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Sales really don’t measure up with popularity anymore.
I was amazed by the fact that Kanye didn’t want to release his sales figures for Pablo right away. The thing streamed like crazy, and it was downloaded illegally more than any album whose illegal download stats have been recorded, I believe. Just INSANE numbers of people stole that album.
But he didn’t release a week’s sales until a month and a half after the thing had “come out.” The fact that it still “sold” the equivalent of 100,000 copies 6 weeks after release is pretty freaking amazing. I think he missed a huge moment there. If he’d released it as an album, physically or for sale via mp3 right away, the numbers would have been good.
But the numbers on record aren’t good. So if we’re talking about sales and popularity, you can’t argue that Kanye’s more popular than Em, because on paper, he didn’t sell half that many albums in TLOP’s first week of available sales.
I think he’s certainly more relevant and more timely and more talked about than Em, for sure. He has a much bigger presence, and his legacy is more solid than Em’s by far, but is he more popular? Eh.
Also Jay only “sold” as many albums as he did because he cut a deal with Sprint. Sprint made that 4:44 go platinum. That was all bullshit. Meanwhile he can’t sell out a stadium. So even though he’s thoroughly part of the zeitgeist, he’s more legendary than actively popular, I think.
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