Def Jam Plans a Happy New Year

Who will have the first No. 1 album of Y2K?

Def Jam Records is shooting for those bragging rights with an unprecedented sequence of five big album releases in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s--a period that record companies have traditionally avoided because it’s too late to ride the seasonal sales sleigh.

But last year Def Jam stunned the music business by releasing DMX’s “Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood” just three days before Christmas. Despite a glut of superstar releases that had the full fall to build up interest, the album sold 650,000 copies that week and walked off with No. 1 honors.

This year, Def Jam (now merged with Island Records in the new Universal Music alignment) is out not just to repeat that magic but also multiply it, with plans for a major release in every week but one from Nov. 23 to Dec. 27.

The countdown: LL Cool J’s first new album in four years is due Nov. 23; a new one from Method Man on Dec. 7; Redman on Dec. 14; DMX again taking Christmas week with Dec. 21; and Jay-Z on Dec. 27.

“Our goal is to have the No. 1 and No. 2 albums at the end of 1999, and the No. 1 and No. 2 albums in the first week of 2000,” says Def Jam President Kevin Liles. “You know how Dan Rather will come on the news and say, ‘Welcome to the millennium.’ We want him to be talking about hip-hop when he does.”

To maximize the effort, a promotional campaign will tie all five albums together, including a search for the ultimate hip-hop fan, culminating in a “Jeopardy!”-type contest on the BET cable channel in January.

John Reid, co-president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, makes a film business analogy, noting the hip-hop audience’s instant response to hot new releases.

“If you set a hip-hop record up right, in essence it’s like opening a movie,” he says. “And they can open hit movies on Christmas Day.”

Violet Brown, urban music buyer for the Wherehouse chain, believes that they’ll be proven correct.

“I understand they want to sell a million albums each of DMX and Jay-Z on their respective first weeks, and they’re likely to do it,” she says, noting that the traffic in stores those days is at its highest. “It worked last year big time, and with these artists back-to-back it could be monstrous.”

But is there a sacrifice?

“Up to Christmas the traffic is massive,” says Best Buy marketing vice president Gary Arnold. “But after that it really diminishes, and that could mean losing sales over the long haul. This could be special to have the first No. 1 of the millennium, but if that’s what you want to do, realize you’re buying that honor, which may not be remembered later, at a cost.”

ORDER NOW: If DMX and Jay-Z hope to cash in on last-minute Christmas shopping, Melissa Etheridge is giving fans a chance to beat the rush. Stores and Internet CD retailers are already taking paid orders for the singer’s album “Breakdown,” even though it won’t be released until Oct. 5.

The enticement? The pre-ordered version will contain three songs and special artwork that won’t be on the regular retail version.

“I wanted to show my [core] fans how special they are,” says Etheridge, noting the intense devotion of a sizable portion of her audience.

Why not just release the whole thing in the regular way?

“There were a couple of months I was going to put 15 songs on the main CD,” she says. “Then I felt that no one’s going to listen to all 15 songs. So I got it down to 11, the best representation for an album. Then what to do with the others? B-sides [on singles] are boring. So I said, ‘Let’s give the fans something special.’ ”

If you’re doing the math, you realize there’s still one song left over. But it’s not forgotten. It will be included, along with the main release’s 11, on a vinyl version of the collection, which will feature even more elaborate artwork.

“It’s great that an artist is doing something special for the core fans,” says Best Buy’s Arnold. “Melissa is breaking new ground that hasn’t been tried by anyone I can recall. I really believe that when you add it all up you’ll see an enlarged Melissa Etheridge market in this.”

The album is Etheridge’s first in four years--a time that has seen big changes in her life, with her partner, director Julie Cypher, having given birth to two children. Etheridge, though, cautions fans not to look for too many clues about her domestic bliss on the album.

“The lyrical content and inspiration is not that different than before,” she says of her reputation for songs looking at the dark side of romance. “Relationships are ups and downs, and I got some of those downs on the record.”