Cartel

In economics, a cartel is an agreement between competing firms to control prices or exclude entry of a new competitor in a market. It is a formal organization of sellers or buyers that agree to fix selling prices, purchase prices, or reduce production using a variety of tactics. Cartels usually arise in an oligopolistic industry, where the number of sellers is small or sales are highly concentrated and the products being traded are usually commodities. Cartel members may agree on such matters as setting minimum or target prices (price fixing), reducing total industry output, fixing market shares, allocating customers, allocating territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, altering the conditions of sale, or combination of these. The aim of such collusion (also called the cartel agreement) is to increase individual members' profits by reducing competition. If the cartelists do not agree on market shares, they must have a plan to share the extra monopoly profits generated by the cartel.

Cartel (hip hop album)

Cartel is a German hip hop album released in 1995 featuring various artists of Turkish descent. The compilation contains five tracks by Nuremberg artist Karakan, three songs from the Kiel group Da Crime Posse, three songs by Erci E. from West Berlin and a communal recording by all of the artists entitled Cartel.

Spyce Records facilitated the recording of this album under the supervision of their manager Ozan Sinan. Cartel was initially released by Mercury/Polygram, and by RAKS/Polygram in Turkey. The Turkish market consumed over 300,000 copies, providing for widespread notoriety for each of the contributing artists. The German-Turkish community also received the album enthusiastically, although only 20,000 copies were sold within Germany.

The album cover is a blatant allusion to the Turkish flag in that the "c" is manifested by the crescent of Islam. Album manager Oznan Sinan justifies this symbolism by stating that "Our targer-group are the Turks not the German society". Similarly, the beats were enriched with samples from Turkish folk music and attempted to unify an ethnic minority within Germany.

Cartel (Cartel album)

Cartel is the second studio album American rock band Cartel. It released in stores on August 21, 2007 despite being announced by the band's lead singer as coming out on July 24, 2007. It was officially completed at sometime around 8:00 p.m. on June 10, 2007 and features "Lose It" as the first single.

The Bubble

The album was completed in 20 days inside a giant glass bubble as part of the Band in a Bubble program sponsored by Dr Pepper, MTV and KFC. The band was forced to live inside the bubble for 20 days without being able to leave. The first single, "Lose It", was performed from the bubble live on June 1 for TRL's Spankin' New Music Week. Throughout the recording of the album, the band was watched constantly by fans through 23 webcams that were positioned all through the bubble. The album was finished two days before the set time and was completed with 13 songs. The album was performed by Cartel after they left the bubble on June 12, 2007 at 8:00 p.m.

Reception

The album received mixed reviews by critics.