Post by tcb on Jan 23, 2004 22:26:27 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/arts/music/22POPL.html
Forget Radio, Musical Path to Success Is TV, TV, TV
By NEIL STRAUSS
Published: January 22, 2004
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 — Let's compare two artists who have little in common.
Kelis, the R&B singer produced by the Neptunes, has a song that's all over the radio, "Milkshake." It has been on the Billboard singles chart for months, currently residing at the No. 3 spot. But while the single continues to climb the chart, Kelis's full-length CD, "Tasty" (Arista), is not doing nearly as well. This week it is at No. 37 on the Billboard chart, with sales slipping to 25,000 from 36,000.
Josh Groban, on the other hand, does not have a song on the singles chart. But this week in Billboard his CD of operatic pop, "Closer" (Reprise/Warner Brothers), beat releases by Outkast and Alicia Keys for the No. 1 spot. In eight weeks, his label said, he has sold some two million CD's.
So how did Josh Groban become so popular without exposure on the radio? The answer is that other medium, television. "Every single time he goes on television, you can bank on the fact that the next day his album is No. 1 on Amazon," said Diarmuid Quinn, the executive vice president of Warner Bros.
As the Internet changes the distribution of music, it is also changing the way fans respond to marketing. As Kelis's chart position shows, a smash hit single is no longer enough to guarantee strong CD sales. After all, it is easy for a music fan to hear almost any single on demand online free and legally or even to see the video at sites like mtv.com and launch.com. In today's Top 10, the recordings are either by artists with previous successes, like No Doubt; acts with several hot singles across different radio formats, like Outkast; or singers who made their name on television, like Ruben Studdard.
Perhaps the greatest pop franchise of the moment, usurping the role of Trans Continental, the company that started the careers of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync in the 1990's, is the television show "American Idol." (The premiere of its third season drew more than 28 million viewers on Monday night.) It has created artificial pop stars, and then put their influence to the test by releasing their music on real-world record labels. This has produced three No. 1 albums. (Interestingly, the phenomenon didn't translate to film, as the flop "From Justin to Kelly" showed.) Add to this a recent No. 1 CD by Hilary Duff, the star of Disney's "Lizzie McGuire" show, and it may seem as if television exposure is more of a sure thing than radio these days.
Mr. Groban is just as much of a television-created celebrity as the singers on "American Idol," except his popularity came about in a more subtle, grass-roots way. Every milestone of his career has occurred on TV.
Before Mr. Groban had even made an album, the writer and producer David E. Kelly heard his music and cast him on "Ally McBeal" in a singing and acting role. When Mr. Groban's first CD, "Josh Groban," was released, it was ushered in by another "Ally McBeal" appearance. After that came "Larry King Live," the "Today" show, the N.F.L. Thanksgiving Day game (he sang the national anthem) and even "The View."
Then, six months after the CD was released, "20/20" did a profile of Mr. Groban, and his sales increased tenfold: his CD leapt to No. 12 from No. 108. And the promotional campaign still wasn't over.
"From there, he did more TV," Mr. Quinn said. "He went on `Oprah' and boom, there was another explosion. It kept building, so we created a PBS special and the record went huge — to two million. So for the new record the clear path was to put him on TV to launch the release."
With radio formats closed to many types of popular music, labels have only two options for promoting many releases. One is to force radio to widen its scope, an unlikely possibility in the wake of widespread consolidation, and the other is to find other promotional outlets for the music. Thus for recent successes by older acts like Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart and the Eagles, the promotional campaigns centered on television advertising and television appearances. For newer artists who sing pop or opera, the same has been true. For them "Good Morning America," "Today" and public television have been the equivalent of MTV.
Many labels now hire so-called TV pitchers, whose job is to find ways to get their artists on television shows. Lori Feldman, who fills that role at Warner Brothers, for example, has been promoting R.E.M.'s greatest hits CD by putting the band on "Boston Public" and putting the premiere of its video not on MTV but on CNN.
"I think there's so much media and sensory overload that you have to get a combination of things to sell a record," Mr. Quinn said. "50 Cent was so huge because his music was multiple formats on the radio. Hilary Duff has a movie, a video and a TV show. `American Idol' gets huge TV ratings every week. Other artists can't compete with that very easily."
To many in the music industry the question is whether the new breed of television-bred pop stars will have lasting careers, considering the nature of their exposure. But perhaps there is a more serious matter at hand. It is fortunate, for example, that a forthcoming vote-in reality show, "American Candidate," in which would-be presidential candidates will battle to be No. 1, will be on Showtime and not on a major network. If the ratings are as good as those for "American Idol" or "Survivor," there's a chance that the candidate could actually end up in office. And that's potentially a much scarier prospect than seeing Paris Hilton (who's recording a CD) at the top of the pop charts.
Forget Radio, Musical Path to Success Is TV, TV, TV
By NEIL STRAUSS
Published: January 22, 2004
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 — Let's compare two artists who have little in common.
Kelis, the R&B singer produced by the Neptunes, has a song that's all over the radio, "Milkshake." It has been on the Billboard singles chart for months, currently residing at the No. 3 spot. But while the single continues to climb the chart, Kelis's full-length CD, "Tasty" (Arista), is not doing nearly as well. This week it is at No. 37 on the Billboard chart, with sales slipping to 25,000 from 36,000.
Josh Groban, on the other hand, does not have a song on the singles chart. But this week in Billboard his CD of operatic pop, "Closer" (Reprise/Warner Brothers), beat releases by Outkast and Alicia Keys for the No. 1 spot. In eight weeks, his label said, he has sold some two million CD's.
So how did Josh Groban become so popular without exposure on the radio? The answer is that other medium, television. "Every single time he goes on television, you can bank on the fact that the next day his album is No. 1 on Amazon," said Diarmuid Quinn, the executive vice president of Warner Bros.
As the Internet changes the distribution of music, it is also changing the way fans respond to marketing. As Kelis's chart position shows, a smash hit single is no longer enough to guarantee strong CD sales. After all, it is easy for a music fan to hear almost any single on demand online free and legally or even to see the video at sites like mtv.com and launch.com. In today's Top 10, the recordings are either by artists with previous successes, like No Doubt; acts with several hot singles across different radio formats, like Outkast; or singers who made their name on television, like Ruben Studdard.
Perhaps the greatest pop franchise of the moment, usurping the role of Trans Continental, the company that started the careers of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync in the 1990's, is the television show "American Idol." (The premiere of its third season drew more than 28 million viewers on Monday night.) It has created artificial pop stars, and then put their influence to the test by releasing their music on real-world record labels. This has produced three No. 1 albums. (Interestingly, the phenomenon didn't translate to film, as the flop "From Justin to Kelly" showed.) Add to this a recent No. 1 CD by Hilary Duff, the star of Disney's "Lizzie McGuire" show, and it may seem as if television exposure is more of a sure thing than radio these days.
Mr. Groban is just as much of a television-created celebrity as the singers on "American Idol," except his popularity came about in a more subtle, grass-roots way. Every milestone of his career has occurred on TV.
Before Mr. Groban had even made an album, the writer and producer David E. Kelly heard his music and cast him on "Ally McBeal" in a singing and acting role. When Mr. Groban's first CD, "Josh Groban," was released, it was ushered in by another "Ally McBeal" appearance. After that came "Larry King Live," the "Today" show, the N.F.L. Thanksgiving Day game (he sang the national anthem) and even "The View."
Then, six months after the CD was released, "20/20" did a profile of Mr. Groban, and his sales increased tenfold: his CD leapt to No. 12 from No. 108. And the promotional campaign still wasn't over.
"From there, he did more TV," Mr. Quinn said. "He went on `Oprah' and boom, there was another explosion. It kept building, so we created a PBS special and the record went huge — to two million. So for the new record the clear path was to put him on TV to launch the release."
With radio formats closed to many types of popular music, labels have only two options for promoting many releases. One is to force radio to widen its scope, an unlikely possibility in the wake of widespread consolidation, and the other is to find other promotional outlets for the music. Thus for recent successes by older acts like Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart and the Eagles, the promotional campaigns centered on television advertising and television appearances. For newer artists who sing pop or opera, the same has been true. For them "Good Morning America," "Today" and public television have been the equivalent of MTV.
Many labels now hire so-called TV pitchers, whose job is to find ways to get their artists on television shows. Lori Feldman, who fills that role at Warner Brothers, for example, has been promoting R.E.M.'s greatest hits CD by putting the band on "Boston Public" and putting the premiere of its video not on MTV but on CNN.
"I think there's so much media and sensory overload that you have to get a combination of things to sell a record," Mr. Quinn said. "50 Cent was so huge because his music was multiple formats on the radio. Hilary Duff has a movie, a video and a TV show. `American Idol' gets huge TV ratings every week. Other artists can't compete with that very easily."
To many in the music industry the question is whether the new breed of television-bred pop stars will have lasting careers, considering the nature of their exposure. But perhaps there is a more serious matter at hand. It is fortunate, for example, that a forthcoming vote-in reality show, "American Candidate," in which would-be presidential candidates will battle to be No. 1, will be on Showtime and not on a major network. If the ratings are as good as those for "American Idol" or "Survivor," there's a chance that the candidate could actually end up in office. And that's potentially a much scarier prospect than seeing Paris Hilton (who's recording a CD) at the top of the pop charts.
