Czwartek 26 Lip 2007, 14:54
They score one hit after another. We call them successful after only one hit already. Ok, so they are, I mean name Nelly Furtado or Justin Timberlake and count how many people say "who?". Now I can write about how successful they are, how much they sell and stuff but I won't. You probably already know that by now. Still there are people who are commonly known/popular, however their albums/singles sell like crap. How come? And how come those popular artists are so popular? These are my explanation of how these artists got so popular, and in some cases still be so darn unsuccessful. Oh and the sales I'm talking about later are real, I did special research just to back me up!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6e/Dignitycover1.jpg/150px-Dignitycover1.jpg
NOT - Hilary Duff: When Dignity was released, many critics noticed how grown up the album became, most songs had a special meaning and a hidden message. But you know something? Hilary Duff is not popular among the adults (who love the adult songs), she's popular with youth who love uptempo fast & fun songs, with some ballads now and then. I guess the kids were really affected by the critics, cause her album sold 325,000 copies in the US since it was released on April 3rd (2007) (info as of July 26). She's tried to switch over to the adult contemporary but still have it the children's way, but it failed. If you try to hack into the adult's music world, you need to do it the Mandy Moore way, completely throw your music around and focus on promoting an adult song to the people, not a song like "With Love" which makes adults believe you haven't changed. "Stranger" has good and 'deep' lyrics, which don't reach teenagers so easily so won't be a hit among them, nor reach the adults cause it sounds childish. She still hasn't found the perfect balance. As for the rest of the world, she hardly promotes her music outside of America, where her songs can actually be big hits. Another mistake.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/21/Never_Again_Single.PNG/150px-Never_Again_Single.PNGIS/NOT - Kelly Clarkson: This one's gonna be hard to explain, of Kelly I'm only talking about 2007, My December-era! She may have gotten an gold album in four weeks in the US (500,000 copieS), but I would not consider her successful nowadays if her singles were too. The only reason "Never Again" reached #8 in the Billboard Hot 100 is because of high downloads (after performing at AI), but the airplay was like utter crappy. Although major downloads mean big support, airplay is what is really popular in the country. Kelly is an artist that has had almost every single from Breakaway at #1 somewhere, while "Never Again"'s highest peak is in Australia at #5! Don't get me wrong, I love her songs and I like My December too, but for a woman with such a great popularity and good songs, "Never Again" ruined everything, even though I love it. Even though "Since U Been Gone" is on the same level of rock music and is uptempo rock too, there still is a big difference between the songs. Her album will sell reasonably good though, adults will buy it cause they have Breakaway and they are curious to what's on this album. People have grown to love her Breakaway-style, beautiful pop songs even youngsters like to listen to and this is beautiful! My December is the same Kelly but in utter rock music and most people don't like that super-rocky side of Kelly.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a1/Furtado_maneater_importcover.jpg/150px-Furtado_maneater_importcover.jpgIS - Nelly Furtado: She was tired of the non-huge success of the first two albums and decided to do some major comeback music. For America, she choose an uptempo super-danceable urban single (urban is the most popular genre in the US lately) and for Europe she came with a same uptempo but more pop-orientated track. Still she didn't completely changed her music style, she just released songs that would grab attention really fast to show that third and fourth singles "All Good Things (Come to an End)" and "Say It Right" are more Nelly-ish. Good tactic of ms Furtado, with the first two songs she reaches the younger audience and with the next two she reaches the adults. Amazing first four choises of singles, and an even more amazing way of parting them to the territories where the chance that the tracks will be successfull is big! It got her over 6,5 million copies of Loose being sold worldwide!http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/60/Ms_Kelly.jpg/150px-Ms_Kelly.jpgNOT - Kelly Rowland: A very simple reason here: she just is not notable. She doesn't catch anyone's attention with the stuff she does, Beyoncé did in a way. The people who buy her albums are mostly the Destiny's Child fans. She waited too long to make a comeback and when she finally comeback, she comes with a weak single. Here, "Like This" was an utterly crappy single choice (yeah, I discovered the word utter and I love it!), is she wanted to do an upbeat single, she should have done something with more power. Beyoncé's "Déjà Vu" was not the right first single choice either, it runs in the DC-ers, but at least it had a certain power! If the first single isn't interesting, and you do not make it interesting in any way, the album is sure to be a failure. And Ms. Kelly is, as it's only top ten peak position is in the US, where she overpromoted the album and where the biggest part of the DC-fans live. Also, the covers looks überly cheap!http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/92/My_Love_-_Single_low.jpg/150px-My_Love_-_Single_low.jpgIS - Justin Timberlake: I'm gonna be really honest with you, I really do not get why this dude is so popular as he is. Yes, his first single "SexyBack" was supercatchy and danceable, which is a recipe for an amazing first-week sales for an album. Even his second and third single went #1 in the USA and on the United World Chart (except "What Goes Around", #2). "Summer Love", fourth single in the US, has no video and hardly has been promoted I think, maybe that's why it only reached #6, which is great on its own! I don't even think he promotes all of his stuff like performing all his singles on big events and on television, they just became hits on their own now. Maybe it's his looks? More believable; I think he's like the male version of Britney Spears, everything she does makes headline news, everything Justin releases, becomes a single. Well I congratulate him with this, I'm glad for him. Just hope that if he decides to wait another 3 years to release an album, he'll be as successful as we now is, I highly doubt it but ok.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9b/The_High_Road_album_cover.jpg/150px-The_High_Road_album_cover.jpgNOT - JoJo: This girl is too darn stubborn. I agree on that you should make the sort of music you want to, but I have to say this, girl, you're young and other young people like you a lot if you would just try to adjust to their wishes. She's trying to be like Kelly Clarkson in her own way, by making beautiful ballads and releasing them. The big difference between them is that Clarkson is a grown woman and she really focuses on the adult audience with her music, but also gets the attention of the young ones. JoJo really tries to reach this adult audience too, but they just think she's this little girl making cute lovely songs, and will not buy it/her music. While if she would just focus on the younger ones, she could have been so much successfuller! She caught everybody's attention with "Leave (Get Out)", left the spotlight again and then came back to light with "Too Little Too Late" and then again leaving the spotlight. A song like "The Way You Do Me" really catches the attion of the younger ones, making them more willing to buy her album. Releasing ballads/midtempo songs isn't a bad thing, but don't ONLY release those songs, you gotta stay interesting girl. Do something crazy!http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/83/Gggbrihanna.jpg/150px-Gggbrihanna.jpgIS - Rihanna: Well Rihanna is one of the younger artists that has a focus; the youth/adolescents (6-25). She releases the ultimate eye-catching songs as first singles ("SOS", "Umbrella") for primarly the younger ones among us and second singles can be slower. One mistake she's done this time is releasing "Shut Up and Drive", the song has a good rocky intro, but it tires you very fastly. A song like "Breakin' Dishes" would have been a better single choice, it has POWER and keeps that power, and we like power! Or a beautiful/midtempo song like "Hate That I Love You", though I'm not loving that one. It would certainly not repeat the success of "Unfaithful" (being a second single and a ballad too) but it can make her blast back with "Breakin Dishes" as third single. After that, she can release whatever she wants, it won't get as big as these three. So why does Kelly Clarkson still sell more copies of her album in 3 weeks than Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad has done in like 2 months? The focused-on audience doesn't buy albums easily nowadays, though I actually did buy her album (my first 2007-bought album). But that was me being oversupportive, youth aren't always this supportive, adults actually are, that's why Kelly focuses on them, they really buy albums. But Rihanna, don't let that fool you, keep focusing on us!http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/13/Exception.JPG/150px-Exception.JPGNOT - Ana Johnsson: You'll probably be thinking "who is this?". Well exactly for that reason she is not successful! Because of the f**king simple reason that nobody knows her! Her record label (Bonnier) doesn't promote her enough, they have like 0 confidence in her. I read in a comment on her video for "Catch Me If You Can" that she needs to grow a popularity in a region first and then build on that by going international after it. I soo agree with that, she actually did, she released her album Little Angel in Scandinavia, but with so little promotion that it did not chart. She then went to Japan in February 2007 and did some interviews and more promotion and released the album there and it charted! It sold over 20,000 by now, don't know if that's much for Japan but it's so much better than nothing. Her only problem is her low-fame rank, so get to know her! If you're a music fan, of which last.fm is full with, you should try many things, even those you don't know, especially recommendations, and I highly recommend this woman's second album Little Angel.Yep, that's how I feel about it.
