Idolator: mike jones

Are EPs Extending The Buzz Of New Artists, Or Giving Them The Short End Of The Stick?

Al Shipley — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:10:48 EST

In the high-risk, low-reward business of trying to introduce new artists into a slumping marketplace, hip hop labels have a lot of coping mechanisms at their disposal. The most common approach, of releasing single after single until one does well enough to assure decent first-week album sales, is still as popular as ever—as is the method of simply dumping the album in stores with a nonexistent promotional budget and then blaming its failure on the artist. But more and more over the past couple years, a third way to screw both the artist and the consumer has emerged as an alternative: EPs.

Extended Players—which are probably best defined as a record that's shorter than an album, but longer than a single—have always played a nebulous role in the recording industry. They've gone in and out of vogue in indie rock and dance music circles over the years, but one genre in which they've never held much significance is hip-hop. There may have been a few popular EPs in its early years, but no classics; rap has no Chronic Town. A few years ago, during its crunk-fueled peak that recently came to a crashing halt, TVT Records came to briefly favor them as victory-lap releases, chasing successful albums by Lil Jon, Pitbull and the Ying Yang Twins with EPs chock full of remixes and outtakes to strike while the iron was hot. More recently, though, major labels have turned to them as a way to rush out low-budget debut releases for new artists to whom they're not ready to make a full-album commitment.

In 2006, Jive Records signed the Berkeley, Calif., teenagers The Pack on the strength of their shoe-endorsing hit "Vans." But when the song peaked in the top 40 later that year, the label only released the Skateboards 2 Scrapers EP to capitalize on it. And when the group's follow-up singles failed to generate anywhere near the success of "Vans" and the hyphy bubble where they'd risen to prominence had burst, their 2007 full-length debut Based Boys was left out to dry, selling even fewer copies than its teaser EP. Similiarly, when Chicago rapper Yung Berg's single "Sexy Lady" peaked last summer, his label Epic, which needed help from indie label Koch just to break the song at radio, only dropped Almost Famous: The Sexy Lady EP to capitalize on it. But Berg's proper debut album, due out this year, might have better luck than The Pack's, given that his collaboration with Ray J, "Sexy Can I," is currently on its way to becoming bigger than his previous hit. Orange County rapper Ca$his, signed to Eminem's Shady Records, released an EP, The County Hound last year, with a full-length due out in 2008. But unlike Yung Berg or The Pack, Ca$his had no hit single at the time, and should probably be happy he got any kind of release out on the label, given that Shady's new artist was Obie Trice, who was launched nearly five years ago.

The trend doesn't look to be slowing down anytime soon: yesterday, Jermaine Dupri told MTV News that he may issue an EP from his latest Def Jam signing, DJ Felli Fel, before putting an album on the label's release schedule. And when Houston rapper Mike Jones lost the platinum luster of his 2005 debut during the long wait for his 2007 album The American Dream, he ended up scrapping the album and combing four of its songs with two previous hits for a bonus EP that accompanied a DVD of the same name.

The elephant in the room regarding hip-hop EPs is thrown into stark relief once Lil Wayne, who's released literally dozens of songs via mixtapes since his last official album, is brought into the conversation. Wayne—whose Tha Carter III has been the most anticipated rap album of this year, last year, and the year before that—got into the EP business in December, when he released the five-song The Leak to make up for the incessant delays that have plagued the album. For the past decade, pretty much every mainstream rapper worth his salt has released more material on mixtapes and collaborations than on their own major label releases. To toss a paltry handful of songs and a bonus remix out in stores as a teaser, when you can probably hear hours worth of material from the same artist at any number of mixtape spots or Web sites, isn't just a cheat on the artist that has more than enough songs ready for an album. It's a ripoff for the consumer, who pays just a little less for a lot less music. If they pay for it at all.

Mike Jones Travels The World From The Comfort Of His Own Couch

mjohnston — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:20:20 EST

Thanks to ProHipHop for pointing us to this video of Mike Jones running down his Frappr map and giving shoutouts to the good people—from France to Islip^*—who have enabled cookies in such a way that their visits to his MySpace are trackable. I suppose this helps him figure out which countries to include on his international calling plan, but could you imagine how such tracking would have tailored the city-by-city shoutouts in Jon Spencer's breakdown in "Flavor" or the outro of "The Heart Of Rock and Roll"?

Hip Hop 2.0 w/Mike Jones: Watching the Frappr Map [ProHipHop]

^* P.S. to Mike: It's pronounced eye-slip. Long Island represent!

Mike Jones Would Like To Have A Word With You

jharv — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:20:00 EST

Houston rapper Mike Jones, who encouraged stalkers/lodged his name in America's brains by shouting out his cell phone number everywhere he could, is once again telling fans to get on the horn if they feel like shooting the shit. If you don't believe he'll actually pick up, you can send him your phone number in a MySpace message and he'll get back to you in the order your number was recieved. But Mike, everyone switched to Facebook a long time ago, man.

Call Mike Jones With Your Questions [XXL]

Mike Jones' Grill Was Down, Not Out

Kate Richardson — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:25:46 EDT

The video for Mike Jones' "Turnin' Headz," from his long-delayed album The American Dream, seeks to explain Mike's complicated relationship with his grill. In the opening sequence Mike learns just how much his grill means to the children of the world, and, in the interest of turning heads, he decides to bring it back after a brief hiatus. The video—a yellow-tinted celebration of Cadillac-centric street life—earns my sentimental favor because it was shot in my hometown of Houston and features many of its beautiful freeway underpasses. And the song is not half bad, either. How can you resist lyrics like "They used to laugh at my belly / now they wanna rub / on my belly every Sunday to get in my club?"

Mike Jones - Turnin' Headz [YouTube]

Mike Jones' long-delayed The American Dream, ...

mjohnston — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:19:04 EDT

Mike Jones' long-delayed The American Dream, the travails of which have been covered extensively in this space, is really for sure pinky-swear promise coming out on Nov. 20, according to Swishahouse/Asylum/Warner Bros. [Billboard]

Who? Mike JonesPelé

jharv — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:00:06 EDT

Even after his own label gave him the runaround, Major League Soccer has given Mike Jones a home as part of an initiative where an MLS teams pick their most favoritest band or musician, then that musician writes songs with the team in mind. Are people watching televised, major league futbol yet in this country? (Aside from U.S. Weekly-style Beckham-watch.) I thought it was a ratings brick, despite the fact that millions of young people play it every day. That might explain why MLB gets Scott Stapp (horrible musical tumor, but a known quantity) and the NBA and NFL could probably snag any rapper it wanted. Meanwhile, MLS gets OK Go.

Adidas and MLS Make Music Online [Adweek]

These Days, You May Be Dreaming If You Think Your Album Will Come Out On Time

mjohnston — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:58:31 EDT

Yesterday's Houston Chronicle had a piece on delayed hip-hop albums; among the albums profiled is UGK's UGK (Underground Kingz), which after having its release date held up for a year is reportedly going to debut at No. 1 next week. (Who knew that waiting for the bottom to fall out of the CD market would pay off so handsomely?) Also mentioned in the piece is Mike Jones, whose album The American Dream was unceremoniously pushed back to October after vanishing from Atlantic's schedule last month:

If UGK's delayed date was (mostly) the result of artistic license, Jones' still-unreleased American Dream is a victim of label limbo. Its release was teased for April on posters at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin. Then a July 3 date was set. The album would be packaged with a straight-to-DVD biopic of the same name.

It was a perfect Fourth of July tie-in that never happened, likely because of the tepid reaction to singles Mr. Jones and My 64.

American Dream — the disc and the DVD — is now scheduled for October.

"It has been very frustrating," Jones says. "The album originally was supposed to come out in April, but the movie wasn't ready."

Jones' 2005 disc, Who is Mike Jones? sold more than 2 million copies, setting the stakes high for this follow-up.

I'm sort of mystified by the fact that "Mr. Jones" was tepidly received—the singalong chorus-choir combo alone definitely helped endear it to my ears—but as my fiance suggested upon first listen, maybe since the album's been so delayed so far, it should be pushed back even further, to next May? After all, there's a movie coming out around then that could be an excellent tie-in with the song's proclamation that "you'll never catch Mr. Jones."

Record labels take the rap [Houston Chronicle; HT Kate]

Where Is Mike Jones?

Kate Richardson — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:58:26 EDT

Who? Mike Jones, the man whose phone will never stop ringing, is surprisingly elusive on the alleged release date of his new album, The American Dream. Already pushed back once (it was originally supposed to come out in May), Dream is either unavailable or shipping in 4-6 weeks on Amazon, depending on which listing you look at. At his official site—at which Jones pops up as you drag your cursor across the menu to inform you that "You're goin' down!"—the line is that Dream is "coming soon," but there aren't any upcoming tour dates or events listed. Furthermore, for a city that takes such pride in its rappers, Houston is surprisingly mum today, with no events listed in honor of Jones or Dream. Perhaps he's taking a subtler approach to self-promotion—or maybe he just needs to fire his marketing team.

Mike Jones [Official site]

Tomorrow's New Releases Revealed Today

mjohnston — Mon, 07 May 2007 17:51:05 EDT

Welcome to On The Shelf, Idolator's weekly look at albums that are hitting store shelves on Tuesday. The big release this week for the bloggers is Volta, the new album from musical omnivore Bjork; after the jump, we look at that album, as well as new releases from Mike Jones, The View, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and the Mary Timony Band.

Bjork, Volta
The artist: Bewitching Icelandic exclamation-point user and a supporting cast that includes Timbaland, Antony Hegarty, and Konono No. 1.
The sound: Scraps of sounds from all over the galaxy, pasted together with glee.
The first in line: This guy.

Mike Jones, The American Dream
The artist: Houston hip-hop impresario who can't wait for your phone call.
The sound: Blippy beats and and unbridled shoutouts ... to Mike Jones.
The first in line: Americans named Mike Jones. (It's always nice to have anthems to yourself.)

The View, Hats Off To The Buskers
The artist: Scottish next-big-kids who have had a bit of a rough time crossing the pond.
The sound: The next Arctic Monkeys! Or something.
The first in line: Fans of "Mis-Shapes who aren't so sure about the MisShapes.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Strength & Loyalty
The artist: Cleveland vocal-rap group whose "Tha Crossroad" is one of the '90s greatest laments.
The sound: More love, less thug (and guest spots from half of R & B, including Akon, Mariah Carey, and Swizz Beatz).
The first in line: Michelle Malkin's assistant.

Mary Timony Band, The Shapes We Make
The artist: Growly guitar goddess and a pair of pals.
The sound: Chunky, twisty, knotty strands of prog-influenced indie rock.
The first in line: Willie Mae Rock Camp counselors.

On The CD Front [Pause & Play]

Leak Of The Day, Part Two: Mike Jones Grabs The Joystick

mjohnston — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:19:47 EST

The second track from Mike Jones' The American Dream, which comes out April 3, is "Like What I Got," and it's got Jones' trademark reminders of his name and a backing track that sounds like it was inspired by the Houstonian's 8-bit namesake.

~~Mike Jones - Like What I Got~~ [MP3, link removed]
Mike Jones [MySpace]