Jay-Z’s Album Release with Samsung Was a Disaster

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

Jay-Z has a new album out, and just about everyone has taken to social media to talk about “Magna Carta Holy Grail.” While Jigga has received lots of praise for his newest studio album, what hasn’t been so praised his new deal with Samsung that guaranteed one million users of select Samsung devices would be able to download the album for free the day before the album’s official release date. While some people consider the deal to be a smart one, some people have slammed Jay-Z for taking the approach to release new music. If the criticism wasn’t enough, it turns out the album’s early release for Samsung users was a complete disaster considering most people couldn’t even get the download to work on their devices. MTV reports:

By the time the Samsung MCHG app counter hit zero at midnight on Wednesday and July 3 turned into July 4, disappointed fanatics hit Twitter crying foul with a exciting rollout that didn’t work as advertised. Many Samsung users were left without the album they were expecting, but like all LPs Magna Carta found its way onto the radio and the Internet via pirated links that were shared n the early hours after midnight on Thursday.

Of course the technical let down didn’t stop people from getting access to the music, and many were able to download the tracks from various sources online. Regardless of how chaotic things went down, Jay-Z still earned millions with his new deal with Samsung, not to mention the company received pretty much several days of press surrounding the new music.

Not too shabby.