Why Didn't Anybody Buy "The Pretty Toney Album"?

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It's a great album. So why did it only sell (I'm told) in the neighborhood of 10,000 copies in the US? What the fuck is wrong with hip-hop fans?

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

people are stupid. I've said in numerous threads this is Ghost's best record.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 23 August 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I downloaded it, sorry ghost, but I am poor - you of all people should understand.

― artdamages (artdamages), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

oh it had to sell more than 10k copies

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

If every member, half member, and distantly related member of the Wu-Tang Clan bought it, it would top 10,000. That number seems bunk.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I got a promo copy and gave it to a friend. I thought it sounded awful.

Masta Killa's album rules, by the way.

― Talent Explosion (Talent Explosion), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

even the out take album No Pork on My Fork was hot. see "New Splash."

― brock (brock), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

well in the end it wasn't THAT good

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 23 August 2004 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm guessing it sold closer to 100,000 at least.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

And it probably didn't sell because MTV and radio have little interest in hawking Wu-wares these days, and people don't exactly run out to buy that shit unheard anyhow (this is album no. 4, right?).

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Some friends saw the Wu-Tang when they played in town a year or so ago and were surprised when Ghostface started yelling something like "PENN STATE!!!! WE WILL BE FUCKING YOUR BITCHES TONIGHT BACKSTAIRS!!! AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!"

He's the loverman of the Wu, right? I'm guessing he said "backstairs" because the backstage area of this club is under the stairs and frikkin' minute.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

haha

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

penn state is such a shithole

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

whenever a band comes to town I can only assume they're really pissed off about it. Yo La Tengo is showing up at a bar for their swing state tour. it's gonna be hysterical.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

and I mean a BAR. not a club. Ira's gonna feel like he's back at Music For Dozens night.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

anyhow, I'm tempted to buy this. I don't have any other Ghostface though. Is this a good place to start or should I grab Ironman or Clientele first?

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:12 (twenty-one years ago)

clientele first

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Shaolin's Finest collection is a good place to start too.

They're selling Pretty Toney for 7.99 in HMV now.

― hari, Monday, 23 August 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Pretty Toney's like his Street Hassle

― sexyDancer, Monday, 23 August 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

"I Wanna Be White"?

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:24 (twenty-one years ago)

ha! ;)

― sexyDancer, Monday, 23 August 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i picked it up for 8 bucks at record surplus a couple weeks ago. one of my finer purchases in that establishment.

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Monday, 23 August 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

seriously, it just wasnt that good. its probably the worst of ghost's solo albums. thats not to say its shit, it has its moments, but overall, theres not enough hard beats, not enough concentrated rhymes from ghost, and too much of ghost's tender loverman raps. theodore unit's 718 album - featuring many of the cuts that didnt make TPTA - is a different story however. its fantastic.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Monday, 23 August 2004 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I just borrowed 718 from a co-worker today, and it is quite good. But Pretty Toney is in no way a worse album than Bulletproof Wallets.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Monday, 23 August 2004 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

what is this "theodore unit"? never heard of it.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 23 August 2004 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

bulletproof had more highlights as an album.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Monday, 23 August 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Bulletproof only had one good song - "Maxine."

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Monday, 23 August 2004 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Bulletproof's brightest spots are that one about the cartoons and "Walking Through the Darkness". The rest of it all runs together for me.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 23 August 2004 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

i find pretty toney all runs together. the beats have no vitality.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Monday, 23 August 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

dickvandyke you are trippin'

― artdamages (artdamages), Monday, 23 August 2004 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a concept record about fucking up and falling in love with one of your bitches, right?

― sexyDancer, Monday, 23 August 2004 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

pretty toney is my favourite album of the year, and sounds like it contains many many hit singles. i am also puzzled.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 11:31 (twenty-one years ago)

It's his worst, in my opinion. agree totally with dickvandyke's comments: his flow isn't there, the beats aren't spare or dark enough to really set off his style, and the guest appearances add little. supreme is best, ironman is a close 2nd. i'm not surprised it didn't do too well - ghost is increasingly becoming an acquired taste.
theodore unit is quite good, but there are some very average thuggish tracks with unexceptional spots from ghost hangers-on.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Did anything off Pretty Toney get any radio play? I don't remember hearing it.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 13:20 (twenty-one years ago)

tush tush tush, with the accidental anal sex innuendo got some airplay. it was shit though.

paulhw, theodore unit's trife is amazing IMO. best new hip hop MC in a long while. ghost seems to be coasting quite a bit on TPTA in terms of his writing, its all oddness and no craft.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Agreed on the oddness over craft comment (his rhyme style has become sloppy, which some see as interesting, I see as sloppy).
You like Trife that much? I agree, he's the next best of Theodore Unit, but for me he's just a little cold and thuggish. Like Jadakiss, minus the charisma. I prefer the Solomon Childs tracks on the album...

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

U FAGGOTS DONT DESERVE TO OWN A GHOSTFACE ALBUM SAYING IT WAS WORSE THAN BULLETPROOF WALLETS HOW CAN U BE ALIVE, GO WRITE ON YOUR BLOG AND EAT A SANDWICH FAGGOTS

― ROCKINITSUCKERS, Tuesday, 24 August 2004 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

tush tush tush, with the accidental anal sex innuendo got some airplay. it was shit though.

I thought this was the only song worth keeping...

― frankE (frankE), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 02:05 (twenty-one years ago)

what? it's the worst song on there.

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

My wife and I always giggle about it...

― frankE (frankE), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 02:25 (twenty-one years ago)

gross

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 02:25 (twenty-one years ago)

pretty toney is the only album I've heard that feels terribly rushed and is actually better for it. to call tush tush the best song is absurd, at best it's pleasantly annoying. take solace in the fact that you have the taste of a record executive(it being the "hot" single that put it over the 9000 mark).

― tremendoidorangeblazer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 02:54 (twenty-one years ago)

What do you expect? It's on Def Jam, who only really sell records on Def Jam South or via Roc-A-Fella (which is just a distro deal) these days.

― Lazza, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 09:12 (twenty-one years ago)

trife of theodore unit is the god and should be fellated by all other rappers just for existing. *no homo*

― splooge (thesplooge), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 10:20 (twenty-one years ago)

out of curiousity, does anyone think the truncating of his name had anything to do with it?

― frankE (frankE), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

what, like people went to the record shop and saw TPTA and thought 'oh thats not ghostface, thats some new rapper called ghost'? i doubt it.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe they thought he's lost his killer instinct.

― Flyboy (Flyboy), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

i did hear he doesnt like video games anymore.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"accidental"?

― g--ff (gcannon), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe hes more of a xbox guy, not so much nintendo.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

best track on the album hands down "Be This Way"

― brock (brock), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

the best song is run with jadakiss. best beat too.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:26 (twenty-one years ago)

allmusic sez this got to 6 in the billboard 200 - 28 places higher than bulletproof wallets. surely this is not such a poor performance, if accurate? (and surely this comes to more than 10,000 in the US?)

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 26 August 2004 19:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Run is possibly the best track, but it's hard to pick from the three closing tracks, Tooken Back, Run and Love.

Tush is without a doubt the worst track.

― minolta (minolta), Thursday, 26 August 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

HOW CAN U BE ALIVE, GO WRITE ON YOUR BLOG AND EAT A SANDWICH FAGGOTS
-- ROCKINITSUCKERS (ao...), August 25th, 2004.

― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

OTM.

― disappointing goth fest line-up (orion), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

might be a good time to reconsider the question of why it is Ghost cannot sell records anymore, no matter how great they are.

― PeopleFunnyBoy (PeopleFunnyBoy), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:24 (nineteen years ago)

blame file sharing.

― disappointing goth fest line-up (orion), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

scanned more than 220k as of last week.

of course, that's nowhere near his high, but hey, still better than 10k.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

wow, really? thats way more than i thought. i withdraw the question. i thought fishscale had stalled at 70K

― PeopleFunnyBoy (PeopleFunnyBoy), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

actually fishscale is near 290k, i was referring to pretty toney.

people on ilm taking anecdotal evidence as over-arching truth non-shocker.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

i soundscanned it about 3 weeks ago, and it was nowhere near as high. so not anecdotal.

― PeopleFunnyBoy (PeopleFunnyBoy), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

answer these questions in this order

1. who bought earlier wu tang albums? (call this set A)

2. who bought "pretty toney"? (call this set B)

3. who is the intersection of set A and set B? (call this set C)

4. who is in (set A - set C)?

5. what are those people buying now that isn't "pretty toney"?

6. why are they buying that instead of "pretty toney"?

7. who is in (set B - set C)?

8. why are they buying "pretty toney" now?

9. what sort of factors make it so that there are so few of them compared to (set A - set C)?

― POX^3 (let x=2) (vahid), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

This thread = Case for letting googlers back in?

(x-post Fishscale sold 110k its first week)

― Rodney doesn't like polka. He is racist. (R. J. Greene), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

I still enjoy a few tracks-- "Holla" is hands down the best song he's ever made, with "Biscuits" & "Run" coming close.

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

I think its a great album, but i don't know why anyone would expect it to go platinum or whatever. Its pretty far outside of what's burning up the charts.

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 25 September 2006 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

And "Tush" was great too.

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 25 September 2006 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

my opinion of this album remains unchanged 2+ years later (ie is teh awesome)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 25 September 2006 18:54 (nineteen years ago)

Tush sounded totally phoned in.

― mucho (mucho), Monday, 25 September 2006 18:57 (nineteen years ago)

I donno, GFK rapping about getting a charley horse during sex was pretty amusing and i thought it fit in really well with the general mood of the album - it was sort of the neccessary uptempo party jam that managed to still fit in with the rest of the record's ye olde soul vibe.

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

(I got a soft spot for "Tooken Back" too)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I love the "you went behind a tree and peed," line and where he admonishes the girl for not knowing how to talk about wine.

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Monday, 25 September 2006 21:24 (nineteen years ago)

"Be This Way" is one of his best songs ever.

Maybe all the Ghost fans were just holding out for his upcoming joint entitled More Fish, due out Dec. '06!!! (Not kidding)

― Shlomo Shemesh (Shlomo Shemesh), Monday, 25 September 2006 21:29 (nineteen years ago)

*Really* December '06, or first or second quarter next year?

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:44 (nineteen years ago)

love ths album. was wrong about it being better than supreme clientele tho.

― H2-H4 (H2-H4), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 01:07 (nineteen years ago)

is it just me or do the best beats have prominent strings?

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 01:08 (nineteen years ago)

"Tooken Back" is one of my favorite songs ever. Funny though, that when I first heard it, I hated it. I love how it's set up.

Verse 1: Ghost tells why he would, no way, never, not again take her back.

Verse 2: Jacki-O tells why Ghost should take her back.

Verse 3: Ghost, after hearing Jacki-O's reasoning, is now begging her to come back.

There's something very classic about the plot of the song, like Ghost spends all his time listening to Bacharach or whatever for songwriting ideas.

― Rodney doesn't like polka. He is racist. (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 03:38 (nineteen years ago)

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