AIKEN NEWS NETWORK, DECEMBER 7

[clayharmony]

Every day with Clay...here's news...and 're-news' (recycled Clay articles worthy of another read...) for today's reading pleasure:

Clay Aiken - The Amazing Glory Note

By musicfan123 12/07

One of the signature songs that Clay Aiken sings during the holiday time is titled "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day."  The emotional song is usually performed at the end of his concert.  The song is well-knowen for its inspiring lyrics and the amazing "glory" note. ...

read the rest here:

http://www.claynewsnetwork.com/2009/12/07/clay-aiken-the-amazing-glory-note/

[clayharmony]

This is an interesting article about the trends in music...and the impact of a fan base...

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2009/12/04/shakira-fitty/

Shakira & Fitty

    From: David Wallace
    Subject: Re: SuBo

    i think the more interesting story is that Shakira only sold 89K first week.  ALL that hype - all the $$$ spent on marketing - the award show appearances - that TERRIBLE video - cover of Rolling Stone, etc. etc. - and it debuts at #15 with 89K sold.  What’s next week going to look like? 

    Look at the Fifty Cent numbers - debuts with 160K (#5) - drops 60% second week to 65K (#20).  This guy has sold 16 Million records in THIS decade.  His last record debuted with 700K first week.  That was only two years ago.  He should have bet SuBo he would outsell her this week so that people would give a shit that he was releasing a record.

Give Susan Boyle credit.  She’s got fans.

Do Shakira and Curtis/Fifty Cent have any fans?

We’ve seen a breakdown of the edifice throughout this soon to end decade.  Not only have CD sales declined, but the way of promoting those albums has too.

People forget that when ‘N Sync sold two million records the first week out, MTV was still all powerful, still the tastemaker.  That’s just as important as Napster/theft.  Everybody was focused on the music television station. Now?

In 2000, most people were on dialup, if they were online at all.  There was no YouTube, no MySpace, Google was not a household word.  We were all positively old school.  In a hangover of the nineties.  When the market raged and there was money for all.  You spent willy-nilly, you felt like a winner, a world-beater.  Boy are those days through.

The record business’ clients were MTV, radio and retail, in that order.  MTV isn’t even about music anymore, radio is a shadow of its former self and it’s hard to even find the album you want in a physical format.  The indie stores have died and the big boxes keep lowering their number of SKUs.

Still, if you’re the Dave Matthews Band, you can move 424,000 copies of an album with no significant radio footprint the week it comes out.  Because Dave Matthews has fans.

Does Fifty Cent have any real fans?

He’s not a lovable guy.  And his tracks have dropped in quality.

A fan buys the new album without hearing it first.

A casual buyer waits to hear if there’s a hit.  THAT’S the paradigm that was established in the nineties.  It was about the track, not the act.  If you’ve got a hot cut, I’m interested.  If not, I’m not even paying attention, you’re not even on my radar screen.

So today’s key is to fight for fans, not spins, not media clippings.

Sure, spins still generate sales.  But usually only of the track itself, a low profit item.  And because the audience has scattered since the nineties, Top Forty, the true radio driver of significant sales, means less than ever before.  So, major labels play the old game to ever less success.  But even more fascinating is if there’s not a hit single, then the whole project is doomed.  How many Alicia Keys fans are there really?  Sure, we know who she is, Clive’s told us she’s his protege, but when her single doesn’t hit do you even risk putting out an album?

Mariah Carey has faltered.

Shakira…  David Wallace has it right.  She was everywhere.  And she’s not a hatable character.  But it turns out they only loved her singing about the veracity of hips.  She’s like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends".  Remove her from the sitcom and most people just don’t care.

The tabloids still care.  But they’re not about acting.  They’re purely about fame.  And although Paris Hilton and the Kardashian sisters have made fame without talent pay, traditionally that’s got a short shelf life, and it’s a bad way to play in the music business.  The music business is all about down the line, catalog sales, endless sold out arenas.  The music business is all about tomorrow, not today.  It shouldn’t be what have I done for you lately, but REMEMBER WHAT I DID FOR YOU ALL THOSE YEARS AGO!

All the classic rock acts are touring on this.  And there are a lot of them.

But people with one hit can play a club.  And when the hit fades, they can barely work at all.

So don’t bother hating Rihanna, Katy Perry, all those faces you see too much whose music seems irrelevant and evanescent.  They won’t be around for long.  Just like Miley and Jonas and…

Taylor Swift?

She’s selling something different.  It IS about the music.  You’ve got to start there.

Then you have to bond your audience to you.  It doesn’t have to be everyone, just enough to make a living. And hopefully, the crowd is still growing.

You see there’s no consensus anymore.  In anything.  Have we ever been more divided politically?  Have we ever had more niches of entertainment, that each individual could burrow deeper into to his heart’s delight, connecting with like-minded people and not worrying about the masses?

The major label game, as played for the past two decades, is dying of its own accord.  It’s got nothing to do with theft.  It’s got to do with the splintering of the marketplace.  Now you’ve got to come up with something great, that’s lasting, and convince a hard core of fans that you’re real.  You need a steady stream of product to keep them engaged.  The megatour every three years is less important than just showing up on a regular basis, sans production, everywhere those interested live.

Bottom line?

This is good for music.

Dave Matthews Band’s fans believe the new album is good.  Doesn’t matter what you think.

U2 fans believe the new album sucks.  And since word can get out so easily today, it stalls in the marketplace.

So, your music must be considered good.  By the target audience!  Then you need to focus on growing that audience by motivating those presently interested, not trying to convert blocks of people who don’t care by flogging them again and again in old media.

Yes, old media is a huge fan of Shakira.  She’s cute, she’s sexy, she’s smart.

But what does that have to do with music?

To have a lasting music career, you’ve got to put the music first.

[Carolina Clay]

Hello, ANN!   

Since we don't have a Joyful Noise Tour this year, the Carolina blog "virtual tour" bus will feature a different holiday concert each edition via vault videos, photos, graphics, etc.

Clickable by ShineinNC

First stop is Greensboro's JNaT 2006 and includes a backstage interview with a violinist, as well as a review of the JNaT 06 definitions, a link to Spotlightlover's "MDYK" and Chardonnay's "Best of NaCT Banter" videos.

Hope you enjoy! Have a great week, all!   



 CAROLINA ON MY MIND

[clayharmony]

Some background info regarding Wake County NC...FYI

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/2009/12/02/the-dismantling-begins/

The dismantling begins

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

By Chris Fitzsimon

Not long after the Wake County Board of Education began its meeting Tuesday afternoon, two things became abundantly clear.  The members of the newly elected majority on the board are committed to resegregating the schools as fast as possible and they don't mind ignoring the democratic process or their own promises to do it. 

Four new members were sworn into office as friends and family members looked on in what was presumed to be a ceremony before a routine meeting. In hindsight, spectators should have known what was coming when Deborah Prickett effusively thanked the Republican Party for its help in the nonpartisan election.

After a break for a reception, the board reconvened and the new members went back on their words, electing Ron Margiotta as the new Chair and voting on resolutions that were not on the agenda and that no one else had seen.

There weren't even copies made of the resolution to stop using economic diversity in student assignment. It was shown on an overhead projector with lines crossed out.

Thanks to board member Keith Sutton, the student assignment policy proposal was sent to a committee for discussion. But proposals to change the location of a high school, end the early release schedule on Wednesdays, hire a law firm to audit the board's current legal services, and survey parents about turning year-round schools back to traditional schools all passed.

Parents who might have wanted to speak about the changes were out of luck unless they had ESP or were part of the crowd that elected the gang of five.  The resolutions were not listed on the agenda, not shared with other board members, and not announced to the parents of Wake County that the new board members claim to care so much about. 

The heavy-handed maneuvers came after several of the new members promised just the opposite. John Tedesco, who introduced the resolutions, told Bob Geary of the Independent Weekly after the election that "nobody's running in there roughshod. We're not going to do this as a rush job."

New member Debra Goldman pledged on her blog that she would "seek out information and to drill down on the issues, before making a determination or casting a vote."

Not much drilling down Wednesday and plenty of roughshod tactics. That thrilled the folks at the Locke Foundation, whose anti-public school ideology was warmly embraced by the resegregationists during the campaign.

The same Lockers who complain mightily when politicians they disagree with subvert the democratic process were silent about the gang of five's obnoxious behavior Wednesday.

The election of Ron Margiotta as chair is the most compelling evidence of the new majority's ties to Locke and other right-wing groups that want to dismantle public education.

Margiotta tried to abolish magnet schools earlier this year and wants to reinstate the abstinence-only sex education curriculum. He has called for breaking up the system into many smaller districts like in his home state of New Jersey, where there are almost 600 different school systems.

Margiotta and the hard-right crowd led the effort against the school bonds that Wake County voters passed handily in 2006.  He is clearly an ideologue, not a friend of public education, and he now chairs the board of the largest school system in North Carolina.

Tedesco also told Geary in October that before the board makes big changes, it should begin a community-wide visioning process to "make sure everybody's voice is at the table."

Not much talk of visioning Tuesday. The gang of five made sure of that as they made their first moves to dismantle a school system that has won national acclaim and spurred tremendous growth and prosperity.

The battle over the future of Wake County has begun.