Do You Seek Opportunities for (Self-)Promotion?

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I do! Which is why I'm linking to the first part of my series on (mostly) American teenpop this week over at Stylus. I compiled 5 mixes to correspond with the essays, and will be posting them in a SEKRIT PLACE (shhhhhhh) some time on Thursday or so.

If you agree, disagree, or otherwise care about teenpop, please share yer thoughts here or at my blog, where you might find s'more commentary if I can find some time for it, or over at the Rolling Teenpop thread, which has seen some activity with the back-to-back leaks/releases of Britney, Ashlee, Veronicas, and now DAHV and SKYE.

(If you don't know who Dahv is, stay tuned and you will at least know the glory of "Pass the Shirley Temple.")

Comments

[koganbot]

Was frantically looking for that "listening to Avril being drowned in the Baltic Ocean with a piano" crack, wondering why you'd deleted it; then realized it's coming later in the week.

Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[koganbot]

I guess this shows I'm not jaded: I still manage to get shocked and upset by the posturing childishness of the guys who post their disdain of teenpop on the Stylus comments threads. Not a one of them has shown evidence of having listened to a single song you've written about, or of having thought about or even noticed a single word you wrote.

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

You mean I'm not a wascally welativist? (He missed that wordplay, also best of both worlds -- Hannah pun. Not sure who the middle-aged men are he's referring to.

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[koganbot]

Don't think I saw that guy - thread was only at six comments when I looked. Any reason to look again? If you ever want me to come in as support, I'll be glad to, of course.

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Nah, nothing to see here, folks...I'll poke 'n' prod at my discretion, but usually they don't even give me fodder for teasing. (Clash/Hannah wasn't even teasing, I had a hankering for BOTH albums the other day, the former for the first time in a while, actually, but I think I listened to M.I.A. again instead.)

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[koganbot]

Well, I'd assume that any fan of Vince Taylor's/The Clash's "Brand New Cadillac" who isn't blinded completely by demographic prejudice would at least see some value in Miley Cyrus's "See You Again" (and vice versa, I might add for the benefit of lurkers). But then, I'd have thought that anyone who likes "London Calling" might have noticed the similarities between that and Ashlee's "Boyfriend," assuming they ever bothered to listen to Ashlee's "Boyfriend." (And vice versa again etc.)

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[koganbot]

Vince Taylor:

"Brand New Cadillac" (unfortunately, no vintage versions seem available; but I think I actually prefer his 1979 demeanor to 1962)

"Shakin' All Over"

"My best friend Lesley said, 'Well, she's just bein' Miley'." (live)(?)

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[koganbot]

Back to the subject of idiots on Stylus threads: do you think these guys are typical, are representative of the people who don't post? That pretty much they're our readership? What a depressing thought.

Re: Idiots Posting On Stylus Threads Shocker

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Nah, I've gotten messages from people who dig the writing, too, and are at least trying to understand my terms a little -- I think you're going to attract a certain number of people sniping in most comment threads, esp. at a place like Stylus where it's somewhat difficult to become a commenter and existing ones tend to be there for very different reasons (my own blog is probably a better example of who gets drawn in...people interested in the subject matter and totally random googlers). The key is not to give the ugly folks much room to bully people around, one of the benefits of the LJ set up and Poptimists.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

This feature is already very long so I'm going to have to print it off, which I'll do once all 5 parts are up. I promise I'll comment somewhere once I have read it carefully. But that may not be until the weekend.

[koganbot]

One of the huge problems is Top 40 radio's refusal to play any of the newer teenpoppers or ex-teenpoppers who are trying to create material for an older market, the only exception being JoJo. So Tisdale and Duff and Hudgens and Aly & AJ get shunned. I don't get it, that stations that would play Avril and Ashlee a couple of years ago won't play Aly & A.J. or Duff now. It's not as if the latter's current material screams "kiddie." "Potential Breakup Song" will probably peak on Top 40 with approximately 800 spins per week, which is better than "Rush" or "Chemical React" got, but is not good (number one right now is Timbaland with about 10,000 spins, and that's not even counting what he's getting on the rhythmic and the urban stations); and also, "Potential Breakup Song" got no major markets (got play on one Cleveland station that no one listens to but its markets were basically places like Charleston and Providence and Flint). So it's getting about 1.6 million listens a week - compare to Britney a couple days ago when "Gimme More" was still only three days on the charts and was down in the 800s and it was getting about 8 million listens, because she is getting places like L.A. and New York and Miami. (Not that it's relevant to the topic, but right now "Gimme More" is at 1,143 spins on the Top 40 airplay chart, and is actually in the Top 40 for airplay; I'm guessing it ends up with something like 1,400 for its first seven days, plus will get about 400 more from rhythmic and adult contemporary combined. While these aren't mad breakout numbers, it's the biggest take-off on that chart; I think the record company will be insane not to rush out the video and not to push forward the download release date from the scheduled November, though I suppose the biz people know better than I how to promote a song.)

Anyway, given the success of "Since U Been Gone" and "Girlfriend," what makes Top 40 radio stations assume that their listeners wouldn't want to hear "Stranger" or "Potential Breakup Song"? It's not like they'd be competing with Disney for the kiddie market; rather they'd be playing to a young and not-so-young Top 40 audience who'd probably be glad if the radio included stuff that wasn't 100% r&b or emo or Nickelback-Hinder rock. (And also they might as a bonus get some kids who like Aly & A.J. but don't want to stay strictly listening to Disney, which anyway isn't in every market: there are only 51 Disney stations in the country.) I do think there's something of a market for the Aly & A.J. video, by the way; is in the top ten on AOL, I noticed.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

It is a little confusing -- I wonder what Disney's role in the general scheme of radio media is, whether or not it's some kind of exclusionary principle directed at the one media conglom that really has kind of sealed itself off (you could maybe say the same of ABC after it joined up with Disney; it seemed to quickly become more a Disney puppet station and less worthwhile in the competition between the other networks -- and if I remember correctly, ABC's downfall coincided with CBS's rise back up to a major network that mattered w/ CSI, etc.).

I definitely get the sense that there are some backstage politics either being played poorly or, more likely, not being played at all on the part of Disney, which has always been fairly hostile to cooperation with other companies that they don't actually own. Interesting, though, that every artist you name is on Hollywood, and that JoJo is perhaps the ONLY Top 40/Radio Disney crossover (aside from Rihanna and Akon) that I can even think of in the past year. Avril and nu-Kelly weren't shopped to RD (may be content concerns, but "Girlfriend" is a very easy RD Edit in the making), and Britney hasn't been eligible at RD since 2001.

Main point being, it very well might be DISNEY that doesn't want this stuff breaking to Top 40 and isn't "playing the game" radio-wise with other companies, not vice versa. (Just as Top 40 doesn't challenge Disney's kiddie market, Top 40 doesn't really help Disney's kiddie market, either, so it might be a kind of ambivalent but protective "this is my niche, bitch" situation.)

Also wonder the significance of radio airplay as compared to iTunes and AOL these days. In terms of album sales, Disney needs no help from radio whatsoever, which is one reason why other labels probably won't pick up on the niche market trend -- they still need non-Disney media channels to promote their artists, so just having the material available may not guarantee them album sales at all.

[koganbot]

Disney also has played Tashbed and Rascal Flatts and Daniel Powter and Chris Brown, but none of these are likely to be RD staples; Rihanna, strangely, does seem to be - I mean, she's young enough (19), but she's so obviously mainstream pop-r&b. "Umbrella" is getting even more play than "S.O.S." did - though Disney's play of Rihanna is selective, of course. Unsurprisingly, Disney didn't touch "Unfaithful."

But what would Disney's motives be for not wanting "Stranger" to get Top 40 play? Hilary's clearly marketing herself away from Disney, and RD itself isn't playing it.

[koganbot]

And then Tisdale's "He Said She Said" is an odd situation; was it an attempt to go for the general market, Hollwood Records understanding all along that it wasn't going to get played on Disney? Or was Disney's decision a surprise to Hollywood? Or was it just the video that Disney wouldn't play? In any event, the song got to number two in Canada, according to Wikipedia. For what that's worth.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

They might be saving a full Tisdale marketing push for the deluxe re-release of her album -- they did the same thing (sort of) with Aly and AJ, whose first alb was around long before they hit with "Rush" and "Chems React" (I think they only played the covers and the Avril acoustic number "No One" -- which they shopped to at least one ABC sitcom first -- before "Rush" went into rotation).

No idea what's going on with Hilary. "With Love" they pushed somewhat decently, but they haven't touched "Play with Fire" or "Stranger," and I doubt it's for content reasons. I also doubt Hilary has much say in the matter, but that's all speculation. (Her tour is doing pretty well, too, apparently.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

ABC show, not sitcom. I think it was Alias.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also that Rascal Flatts song is getting airplay because it was the theme song/OST crossover for Cars, which is the Disney/Pixar movie before Ratatouille.

[koganbot]

Checking Into The Rush, I was surprised it came out so early: August 2005. "Rush" was released as a radio single in October, and got into heavy Radio Disney rotation (where it stayed for about eight months, and it still gets fairly strong Disney play), but I don't think the video was out until January 2006 or that the single became available for download until February.

(By the way, Wikipedia lists a different co-author for "Rush": Aly Michalka, AJ Michalka, C. Tornes. Allmusic says Aly Michalka, AJ Michalka, Dan James, Leah Haywood (the last two being the producers). Do you know which would be right?)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure the latter is correct (that's what it says in the liners, IIRC). Imgaine it's a Wikipedia error.