at last

… that these days *only* getting to No.2 in the charts - and with your debut single - is seen as a catastrophic failure.

grinning berks.

I can't help but feel a faint pang of pity.

And of course it demonstrates what a desperate mess the music industry is in. After all the promotion and the hoopla, Sony have dropped them like a hot brick. Why? Because they only hit number 2 with their single and were beaten to the top spot by Owl City (nice-ish song but flimsy in the final analysis), having only sold around 100000 copies in a traditionally quiet time of year for sales.

This article [1] has some insight reasoning, quite rightly that Jedward on a CD or download just doesn't work like it does in the flesh. Those I know who watched the X Factor said it was great car crash TV and that they do actually have something, even if it's not the ability to sing the right notes in the right order.

So Sony bought in to try and rake off their short term buck and have now milked it as far as they can. Result: drop the act and look for another. That kind of sad short-termism doesn't do anything to breed the new generation of long-lived artists the industry supposedly want. It also makes artists risk averse, knowing that they really don't get much of a shot. And the audience get sick of the relentless 'this is the future of pop' bullshit ladled on every time one of these acts is shoved out into the limelight.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chartblog/2010/02/jedward_ft_vanilla_ice_unde...