Friday, December 30, 2005
Dec. 30 - Ricky Nelson article
My friend Mara circulated this article. EP gets a mention:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ricky27dec27,1,2167205.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Old Nelson Songs Aimed at New Fans
EMI hopes that its compilation duplicates the success of last year's Dean
Martin CD as it mines its catalog for hits.
By Charles Duhigg, Times Staff Writer
Twenty years to the week after his death, Ricky Nelson is rocking again.
Starting today music giant EMI Group is launching a fresh collection of
Nelson's greatest hits, part of a larger effort to sell a new generation of
music fans on artists popular with their parents — maybe even their
grandparents.
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Armed with months of research from focus groups, consumer researchers and
market data experts, EMI hopes "Ricky Nelson: Greatest Hits" will replicate
the company's success last year in making "Dino: The Essential Dean Martin"
a sleeper hit by convincing young listeners that the late crooner was hip
again.
That album sold 759,000 copies, according to Nielsen Soundscan. It was the
bestselling Dean Martin album in more than 30 years.
Nelson, however, is a special challenge. Although he sold 35 million records
by the time he was 22, and had 17 hits in the top 10, he is virtually
unknown to younger music fans. Most reissues of his hits in recent years
have been lucky to sell 10,000 copies.
"Ricky Nelson is a whole different type of artist," said Geoff Mayfield, a
senior analyst at Billboard magazine. "He isn't cool the way Dino was."
Enter EMI Music Marketing President Ronn Werre, who hopes to "re-brand"
Nelson just as he did Dino. A former Campbell Soup Co., Procter & Gamble Co.
and Coca-Cola Co. executive, Werre believes market research can make old
hits bestsellers again.
"For years, the music industry relied on its gut rather than data to sell
songs," Werre said. "Now, we're using the same techniques Procter & Gamble
uses to sell pet food."
Today's Nelson album debut comes four days before the 20th anniversary of
his death at age 45 in a plane crash while traveling to a New Year's Eve
concert in Dallas.
Nelson grew up in black and white in America's living rooms as a star on his
family's "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet." As a teenager, he launched a
rock 'n' roll career that featured such hits as "Hello, Mary Lou," "Poor
Little Fool," "Lonesome Town" and "Travelin' Man." Although his career waned
when the sitcom ended in 1966, Nelson enjoyed a comeback in the 1970s as a
country rock singer with the hit "Garden Party."
Werre chose the singer as his next project after learning that the A&E
biography of Nelson's family was the channel's most popular one after Oprah
Winfrey's.
Werre's research led him to carve up the potential Nelson audience into two
groups — Midwesterners and blue-collar buyers — and to advertise
with TV shows and magazines they like.
Researchers asked consumers what popped into their minds when they heard
Nelson's name. Middle-class respondents 45 years and older had fond memories
of Nelson's early years. Midwestern listeners recalled the innocent family
values of "Ozzie & Harriet."
"Research showed that Ricky could sell well in conservative markets," said
Herb Agner, vice president of catalog marketing for EMI.
Werre and his staff painstakingly tested the new Nelson CD, studying
consumer response to liner notes and song lists. They concluded that the
best image to promote was that of a young adult Nelson — somewhere
between the country rock "Rick Nelson" and baby-faced "Ricky" who made
teenage girls swoon when he was barely old enough to shave.
"Everything from the cover photo to the title of the Ricky Nelson album was
influenced by data from dozens of focus groups," Werre said.
EMI also is hoping sales will benefit from a public-TV special about Nelson
this month, and a Larry King Live interview scheduled tonight with members
of his family. Quotes from Bob Dylan and the late Elvis Presley praising
Nelson were incorporated into the advertising campaign.
"At Procter & Gamble we were always aware that we had to listen really
closely to consumers, because there's always another soda or laundry
detergent," Werre said. "But the music industry has sometimes paid more
attention to bands than consumers."
EMI's current roster includes the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, which both
released new albums this year. But the company's financial success depends
almost as much on older hits.
Catalog sales can make up as much as 40% of a record company's income. But
in recent years they have declined market-wide along with sales of newer
releases, a victim of the overall industry slump caused in part by
widespread illegal downloading.
Werre's strategy for boosting catalog sales so far has worked wonders. Sales
of EMI's older songs have grown 56% during the last three years, including
bestselling rereleases from the Beach Boys, George Thorogood and Nat King
Cole.
Reissuing Martin's hits last year seemed risky at the time. EMI had released
the singer's repertoire 90 times in 50 years, mostly targeting older
listeners.
But Werre's consumer research indicated that younger music buyers also liked
Martin — as long as it was the younger, hipper version. So EMI began
to view Martin as the Dino "brand," shunning the tuxedoed, graying Martin
for the smooth, confident Rat Packer making mischief with Frank Sinatra at
the Las Vegas Sands.
"We wanted to sell Dino to the guy who is a few years out of college and
trying to figure out how to make reservations at a fancy restaurant," Werre
said. "We want 30-year-olds to ask: 'What would Dino do?' "
The result was a CD packaged in cool grays showing a suave, youthful Martin.
Liner notes included an essay by Steven Van Zandt of HBO's "The Sopranos"
and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.
The company targeted older listeners with ads in Modern Maturity — the
magazine of AARP, formerly the American Assn. of Retired Persons. TV
commercials aired on the History Channel and Arts & Entertainment. Younger
consumers were targeted on ESPN and in Playboy.
The album sold 32,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 28 on the
Billboard chart. It is expected to exceed 1 million sales by next summer.
"The entire music industry has been figuring out new ways to mine their
catalogs for a while," Billboard's Mayfield said. "But 'Dino' was an unusual
success."
Beyond Nelson and Martin, EMI is working on a new compilation of songs from
1980s heavy metal band Poison, slated for release in April. Already, the
company's research has identified the Midwest and Southeast as prime Poison
country.
EMI's major rivals — Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music
Entertainment and Warner Group — also have started using more refined
marketing techniques to sell their catalogs. Universal Music, for example,
is using infomercials to pitch Motown and 1980s compilations.
"The common wisdom is that the music industry's future is dire," Werre said.
"But as long as other companies can figure out ways to sell water and charge
premium prices for laundry detergent, I'm not worried about our ability to
sell songs."
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Dec. 28 - CMT's Best of the Year
Here's one guy's pick: Wynonna, Her Story: Scenes From a Lifetime (Curb) What a cool souvenir from my favorite concert of 2005. More than just a "greatest hits" show -- and that would have been terrific, too -- the stunning singer also dares to cover Tina Turner and Elvis Presley. Sure, it rocks, but how did she make it look so easy?
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Dec. 27 - Steve Jones and Adam Sandler
Dec 26 - Another EW Mention
Friday, December 23, 2005
Dec 23 - More liner notes
The second CD borrowed from my brother, which I had to read the booklet before returning tomorrow. The other Elvis tells about his history recording in Nashville, and mentions EP's session players who also played with Gram Parson. EC refers to EP as The King when discussing his own The King of America album.
Dec 23 - Liner notes in No Way Home CD
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Dec 21 - Someone's secret
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Dec 20 - Martin Amis on...
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Dec 18 - Gus Van Sant's iTunes playlist
Dec 18 - Overheard in editing
Dec 17 - Love Songs CD in the record store
Dec 17 - Bill Mahr jokes galore
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Dec 14 - Marilyn Mason autobiography
Picked it up at the library from the return shelving section. Today I opened it for the first time and saw the intro:
Outside, it was raining cats and barking dogs. Like an egg-born offspring of collective humanity, in sauntered Marilyn Manson. It was obvious- - he was beginning to look and sound a lot like Elvis.
David Lynch - New Orleans 2:50 AM
Outside, it was raining cats and barking dogs. Like an egg-born offspring of collective humanity, in sauntered Marilyn Manson. It was obvious- - he was beginning to look and sound a lot like Elvis.
David Lynch - New Orleans 2:50 AM
Dec 14 - snarky defamer mention
In blog entry re: the Golden Globes:
[Sheridan] was squeezed out by nominees Candice Bergen of “Boston Legal”; Camryn Manheim, “Elvis”; Sandra Oh, “Grey’s Anatomy”; Elizabeth Perkins, “Weeds” and Joanne Woodward, “Empire Falls.”
It must be tough for an actress on a smash hit series to be shut out by a handful of performances most people have never even seen (Camryn Manheim played Elvis this year?).
[Sheridan] was squeezed out by nominees Candice Bergen of “Boston Legal”; Camryn Manheim, “Elvis”; Sandra Oh, “Grey’s Anatomy”; Elizabeth Perkins, “Weeds” and Joanne Woodward, “Empire Falls.”
It must be tough for an actress on a smash hit series to be shut out by a handful of performances most people have never even seen (Camryn Manheim played Elvis this year?).
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Dec 12 - Jerry Mcguire
Dec 12 - Notecards for sale at arclight
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Dec. 10 - Pulp Postcard
Dec. 10 - In Store Music
Dec. 10 - Killing Yourself to Live
Dec. 9 - Big & Rich Song Ref.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Dec. 8 - Mariah Carey reference on E! on LIne
On the E! Online homepage:
Mariah Makes Move on Elvis
by Charlie Amter
May 26, 2005, 5:30 PM PT
The single life looks good on Mariah Carey.
This week, Carey scored her 16th number one single on Billboard's Hot 100 with "We Belong Together"--putting her in rarefied company.
Only the Beatles, with 20, and Elvis Presley, with 18, have had more Billboard number ones.
Mariah Makes Move on Elvis
by Charlie Amter
May 26, 2005, 5:30 PM PT
The single life looks good on Mariah Carey.
This week, Carey scored her 16th number one single on Billboard's Hot 100 with "We Belong Together"--putting her in rarefied company.
Only the Beatles, with 20, and Elvis Presley, with 18, have had more Billboard number ones.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Dec 7 - Jeff Koons art in Vogue
Flipping thru this months' Vogue (Keira Knightly on the cover), saw a spread where they asked famous artists to do "nudes" for the magazine -- Jeff Koons did one that is not this illustration but this illustration is the only thing that showed up in Google image search for Jeff Koons Vogue. His was called Dutch something, and in the description he once again referenced Andy Warhol's Elvis paintings.
Dec 7 - Blender's #1 Rock Star Indulgence
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Dec. 3 - Teri Garr autobiography
Picked up the Teri Garr autobiography at the library. Looking for Elvis stories. Here's the description from Publishers Weekly:
As Garr describes growing up on the fringes of 1950s and '60s Hollywood in a "gypsy showbiz family," studying ballet, ignoring school and sneaking into auditions pretending to be older than she was, readers will realize hers is a pretty familiar Hollywood story. She didn't sleep with Elvis or one of the Beatles like Peggy Lipton did, but she was next door when her girlfriend went to bed with Elvis, and she sat in the recording studio during the making of Yellow Submarine. Garr worked her way from smaller parts (dancer in Viva Las Vegas and other Elvis movies) to bigger ones (Tootsie; Mr. Mom) until her career was finally on track. Alas, this is when she discovered she had no life—no husband, no baby—and started scrambling. She'd also developed a limp and some intermittent neurological tics. In 1983, a specialist diagnosed multiple sclerosis and prescribed the medication Garr has become a spokesperson for: Rebif, a form of interferon. When she's not crisscrossing the country talking about MS, Garr's taking life pretty slowly, enjoying time with her young daughter. As she says, one "of the only things we can control about any affliction—and life in general—is our attitude toward dealing with it." Readers who liked Lipton's or Hawn's memoirs should enjoy Garr's, too. (Nov.)
As Garr describes growing up on the fringes of 1950s and '60s Hollywood in a "gypsy showbiz family," studying ballet, ignoring school and sneaking into auditions pretending to be older than she was, readers will realize hers is a pretty familiar Hollywood story. She didn't sleep with Elvis or one of the Beatles like Peggy Lipton did, but she was next door when her girlfriend went to bed with Elvis, and she sat in the recording studio during the making of Yellow Submarine. Garr worked her way from smaller parts (dancer in Viva Las Vegas and other Elvis movies) to bigger ones (Tootsie; Mr. Mom) until her career was finally on track. Alas, this is when she discovered she had no life—no husband, no baby—and started scrambling. She'd also developed a limp and some intermittent neurological tics. In 1983, a specialist diagnosed multiple sclerosis and prescribed the medication Garr has become a spokesperson for: Rebif, a form of interferon. When she's not crisscrossing the country talking about MS, Garr's taking life pretty slowly, enjoying time with her young daughter. As she says, one "of the only things we can control about any affliction—and life in general—is our attitude toward dealing with it." Readers who liked Lipton's or Hawn's memoirs should enjoy Garr's, too. (Nov.)
Dec. 2 - EW mention
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Dec 1 - article in Details
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Nov 29 - In-store music
Monday, November 28, 2005
Nov 28 - PSA on E!
Nov 28 - Second mention
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Nov 27 - The Thing about Jane Spring
Nov 26 - National Enquirer
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Nov 24 - Jeff Koons on Sundance Channel
Watching that Iconoclasts show on Sundance, where Jeff Koons is showing Tom Ford his new work, and one of his new pieces is called Elvis, because the woman in it's double pose reminded him of Andy Warhol's Elvis paintings. Both Koons and Ford also agreed the model looked a little like Lisa Marie. Koons referenced Elvis several times in the show. None of it relating to pigs, thankfully.
Nov 24 - Walk the Line
Nov. 24 - DVD choice in LA Times
Catching up on last week's Sunday calendar, noted that Robert Hilbern's last choice on his music CD recommendaitons was "Loving You -- Too bad Pennebaker wasn't following Elvis Presley throught the South in the mid-50's. This fictional movie, starring Prelsey as a country boy turned rock star, is as close as we can probably get to the exuberance of the time."
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Nov. 23 - Peter's Theory on Madonna
When discussing the new Madonna CD, my co-worked launched into his theory that while many people consider Eminem the new Elvis, in reality Madonna is -- because she has excelled in so many formats and remains on top of her game for so long, and her shows are such spectacles. Peter doubts Eminem will have long lasting power. Plus his personal life and personality isn't as interesting as Madonna's.
Nov. 23 - Xmas CD ad in People
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Nov 20 - 2 Mentions in EW
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Nov 19 - Arons Records closing sale
Nov 19 - New Michael Jordan book
On p. 36 of the new Michael Jordan book, there's a silhouette graphic of young Elvis and then on p. 37 there is a statement from one of his people saying: Micahe sing-handedly took team sports and created a new hybrid category. It wasn't the team. And it wasn't the individual. The Beatles has that kind of impact. They changed the way people wore their hair, impacted the clothes people wore. Part of it was just the fact that Michael was so transcendent. He changed everyting single-handledly. It's what Elvis did, or the Beatles did. There have been a handful of people in a century who did what Michael did."
Nov 19 - Reese Witherspoon on Charlie Rose
Friday, November 18, 2005
Nov. 18 - Robbie Williams mailing list email
'Advertising Space', the second single to be taken from Robbie Williams new album 'Intensive Care' is released on Monday December 12th 2005.
'This is my 'True Romance' song,' Robbie says, 'the one where, like Christian Slater in the film, I like to believe I have direct access to Elvis Presley every now and then.' Elegiac, mournful and profoundly cinematic, it describes a superstar's tragic fall from grace. Robbie jokingly describes it as his own 'Candle In The Wind'.
The amazing video for Advertising Space beautifully directed by David LaChapelle shows Robbie as you've never seen him before in a moving tribute to his hero Elvis Presley! The video is available to view in full for the first time anywhere in the world right now at http://www.robbiewilliams.com, and will be shown for the first time on TV on Sunday Nov 20th on Channel 4 at 5.45pm
You can view exclusive clips from the video right now by selecting your connection speed & prefered format from the links below!!!
Alternatively, visit http://www.whatsyourfuture.com and head to the Insane section to see the video in FULL!!
Clip 1 - Windows Hi | Lo - Real Hi | Lo
Clip 2 - Windows Hi | Lo - Real Hi | Lo
Clip 3 - Windows Hi | Lo - Real Hi | Lo
The album is available from Amazon or HMV, or digitally from iTunes or the new Robbie Williams Shop
Nov 18 - Gawker headline
Kimberly Stewart’s Fake Wedding Venue To Have Paparazzi Dressed As Elvis
READ MORE: Paris Hilton, fake engagements, kimberly stewart, nicky hilton
It’s Day Three of This Week’s Fake Engagement of the Century, and developments in the Kimberly Stewart-Talan Torriero impending nuptials are flying at us faster than $20 bills at a homeless man willing to humiliate himself for Paris Hilton’s amusement. When last we posted, Stewart was flashing her five-carat engagement zirconia at a Microsoft video game system party. Page Six now tells us that the wedding is not to be some cliffside affair drowned out by the whir of helicopter blades in the distant future. For hot to trot Stewart, reality show husband sex can’t happen soon enough:
KIMBERLY Stewart, 26, is in a hurry to marry Laguna Beach reality show star Talan Torriero, 19. They announced their engagement yesterday. “Talan’s mother is hysterically crying. She is not happy,” said a source. “They are getting their paperwork together to get married in Vegas this weekend. They want to do it right away” — presumably before the passion fades. Stewart, daughter of rock legend Rod, just broke up with Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis.
Nov 18 - Walk the Line Review read on-line
For a long time, the Hollywood biopic was a corny, synthetic, quasi-reputable genre. Recently, though, warts-and-all movies like Ray and Kinsey and Capote, which have had the daring to show how their subjects' human failings were integral to their greatness, have raised the bar for biopics — for their authenticity and dramatic power. Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix as country-music legend Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as his muse, singing partner, and stubborn romantic foil June Carter, is a big, juicy, enjoyable wide-canvas biography with a handful of indelible moments, but it's just compelling enough to make you wish that it had attained the level of artistry of those other films.
That said, I can't stop thinking about scenes like the one in which Cash, as a young singer in Memphis in the mid-'50s, enters the storefront that houses Sun Records and performs a gospel standard for Sam Phillips (played with sly feelers by Dallas Roberts), who dismisses the number as treacle. He then asks Cash: If you had an accident, were dying on the road, and had to sing one song to express how you felt about life, what would it be? With nothing to lose, Cash launches into ''Folsom Prison Blues,'' and suddenly we hear the famous gravity — the ominous lyrics and weirdly overdeliberate bass voice that sounds like it's trying to negotiate its way out of hell. As the band trickles in, Cash's thrilling rockabilly freight train leaves the station.
Phoenix, who did all his own singing, sounds just enough like Cash to make us hear the beauty of his husky reticence, and though he's hardly the singer's physical double — Cash had his trademark crags and furrows even when he was starting out — we can see how nature equipped him to play the Man in Black. His hair is black, his eyebrows are black, and, more than that, his eyes are black — deep coal wells of hidden sorrow. Walk the Line, directed by James Mangold (Cop Land) from a script he co-wrote with Gill Dennis, lays out Cash's demons in a vigorous if standard fashion. Growing up on a farm in Arkansas, young J.R. endures a stern father (Robert Patrick) who makes him feel responsible for his brother's death. Overseas, in the Air Force, he develops an identification with criminals, and Phoenix cultivates a haunted stare that masks a heart of vulnerability. Later, touring with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis (Cash may be showcased as country, but it's a revelation to see how much of a vintage early rocker he really was), Cash, holding his guitar up high as if it were a shield, and then staring the audience down, expiates his sins through music. He could be a preacher whose sermons have gone electric.
As a portrait of Johnny Cash the gravel-voiced country-rock innovator, who projected a private hellfire onto even his jauntiest anthems, Walk the Line is zesty and satisfying. But when it turns to the tale of how Cash, trapped in a miserable marriage, spent year after year courting, seducing, loving, yet never quite winning June Carter, the movie is on shakier ground. On the road, Cash enjoys groupies and pops amphetamines, an addiction that will land him in trouble with the law. Yet he's really a gentle soul who yearns to be loved. He and Carter begin to make eyes at each other the moment they meet backstage, and when Carter's first marriage ends, there appears to be little in the way of their getting together. But Carter, the scion of a famously traditional Christian singing family, feels guilty about her divorce, and Cash, after coercing her into performing a duet she wrote with her ex-husband, makes the mistake of giving her an onstage peck on the cheek. Horrors!
It's a downhill spiral from there. Walk the Line could turn out to be a monster chick flick, because its design is almost mythic: Saintly girl has to wait for country-rock bad boy to purge his demons and settle down. But while Witherspoon, a fine singer herself, makes Carter immensely likable, a fountain of warmth and cheer, given how sweetly she meshes with Phoe-nix her romantic reticence isn't really filled in. June's refusal to countenance Johnny's drug use may be a fair obstacle, but the main reason he's doing drugs is that she keeps spurning him; he's numbing the pain of his devotion. June is made to seem like a high school virgin protecting her honor, and when we see her composing the lyrics to ''Ring of Fire,'' it doesn't compute: As written, this perky, straight-and-narrow woman is the last person on earth who would fall, through love, ''into a burning ring of fire.''
At the famous Folsom Prison concert, Cash performs ''Cocaine Blues,'' and Phoenix's eyes go wild with the pleasure of finally living up to his wrong-side-of-the-law image. Off stage, June beams at him. But do her eyes shine because of his generosity in saluting the humanity of these prisoners, or because of how deep his need is to feel like he's one of them? In Walk the Line, it's the former. In a greater movie, it would have been both.
(Posted:11/16/05)
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Nov 17 - 20th Century Fox Loves Elvis
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