Justin Charity I haven’t seen it, but has anyone reported on the emerging brilliance of the timing of exclusive releases on Apple’s part? Can’t be a coincidence that it comes nearly 3 months to the day from Coloring Book dropping as an Apple Music exclusive. I imagine the crossover of Chance -> Frank Ocean fans is fairly high, and by spacing these drops out by 3 months means they got tons of people to burn their trial period and hopefully stay on board for 2–3 more months. I wonder what the break-even is on retention. If 10% of subscribers stay on as paying subscribers through Frank’s presumably 1–2 month exclusivity have they met a positive ROI for these deals? 20%? Did they cooperate to do the two albums in a week shenanigans with a perfunctory “visual” album to get the buzz machine primed before the big splash?

A natural extension is — what’s next?? do they keep dropping big, long awaited albums every quarter or so to keep people on the subscription train? Here’s a Ringer fam-jam piece for you to pitch — what big album will be the “surprise” drop as an apple exclusive in November week 3? Kanye? Watch the Throne 2 in conjunction with a Tidal buyout?