And always remember, if your story isn’t honest, even if you catch their sale today, they’re going to remember the dishonesty for a long time. And talk about it. A lot.

If you want to win in the long run, you need to be consistent, true, and worthwhile.

More directly compared, Ne-Yo suffered an actual leak, meaning his music was put online for download without permission, prior to the release. There was no strategy for the leak, it just happened. Ne-Yo’s album was also on sale like Kanye’s for digital download for 3.99 but he only managed to sell 100k.

Taylor Swift is in an entirely different situation. She’s selling music in a genre that supports artists leak or no leak. You can draw conclusions and make hypothesis based on the demographics of the genres, but one thing thing that goes without debate, Taylor moves albums.

All that said, the “leak” is part of the biz now and is here to stay. It can almost stand to reason that if your album doesn’t leak, no one is going to buy it either (depending on the genre).

ps-Lil Wayne sold 1million copies it’s first week in 2008 so that would be the last benchmark for that achievement, not 50 cent.