if an album is good or not. Seeing Young Thug on another artists album is always a good sign... but what I've seen is that a lot of the big hitters don't reciprocate on his. He will not have as many big name features on his albums that other artists are afforded, making casual listeners glance over his projects tracklists and keep scrolling.
4. Maybe he is just not that good – This one was brought up by one of my friends, and I nearly kicked him out if his own room really. But it had me thinking that people who haven't heard his albums and only know his singles would think this. Still nonsense though.
These are only just options. It could be many other reasons and I'm willing to hear all of them. But I truly feel for the level of music and albums this guy releases .... the recognition isn’t nearly as close to what it should be.
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