"Waterfalls" dominated MTV. "CrazySexyCool" sold 11 million copies.
Yet they filed for bankruptcy owing $3.5 million.
Here's how ONE sneaky trick destroyed three superstars: 🧵
The numbers seemed impossible.
TLC had sold 65+ million records worldwide by 1995.
"CrazySexyCool" alone generated over $175 million in revenue.
Yet T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli were each making roughly $35,000 per year.
Something was very, very wrong.
Aug 14 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
Frank Ocean vanished at the peak of his career.
No interviews. No social media. Complete radio silence.
Then he dropped one album and changed the industry forever.
Here's the psychological warfare behind music's greatest disappearing act:🧵
Meet Christopher Edwin Breaux in 2005.
Writing songs for Justin Bieber, John Legend, and Brandy.
Getting paid $25K per song but staying completely invisible.
Most writers would chase credit. Frank was playing a different game:
Studying the industry while creating in silence.
Aug 3 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
In 1982, Michael Jackson saved the dying music industry.
Not just with better songs or flashier performances...
But with ONE $500,000 bet everyone called him crazy for.
Here's how MJ invented the modern artist playbook that every superstar still copies today: 🧵
The music industry was dying in 1979.
Rock sales were tanking. Disco was dead. MTV barely played Black artists.
Record labels were desperate for a solution.
Enter: The "superstar strategy" - invest everything in fewer artists, but make them MASSIVE.
MJ was their test case.
Aug 1 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
Taylor Swift lost her entire life's work to her biggest enemy.
- $300 million sale behind her back
- 6 albums stolen from under her nose
- Years of "manipulative bullying" to silence her
Then she orchestrated the most expensive revenge in music history: 🧵
The betrayal was brutal.
After building her career from age 16, Taylor's original label Big Machine sold her master recordings to Scooter Braun - without giving her a chance to bid.
