Yesterday, I found a good conspiracy theory regarding Amazon.com’s early release of Lil Wayne’s Rebirth, and I wish I could credit and quote my conspiracy theorist, but I can’t retrace my path to the site I stumbled on to yesterday to link up. The writer’s contention is that the early release was in effect an authorized leak to test the waters for what is supposed to be Weezy’s rock album. Evidently 500 copies were released, and round numbers like that certainly make me suspicious. And the six changes to the album’s release date suggest that someone’s unsure about the reception Rebirth will receive. So far, hip-hop and rock audiences alike have responded weakly to the authorized and leaked tracks from the album, including “Prom Queen,” which came out in January.

RollingStone.com’s story on the early release of “Drop the World,” Lil Wayne’s collaboration with Eminem, suggests a degree of suspicion about these leaks:

“Drop the World” is the third song in as many weeks to supposedly leak off of Rebirth, an album that has seen so many singles and leaks drop on and off its ever-changing track list that it’s unclear what the state of the album is at this point.

Billboard.com reported:

Cash Money and Universal executives felt that the album hadn’t received the proper set-up and decided to hold-up the release yet again, sources say. The album was initially supposed to be released April 7, but was pushed back to May 19 and then Aug. 18. And when that date came it went, the release date was pushed to Dec. 15 and finally Dec. 21, before the latest turn of events.

While its known that the album has been delayed to allow for proper set-up, some sources indicate that the album may be worked on some more, possibly with new tracks being added.

Considering the way Lil Wayne has walked the line between official and unofficial releases, largely enhancing his reputation through mixtapes, the idea of an authorized album leak doesn’t seem farfetched, particularly when a number of tracks are available on YouTube (for my money, the best being “Da Da Da”).

Of course, the flaw in that theory is that Universal manufactured a million copies of Rebirth, so changing the album would mean dumping 999,500 CDs, but if Billboard is reporting that this might not be the final sequence for the album, then that is a possibility.

If that’s happening and Universal is so invested in the success of Rebirth that they’d eat almost a million copies, the big league business is even more screwed and wrong-headed than we realized, and it deserves its ugly, writhing death.