After only a few weeks in stores, it appears that "Until the End of
Time" has been struggling to reach even 100,000 copies sold this week.
While it's inevitable that a record will sell a decreasing amount of copies each
week, the rate at which the album is falling is alarming and it's even possible
that Shaggy's album (released something like 35 weeks ago) may top UTEOT's sales
this week. It looks as though the NOW! compilation that knocked UTEOT from #1
has sold over double the number of copies as UTEOT this week... yet the labels
continue to ignore this.
What's sad is that Interscope's marketing strategy seems to be "let
Tupac sell based solely on his name." I see where they're coming from: look
at the huge numbers the CD sold it's first week, which is virtually
unprecedented for a CD without a single getting heavy radio rotation. But in
order to sustain the CD’s selling power, they must begin actively promoting
the CD as Bad Boy would for a B.I.G. record and as Interscope did for "Me
Against the World" while Pac was incarcerated. While it's true that much of
Interscope's marketing procedure consists of "letting the fans get to know
the artist" through radio, MTV and in-store appearances, there is still so
much promotion they should be doing for the new Tupac CD.
The fact that a commercially available CD-single has not been issued by
Interscope from the new CD, shows the indifference it seems that Interscope is
taking towards the project. Tupac, even in death is one of their top acts, they
should REALLY start treating him as such and promote UTEOT (his best posthumous
release since Makaveli) so that it doesn't go the way of the underrated,
unpromoted and, ultimately, forgotten "Still I Rise."
