There are a number of factors which play a role in the success (or non-success) of an album and artist.
I personally was surprised at how much of a failure the return of Irv Gotti and The Inc. was. What that can be attributed to, I'm not really sure. All of the previous things Irv did to promote his artists and get out into the mainstream never really developed. That could have been due to Irv not holding the keys to the castle (so to speak), the changes the industry underwent since Irv was last successful, or many other factors.
As for BnN, that CD was loaded with pop/ac type songs that could sell on the radio. While some people criticize that, that is why it sold so many records, along with the monetary push it received from A&M. I still think the original cut of Pretty Baby would have sold better than the radio remix, but I'm not a big fan of radio remixes.
Harmonium had very little monetary push, which left on the table the potential for songs such as Private Radio and Who's to Say to blow up in the mainstream. I think between Private Radio and Who's to Say V could have blown up all over again, but it never happened.
Heroes & Thieves got more monetary push than Harmonium, but other than Nolita Fairytale the CD does not have one song that would even fit in on typical pop or ac stations. That isn't to say the songs are bad, because they're not, but they're harder to sell to the mainstream because they're not cute and catchy and such.
My personal favorite album is probably Harmonium because of the growth in V's voice from 2002 to 2004, and the breadth of songs on the album.
It is truly hard to compare the three albums because they, and the circumstances surrounding them, are all different.
I agree 100% with everything you have said. I don't get why people think H&T was messed with by The Inc. It sounds mighty uncommercial to me, though I like it.
All I can come up with is that The Inc. was generally NOT lighting up the charts on any release, so I'm sure all Universal support disappeared. Irv has no magic wand to wave....he probably did the best he could. He listens to V and he GETS it; it's a shame he couldn't parlay that into big numbers, but hey, so many albums are on illegal sites I wonder why anyone bothers. Crap, an indie album I just played on is up there on a file sharing site. It's totally out of control.
For me, I'm glad that VC has appeared to snap out of the funk that she was in, whatever it was. Here's to new Vanessa music!
The music biz blows dog, and it always has, except now instead of a piece of the pie, it's more like a cupcake. If that.
Dan/NS
