What's the difference between me and you?

The s**t is just frustrating.

As you've probably heard by now, Maino has a mainstream hit out, "All of the Above".  It is produced by Just Blaze and features T-Pain autotuning the chorus to his heart's content.  Now I don't begrudge the man any success.  God bless him.  It seems like so few mixtape rappers make it out of the starting gates these days, any of them that get a chance to release a hit single (much less, an album) should be lauded.

The song itself though sounds vaguely familiar to a song that was a hit sometime last year and continues to get radio spins on the regular... T.I.'s "Live Your Life".  That joint was also produced by (surprise, surprise) Just Blaze and features Rihanna in full autotune mode on the chorus (T-Pain must've been booked).

Now I have nothing against T.I. either.  And this post is definitely not a rant against Just Blaze (whom I have immense respect for as a producer, even though he seems to be going to the well one too many times with his new found formula for mainstream success).

No, this post is about the now-proven-to-be-gutless Atlantic Records.  Both of these artists are on Atlantic.  And yet there was only one artist on this label who I've been dying to hear from.  That would be SAIGON.  And guess what?  Before either of the above-mentioned songs had even been conceived, Saigon ALSO had a potential hit single on his hands called, "Believe It".  It was ALSO produced by Just Blaze.  It ALSO incorporates a catchy synth melody as its foundation.  It ALSO featured an autotune chorus (sung by Just Blaze but he later revealed they were originally reference vocals for T-Pain).  Yet two of the artists pictured above have hit singles and one got booted from the label.

Saigon tried to do what Atlantic asked him by delivering a hit single.  Which he would've had.  And we would've had "The Greatest Story Never Told" finally in record stores.

I can understand backing a proven hit maker like T.I.  I can even understand giving Maino another single and video since "Hi Hater" was a modest hit.  What I can't understand is if we are to believe that music companies actually LISTEN to the music they try to put out, could not ONE person have seen that "Believe It" was just as commercially viable as the other two songs and given it at a chance?  Do they truly believe that the listeners will blindly flock to names they may have heard on the radio before without actually listening to the music?

The more frustrating part may be I can't definitely answer that last question.