REID ALL ABOUT IT; IDJ’S POWER TRIO MONDAY

Thank God for Monday.

Island Def Jam Music Group ruler L.A. Reid and his label team woke up this morning with three of their biggest artists—Kanye West, The Killers and Ludacris—hitting the street and the Internet in an unprecedented triple play.

With Black Friday in sight, retailers are hoping the trifecta will jump-start what has traditionally become the biggest consumer spending day of the year, leading into Thanksgiving weekend.

If we actually had a chance to speak to IDJ majordomo L.A. Reid, we bet he would’ve said something like this: “By releasing these three huge albums on Monday, it gives me that much more time to prepare my turkey for Thanksgiving. Now all I have to do is get the big end of the wishbone and hopefully, we’ll end up with the top three releases on the following week’s charts. Hey, I didn’t say it was rocket science.”

Fresh off his appearance on last night’s American Music Awards, where he took home a couple of honors, West’s fourth Roc-a-Fella/IDJ album, 808s & Heartbreak, is the follow-up to last year’s smash Graduation, the year’s biggest debut, racking up 957k in sales upon its release in Sept. 2007, the largest in IDJ history. The new album has been launched with the current hit, “Love Lockdown” and the brand-new “Heartless,” which he performed last night. He introduced the album, which relies heavily on Auto-Tune and the Roland 808 synthesizer, with a recent, exclusive listening party in L.A., featuring 50 nude models.

West’s first two albums, 2004’s College Dropout and 2005’s Late Registration, generated a total of six Grammys, including Best Rap Album for two years running. Graduation generated three Grammy nods, including Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song (“Good Life”) and Best Rap Solo Performance (“Stronger”).

The Killers’ third studio album, Day & Age, is the follow-up to their platinum-certified sophomore effort Sam’s Town, which came out in Oct. 2006, producing the Grammy-nominated #1 Modern Rock hit, “When You Were Young” and the Triple-A chart-topper, “Read My Mind.” The new album has already produced the hit single, “Human,” with “Spaceman” up next.

Ludacris’ Theater of the Mind, the third IDJ album to come out that day, is the follow-up to the rapper’s platinum-certified album Release Therapy, which debuted in Sept. 2006 at #1 with first-week sales of 309k. The CD produced the #1 single, “Money Maker” featuring Pharrell Williams, and “Runaway Love,” with Mary J. Blige. Luda and Blige performed the song live with Earth, Wind & Fire at the Grammy Awards two years ago, where Release Therapy won for Best Rap Album. The first single from the new album is “One More Drink,” featuring T-Pain, which the two performed on this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live.

Label emo standard bearers Fall Out Boy’s Folie a Deux, originally scheduled for release on Election Day, will now come out Dec. 16, preceded by the first single, “I Don’t Care,” a Top 20 PoMo hit.