500k+ first-week units. The perfect rollout. And a Grammy snub. A deep dive into Astroworld.
Astroworld was never supposed to become Astroworld.
A Travis Scott album was never supposed to sell more than J.Cole or statistically come near sales giants like Drake and Post Malone. A Travis Scott tour was never supposed to sell out The Forum three times or become only the second rap tour ever to exceed $50 million in revenue.
In fact, pre-Astroworld, Travis Scott's fan reach seemed set in stone.
His debut album Rodeo sold 85k first-week units. His followup album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight sold 88k. And even his highly-anticipated collab album with one of the hottest rappers in the world at the time sold 90k in its first week.
Travis Scott had a clear and consistent core fanbase. Then he pulled off one of the most successful rollouts in rap history, one that's still emulated two years later.
The Perfect Rollout
As SoundSports' Pre-Admission into Astroworld broke down in 2018, the rollout for Astroworld started over 800 days before the album's release. For context on just how long Travis Scott teased Astroworld, if you take the days between the album's release and today, you would still need two-and-a-half more months to catch up to the project's initial teasing.
In between those 807 days, everything Travis Scott did felt like an appetizer to Astroworld.
Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight was widely viewed as a transitional project while Scott perfected the sound of Astroworld. Huncho Jack was supposed to hold fans over, or as Scott tweeted "feed the kids", until Astroworld. Features like Trisppie Redd's 'Dark Knight Dummo' would keep fans on their toes with the simplest of lines like, "Astroworld, my planet, my home."
With every mid-concert freestyle or random all caps tweet, no matter how insignificant, Travis Scott had his core fanbase's full attention, and it eventually spread into a full "drop Astroworld" meme. In fact, the meme was so popular it's still used under Travis Scott posts today.
As insignificant as the memeing of those two words, "drop Astroworld", may seem, memes are one of the most powerful tools in a music rollout. Think "Harlem Shake", Drake's Views cover, or Lil Nas X's cartoon and snippet practice.
In an interview with edm.com, Bailey Small of APG broke down the power of memes in music marketing, "We love great music for its power to capture a moment and allow us to share that moment with others. Memes accomplish something similar by capturing cultural moments and allowing us to share them instantly and globally."
"Drop Astroworld" started as genuine anticipation from core fans and turned into a meme for the masses, but through the constant presence of that meme, the anticipation spread from Scott's core fanbase to the global masses.
Of course, memes weren't the main reason Astroworld was able to sell nearly 600% more first- week units than his previous three albums. And while the Kylie Jenner effect in music is real and responsible for a lot of careers, a majority of the credit doesn't go to her either.
What made Astroworld's rollout perfect was the aspect that was responsible for over 50%(270k) of its first-week sales and helped the album return to number one four months after its release—merchandise.
Astroworld's Controversy and its Impact
“What we’re not gonna do is have this fucking Auto-Tune man [Scott] come up in here selling fucking sweaters and telling y’all he sold half a million fucking albums,” tweeted Nicki Minaj. “‘Cause he didn’t.”
Astroworld opened the floodgates on bundling in hip hop.
The practice has helped artists like Nav snag two number one albums with the help of VLONE merch, and it has even made its way into single releases, as nearly every major single release is accompanied by some merchandise to boost sales and chart rankings.
Since Astroworld's release, Scott has had all three of his Billboard number one songs( "Sicko Mode", "Highest in the Room", and "The Scotts" boosted by merchandise bundles featuring muliple items. Even Scott's label album JACKBOYS earned its ranking through merchandise, as 79k of the album's 154k first-week units were physical sales.
Travis Scott unlocked a cheat code, and Billboard can't stop it.
Billboard implemented its first rule update in late 2019, only for Scott to earn two number one singles and a number one album after. If it didn't top Scott, it didn't stop those who follow.
According to HipHopNumbers, 17 of 19 number one albums in 2020 have used merchandise bundles with eight number ones receiving over 50% of their first-week sales from the bundles.
Billboard has since announced its second merchandise bundling rule change in less than nine months, but while it may stop those who followed in Travis Scott's footsteps, it's too late to stop the one who popularized it. He's already a superstar.
From Rager to Superstar
Travis Scott wasn't always a superstar with a Jenner/Kardashian baby mother.
For context, four years ago, I was able to get free Travis Scott tickets for myself and friends just by sending two emails about how bad I wanted them.
Everything Travis Scott has touched since Astroworld has turnt to gold.
In 2019, the Astroworld "Wish You Were Here" tickets sold for over $100 and resold for almost triple. Every Scott x Jordan collab is sold out in seconds and resold for five times the price. His midas touch even goes as far as the shoes he wears on Instagram pictures, with the latest Nike SB shooting up to a $1000 resell price on StockX after one post from Scott.
Everything Travis Scott has touched since Astroworld has turnt to gold, except for the music.
Despite both “Highest in the Room” and “The Scotts” debuting number one on the Billboard Hot 100, neither gained much traction with fans, as both fell out of the top-10 two weeks later.
Just as his post-Astroworld singles haven’t been able to gain traction, Scott’s post-Astroworld features haven’t sparked any excitement.
In fact, most of Scott’s features have been as boring as a superstar feature could be.
Between Schoolboy Q’s “CHopstix”, Kanye West’s “Wash Us in the Blood”, Migos’ “Give No Fxk”, Scott’s features have been either forgettable or predictable.
Compared to the energy surrounding his 2017/2018 features like ”Ghostface Killers”, “Floyd Mayweather”, and the aforementioned “Dark Knight Dummo”, it’s understandable why some fans view post-Astroworld, superstar Travis Scott as lesser than his past self.
An argument could be made that Scott is not in album mode, or how he did well on features like Young Thug’s “Hot”, Juicy J’s “Neighbor” or Nav’s “Turks”.
Whatever side you stand on towards post-Astroworld Travis Scott, it’s clear that there is a post-Astroworld Travis Scott.
And that uber-successful version of himself has changed the rollout in hip hop and maximized artist branding.
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