Chris Brown’s Recent Success Brings The Mixtape Culture To The Pop Mainstream
Chris Brown "Fortune" RCA Records
EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS ARTICLE ABOUT CHRIS BROWN WAS IN DRAFT PRIOR TO THE NEWS BREAKING ABOUT HIS BRAWL IN NEW YORK CITY LAST NIGHT! (JUNE 13TH, 2012)
It seems like the closer Chris Brown gets to the release of his album, Fortune, the busier he gets. He recently released 3 new music videos for the project in a very short amount of time. This is because fans have been anticipating the release of the album since the success of its first two singles. Those two singles, “Turn Up The Music”, and “Strip” allowed Chris to continue to show his versatile musical ambitions that we began to see on his previous Grammy Award winning album, F.A.M.E..
Chris Brown
“Turn Up The Music”
From Fortune
CBE/RCA Records
After “Turn Up The Music” peaked in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in mid March, Chris kept his momentum going by not just releasing a follow up single, but in fact releasing two singles only 3 days a part from each other. It all started on March 28th, when he tweeted about his songs “Sweet Love” and “Till I Die” featuring Wiz Khalifa and Big Sean being selected as the next two singles from the Fortune album. The first of those was “Sweet Love”, the album’s first slow jam. The track which was produced by Polow Da Don Jason “JP” Perry was later officially released promotionally on April 10th to Urban radio outlets. As if slowing it down for the ladies was not enough, as promised from Twitter, Chris showed his Hip Hop swagger that fans have come to love from his mixtapes on “Till I Die”, released on April 13th .Both of the two singles began to have a presence respectably on different charts. Prior to the release of the videos for either one of these, they were able to break in the Top 30 of both the R&B/Hip Hop Chart (“Sweet Love”) and the Rap Singles Chat (“Till I Die”)
Chris Brown
“Sweet Love”
From Fortune
CBE/RCA Records
Chris Brown Featuring Wiz Khalifa And Big Sean
“Till I Die” (Explicit)
From Fortune
CBE/RCA Records
It seems that Chris Brown shows that he has a great understanding of how new media marketing in today’s digital music industry can be. All the music videos for his recent singles have had a quick post production turn around, allowing the singles to develop a strong presence online prior to impacting at different types of radio formats soon after. This is a great strategy when getting music out there these days considering the fact that YouTube has become the primary source for listeners to looking for new music. You can see this process of marketing applied by just looking at the release history of his recent videos. “Sweet Love” was the first of his recent videos to be released. RCA published it on Chris’ VEVO account on May 25th . Then only a few days later the video for “Till I Die” followed on June 6th .
Just when it looks like things couldn’t move any faster for the Fortune album, Chris introduced us to his brand new single from the project called “Don’t Wake Me Up.” For those of you who do not already know the song, “Don’t Wake Me Up” is the fifth single (including “Strip) to be released from Fortune. It was released promotionally first on May 25th to Pop music outlets, followed by the video’s release on VEVO on June 11th Just as he has done in the past with his previous Pop cross over hits, “Don’t Wake Me Up is another song rooted deeply in a European House music influences. It was produced by the Italian Electronic DJs, The Benassi Bros. You may remember them from when they worked with Chris on the single, “Beautiful People” last year. Those guys have been growing their devoted fan base since they first hit the scene in 2003. Now with the help of Chris, these guys got the opportunity to bring their sound into American Pop culture similar to David Guetta and Calvin Harris before them.
Chris Brown
“Don’t Wake Me Up”
From Fortune
CBE/RCA Records
Chris Brown
“Beautiful People”
From F.A.M.E.
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
When we recap Chris’ recent releases, we see that he has released three videos in only a matter of weeks a part from each other. With that said you have to ask yourself what is the method of the madness behind this kind of digital marketing compared to the plans associated with his past projects? Only maybe 5 or 6 years back, such a bold kind of plan would have probably been looked at by industry insiders as a mistake, Bur in today’s industry, Chris makes for a very interesting case study. If we rewind the clock back to only the end of 2009, Chris was in the process of fighting to get back on the good side of people in the court of public opinion. After the infamous battery incident with his on again/off again love, Rihanna, Chris was viewed by many as public enemy number one As a result his 2009 album, Graffiti failed to connect with his disenchanted fan base. After releasing two singles connected to the project, Jive Records halted any further activity related to promoting it. To date Graffiti is the lowest performing album of Chris’ career. But while it is easy to see how everything involved with it could be viewed as a possible failure on the surface, in many ways however that whole experience probably served as one of the biggest blessings in disguise for Chris.
Chris Brown Featuring Lil Wayne And Swizz Beatz
“I Can Transform Ya”
From Graffiti
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
Chris Brown
“Crawl”
From Graffiti
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
It has been said by many that you can learn more from your failures than from your successes. This has got to be the perspective Chris took away from the whole experience from Graffiti. At that time Chris was still being hounded by various press, dealing with the legal issues related to the incident with Rihanna, and Pop radio was refusing to play his music. This left Chris between a rock and a hard place. However, Chris had the determination to fight his way back on to the radio mainstream. He used the adversity to fuel the fire that inspired his first two mixtapes that he released independently. They would ultimately be the tools that allowed him to prove himself to the public. Looking back on that situation in hind sight, it was probably that whole experience that taught him how important it was to have the right kind of hands on treatment with videos and singles.
Breezy fans remember that his 2010 mixtape Fan Of A Fan with Young Money artist, Tyga featured two of his singles that later became associated with his 2011 album, F.A.M.E. Those songs were “No B.S.” and “”Deuces.” Even though “Deuces”, did in fact end up becoming a number one hit on the Hip Hop/R&B charts, it is very important to note that it was first released independently as part of the mixtape. The song had to gain momentum on its own long before Jive Records’ promotional staff felt comfortable enough to upstream it as an official single. As you take a closer look into how this all happened, we then begin to see how Chris now applies what he has learned to the Fortune project. Prior to any radio play for “Deuces” as a single, Chris was able to get the song to gain a big presence on MTV and various other video platforms. To do that he needed to enlist the talents of a remarkable video director/ This is when Chris and his frequent collaborator director, Collin Tilley began working together. Before hitting TV, Colin’s videos for “Deuces” and “No B.S.” were first released together virally online. Even though Chris has been a major label artist since he first signed with Jive at 16 years old, it must have been this very grass roots work he did independently that would teach him how to properly market his music in the future. Looking back on the role that Fan Of a Fan played in the marketing of his next major label project, it all makes so much sense.
Chris Brown
“No B.S.” (Explicit)
From Fan Of A Fan/F.A.M.E.
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
Chris Brown featuring Tyga & Kevin McCall
“Deuces” (Explicit)
From Fan Of A Fan/F.A.M.E.
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
At a time when Chris had to really claw his way back to public acceptance, the best thing he could do is give his music away to his fans while maintaining a professional presentation for the whole thing. The two videos for “Deuces” and “No B.S.” allowed Chris Brown to stay in the public eye on all music outlets, while at the same time allowing him to reaffirm his artistic credibility as an R&B underdog. Also since the look and feel of those two independent videos were able to match the presentation of other Hip Hop and R&B that was being released at the time, it was obviously easy to see how Jive was able to use the success of then to segue into marketing his next album very seamlessly. Chris had done a fantastic job keeping himself relevant at a time when many in the industry did not want him to be. His team was naturally propelled to the forefront of the business. Colin Tilley became one of the most sought after music video directors in recent years. Tilley and Brown also worked very closely on the image of F.A.M.E. as Colin continued to direct nearly every one of the videos for the album. The two singles that were first introduced as a free download viral campaign were also included for sale on the album to Brown’s growing mainstream audience. This is due to the fact that even though they never will be considered “official singles” from F.A.M.E., they were the two songs his listeners were most familiar with, despite Chris and Jive having additional success with singles like “Yeah 3X”, “Look At Me Now”, “She Ain’t You”, and “Beautiful People”
Chris Brown
“Yeah 3X” (Explicit)
From F.A.M,E.
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
Chris Brown Featuring Busta Rhymes And Lil Wayne
“Look At Me Now” (Explicit()
From F.A.M.E.
CBE/Jive Recoirds/JLG
Chris Brown
“She Ain’t You”
From F.A.M.E.
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
As you can see with the quick turn around with all his recent videos, his hands on approach with Tilley is still very important to his success.Buzz for Fortune began thanks to Chris releasing yet another mixtape for free download in August of 2011. This is important to note because when Chris released that mixtape, Boy in Detention a few major things were happening in his career. At that time the big budget Colin Tilley directed music video for his duet with Justin Bieber, “Next 2 You”, was still in heavy rotation on TV. It is also important to note that Chris used Boy in Detention to stay active while his label Jive Records was being dissolved during a restructuring of it’s parent company, Sony Music Entertainment. While Jive’s roster was being moved over to Sony’s RCA Records, Chris did not skip a beat. Just like the Fan Of A Fan mixtape with “Deuces”, the song “Strip” from Boy In Detention was upstreamed to the album Fortune. This is why even though RCA Records was not able to officially begin working the project until January of 2012 with “Turn Up The Music”, Chris and Colin Tilley were already hard at work with a video for “Strip.” It was in the can and officially debuted by November of 2011, before the end of RCA Records’ fiscal year.. The success of “Strip” is also what kicked off the projects’ multi format approach at radio that was previously mentioned. Like “Deuces” before it, “Strip” climbed the Hip Hop/R&B chart long before the release of “Turn Up The Music.”, This allowed the mixtape famed single’s peak at number 3, to overlap with his climbing presence from the album’s first official single on the Pop charts. .
Chris Brown Featuring Kevin McCall
“Strip”
From Boy In Detention/Fortune
CBE/RCA Records
Chris Brown Featuring Justin Bieber
“Next 2 You”
From F.A.M.E.
CBE/Jive Records/JLG
It is no secret that the mixtape culture has found a home with thriving Hip Hop stars like Lil Wanye, Drake and 50 Cent, among others. But Chris’ recent success is an example of how the mainstream Pop music industry is beginning to resemble the mixtape culture more and more these days. There was once a time when Pop stars used to be able to sell 10 million albums and take a year off without even skipping a beat. But as technology’s role in the pop culture continues to change, artists like Justin Bieber and Karmin go from being performers on YouTube to American Pop Superstars. In the world of ITunes and cherry picking singles, the pace of music industry marketing is changing rapidly. But at least Chris’ mainstream success serves as some what of an example of how to continue to make it in this very organic and fluid process.
