A Very Smurt Retrospective Pt. 3: Fulfilling Expectations

 A Very Smurt Retrospective Pt. 3: Fulfilling Expectations

9/21/20

December 21st, 2018 marked a very important date in the Very Smurt history; the release of his debut album "Meme God". This album had a large amount of hype surrounding before and after release, and the pressure would've been on Very Smurt pretty soon to start teasing a new album. The times between album releases vary from artist to artist, but seeing as Smurt had dropped an EP that had nothing to do with this new album only three months ago, fans were expecting something maybe halfway through the next year. Though, it was less than a week before Smurt announced his next album "Jeanyus" coming vaguely in 2019. Fans were shocked that any artist this big could already have enough ready to start promoting an album this soon after the release of his last one. To fans surprise, Smurt was totally ready, and when February 15th came around, "Jeanyus" was released. Though, there was a lot bridging the gap between reveal and release, here, and much of it was very interesting.

It's certainly debatable that such an early reveal lost Very Smurt a lot of money in streams, because the hype of Meme God was still resting just below its peak. This can be easily disproven, however, with Smurt sparking more controversy and intrigue with this announcement. Many fans speculated this album was set for way later in the year, and Smurt just got a little excited, and all he really had down was an album title. This was partially true, as Smurt claims himself that planning for the album had just begun after Meme God was almost done a decent amount of time before its release. Though, he also says that the only thing done then was maybe one or two beats, a few more beat drafts and hooks, and the rest was simply a list of rough ideas. Smurt waited over one month into production to even begin to tease his first album, which certainly isn't much, but it has been rumored that Meme God was worked on way before even the EP. Nonetheless, announcing an album this spontaneously and this soon got fans more excited than ever.

The marketing of "Jeanyus" was a little strange; scarce is probably the best way to put it. After that initial announcement on December 27th, nothing was announced or put out from it at all. Of course hype was still kept up in Gang Reviews, but that was it. This was all despite the release of the album cover, but that had been leaked online right after the album was announced. This occurred for over a month, until the track list was randomly dropped by Smurt himself on January 30th. It included 14 tracks, but was later reduced to 13 due to copyright issues on one of them. Some rearrangements were also made, but the track list was mostly final. Four days later, we received a release date for the album: February 15th. With the recent general lack of a lot of information, people were expecting this to come out, at the earliest, mid-late March, but it was strangely soon. This sparked confusion and worry in everyone, with people wondering how this album could be any good if it was cranked out in a month-and-a-half, and if "Meme God" was made in at least three months. Luckily, Smurt quickly reassured fans by dropping what almost all of his fans considered to be his best song two days later: "Stacey's Bad". This song packed a lot of story with it; the "Stacey's Dad Cringe" series was implemented into the Gang Reviews, and recently ran out. People knew this would be a diss on Stacey's Dad, but no one knew how great it would be. Its metallic and iconic melody mixed with trap drums made from boom-bap sound and a hard one-note 808 bass line all meshed together in the best way possible. The beat was simple while being simply amazing, and the verses were funny and light-hearted yet still made an awesome diss track. A top-tier early Smurt song if I've ever seen one.

Smurt somehow found that the hype of this track alone would last for nearly twice as much as he wanted the hype from "Meme God" to last, and it certainly worked. Though, fans still did want a little more than just a single, which kept the perfect amount of hype for the album. The interesting part of this whole marketing strategy was the range in expectations for this album. When the release date was announced, people expected this album to be far worse than "Meme God", while Smurt had hyped it up to be a new innovation in his discography. Interview after interview saw Smurt talking this album up like it was sent from the gods themselves, and when it released on February 15th, fans stopped disputing. A worldwide jaw-drop happened when people's ears were graced with this music. Streams and sales came pouring in by tens of millions within the first day. Though strangely enough, it still wasn't as big as "Meme God". Despite its confusing marketing strategies, that album had more hype surrounding it than ants on a candy bar. Throughout its entire one-and-a-half month gap between reveal and release, mind you. The very minor lack of instant success with "Jeanyus" is an interesting case, for sure, but fans nonetheless adored the album. The stats can't be found from any earlier than today for either album, but I think comparing them is fair seeing as they came around the same length ago from now. Also, this data is only from SoundCloud, and far more streams were gained elsewhere. From its release to now, "Jeanyus" accumulated over 345 million streams, compared to "Meme God" with 221 million.

Overall, it's certainly fair to say that "Jeanyus" was a success; it was at launch, but especially in the long run. While it doesn't really hold any important records today, it was just a shining example on Smurt's talent and his improvement from "Meme God". The only complaints with it were, like his last album, the track list felt a little empty and short at times. Though it's hard to dock it for this as it was a problem that consisted throughout the first era. While it didn't do much that would be considered "new" on paper, it just brought a lot of fresh ideas to the table and executed them in great ways. "Jeanyus" was a good enough commercial success, but it was an enormous success to our ears and hearts.