Entertainment For Lively Minds
Susan Boyle sets US chart record
Posted by stimpy on 3 December 2009 - 12:43pm.
From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8391777.stm)
"Susan Boyle has topped the US charts, setting a first-week sales record for a female debut album.
Record sales tracker Neilsen SoundScan said I Dreamed A Dream shifted 701,000 copies in the US in its first week. It is second only to Snoop Dogg's debut Doggystyle, which sold 803,000 in its first week in 1993.
Boyle, 48, also topped the UK chart on Sunday. Her album became the best-selling debut in UK chart history, selling 410,000 copies in its first week."
Blimey...
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A Snoop Dogg - SuBo collaboration...
That's what I'd like to see. Imagine how many records they could sell together!
Thankyou
I just had a mental image of a blinged up SuBo cavorting with some honeys in a Snoop video.
My brain is bleeding...
Even worse
I had an irresistable mental image of Subo coming second to Snoop's Doggystyle.
More power to the might Band Of Susan
Dare I risk the wrath of you earnest real-rock dullards out there by suggesting that her version of "Wild Horses" is BETTER than either Gram Parsons or The Stones?.
... but not better than...
... the version by The Sundays.
True, true
and their version was a mere B-side.
It was but...
... down the years I seem to have acquired a copy of a promo video for it - suggesting it may have been a U.S. a-side. Or a potential single?
The only video
you need is when it soundtracks the Buffy episode "The Prom" (Season 3) - heartwarming, heartbreaking.
I'm sure I've mentioned this a few times before :-)
And it's a cover of Charlotte Martin's version
http://open.spotify.com/track/1P3JfNdQLDlQUFmo0r5QyK
exact same arrangement but without the strings. Take your pick of the vocals.
A cover of a cover.
Not wrath
just pity. Those cloth ears must be a bugger to launder.
1.2 million sales in a fortnight in US of A
"Susan Boyle has seized the spotlight and refuses to let go.
Simon Cowell’s Syco/Columbia discovery continues at #1, adding another 510k to her total, which now climbs past 1.2m for her stunning debut, I Dreamed a Dream."
http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/newsPage.cgi?news07868m01
Wild Horses
I would like to see SuBo tied to wild horses and dragged through the countryside with Cowell too and chased by a pack of rabid dogs that is the fate they really deserve, music I don't think so
So
you don't like her then?
MrRadio
frankly your comment is offensively over the top. I hold no torch for X-factor etc but Susan Boyle is fairly benign character. There are many more heinous people in the world far more deserving censure than a middle aged church going woman from a small town in Scotland, get real mate.
Chris G
o k point taken, but her success is baffling and undeserved
We can argue over
We can argue over undeserved, but it's hardly baffling. Person who can sing without the aid of autotune foisted upon the masses by a cyncial talent show mastermind who resultantly think she's the second coming. Where's the puzzle?
but in the undeserved success league
i'd put a whole bunch of bands and individuals closer to the top ... actually i don't even consider Ms Boyle's prominence to be "undeserved" in the strict sense ... was it not Mr Valparaiso formerly of this parish who claimed some time ago that Boyle was no better nor worse than a whole bunch of amateur singers up and down the UK, just perhaps lucky? but she can hold a tune and she's about to have enough money not to worry again, about material stuff. Go SuBo ...
Slightly annoys me
Where was the media a couple of years ago when this was released, then? I know both Charlotte's (below) and Susan's are both version of the Sundays cover, but it is remarkably similar.
I hate the whole Cowell machine
When he said the Beatles wouldn't have made it on the x factor, he summed up his contempt for real music nothing Cowell has produced is of any musical significance all it is about is making money and promoting himself and his acts,if Paul McCartney appears on the x factor it will be a sick joke Simon Cowell is a 21st century Tony Hatch but at least Hatch had the talent to write the crossroads theme.
It's not about the venality of
managers (every act would probably love a manager as ruthless as Simon Cowell, Don Arden, Allen Klein, etc etc etc), and it's not about the cynicism of a machine that uses up and wears out ingenues like Boyle. If we were to remove the greedy hand of the music industry, you'd have nothing to listen to.
It's about whether there's something about the noise made by those particular people, whatever their motive, that becomes more than product. I understand from reviews that the Susan Boyle album is, on the whole, a little obvious and a touch sentimental, but I can't really fault the quality of her Wild Horses, as much as I'd like to.
Pop is a dirty business, and there's been far more gold made by the industry's invisible hand over the years than there has been by worthy artists for whom it is "just about the music". If you give those people a free hand in every area of production and distribution they invariably f*ck something up.
Who wants Crass when you can have Girls Aloud?
my concern with "wild horses"
is the media had no sense of proportion and will kick any vitality or novelty out of it by playing it to death. It's the sort of song that is fine heard amongst other tunes every so often but it will played and played like amarillo, one day like this etc snowpatrol until you come to hate. Not sure there's any solution to this except don't listen to the radio or watch tv.
"Who wants Crass when you can have Girls Aloud?"
Who needs either?
Both
please.
I'm waiting for the Richard X
"Long Hot / Penis Envy" mash-up.
The Beatles
Simon Cowell is right. If the X factor was about in 1963 they wouldn't have made it on. They barely got a contract as it was. There are numerous stories about A&R men turning the Beatles down. Remember the trash that was on Opportunity Knocks? Bobby Crush FTW.
Real music? Go down a jazz club, a folk club, or the Proms and complain about 'real music'.
<I>"all it is about is making money</I>"
"all it is about is making money"
Welcome to the music business MrRadio :-)
Wild Horses is the new Hallelujah
A cynically chosen cover version of a great song (artist's management striving for 'cred') ruined by the overkill of constant playlisting.
You really think it was chosen as a result of
the artist's management striving for 'cred'?
I would suggest it was chosen because the artist's management were striving for humungous sales resulting in a tidal wave of money.
'Cred' (whatever that may be) doesn't come into it.
also don't they mainly choose
songs that they own the rights to in some form?
Bluntly
They'd be daft not to. If they are only in it for the money, then that is a way to get paid twice (at least... appearence fee, residuals, licensing fee, management fee, publishing fee, possibly a co-writer percentage).
Yes, I do...
... think that. There's got to be an element of that. They're not choosing Jennifer Rush's The Power Of Love or Celine Dion's The Heart Will Go On, are they? They know that what was, 10, 15 years ago, outside of the mainstream has shifted into it, and the internet has ramped up everyone's awareness of there being more than just a handful of hit singles by the Stones or whoever... so they pick songs that might touch base with a slightly more knowledgeable and musically literate public. A public who likes to think of itself as slightly cool by knowing who Leonard Cohen is. Perhaps.
Concede to the logic of the point about covering songs they own the rights to. But does Cowell (or any subsiduary compant thereof) really own the right to Len's Hallelujah? Would hate to think of Cowell getting fat-pocketed off the back of Jeff Buckley.
Well, yes...
...M. Cowell works for Sony, who have both the Cohen & the Buckley versions on their books...and all the X Factor versions, so it's a huge financial win all round.
That is...
... somehow tragic.
If some of that goes to
pay off Laughing Len's debts, then I have no objections, and neither would he.
Hallelujah is owned by ATV Music, a subsidiary of Sony.
Cowell has a flat-fee rights agreement with Sony (through BMG) that gives him access to any song from the Sony catalogue.
So, although he doesn't actually own Hallelujah - he can get his artists to record it without paying any publishing. The result of that is, of course, more money ends up in Syco's back pocket
And the associated sales etc...
...for the X factor versions, the LC & JB versions all result in additional Sony income.
I thought there was a reason
no one on Xfactor did covers of The Brilliant Corners or Mighty Mighty!
410,000 copies of...
Boyle in the bag... nice.
Wild Horses
it seems that I have managed to get through my 48 years without ever hearing a version of this song by anyone - Stones, Sundays, Gram Parsons, have yet to hear the reedy one's version ... am I alone? Is it a really well known track?
Wild Horses is one of THE best Stones tracks
Not sure this Knebworth performance is the best version of it but, it has a certain ragged charm :-)
cheers, Stimps
turns out I have it on the Hot Rocks compilation - which I don't think I've ever got round to listening to it. Will give it a go tomorrow.
On the one hand
Wild Horses is actually a rather nice cover and the arrangement suits her voice.
More worringly (for her), Susan Boyle doesn't really have a second gear or a change of pace does she? There's only so much you can do if all you ever sing is torch songs and big ballads.
For that reason, I think she has a fairly limited shelf life.
The want of a change of pace...
...never did AC/DC or The Ramones any harm, and while she can't fall back on her looks like those boys, there's a chance that she'll never need to work again even she doesn't see the week out.
I was going to add
'Torch songs and big ballads' never did La Bassey or La Streisand any harm...
All true
DSB and Streisand are mostly balladry, but they do do more uptempo stuff from time to time. As for AC/DC or the Ramones - can you imagine them doing tunes from Les Mis? Although, in AC'DCs case that could be very amusing.
Fair play to her though, I hope she makes enough from the enterprise and keeps her sanity to enjoy the fruits.
Another thought.
The generation SuBo appeals to probably haven't heard of filesharing and the like and would much rather go out and buy the nice, shiny CD.
Hello profits.
Patronising
much?
"What's the difference..
..between being patronising and being condescending", asked my wife one day.
"Don't bother your pretty little head about it" I replied.
Probably my best response to a question ever, even if Jimmy Carr probably thought of it first.
It was also well worth the subsequent battering I got off the FPO. She still uses it as a demonstration of my annoying smart-arsery. That and the time I threw snowballs at her in the bath. Physical comedy is a much-maligned skill.
that just serves her right
for taking a bath in the garden in the winter; your missus is a nutter
How dare they
take a popular song, the most popular singer currently on the planet and sell it to an innocent manipulated public who don't know what they're doing with their hard earned cash. It's the music INDUSTRY remember, they're supposed to sell things, it's what they do.
Get real, you lot
This is the definitive version, right? Gift to Gram, I seem to recall, from his drug buddy.
Please release this as a single.
(Yeah, fine thanks. Sad to see the end of Archie, wasn't it? Can't say I have much disagreements with his take on the Sump plug, tho'.
Toodle pip!)
Retro!
I was briefly tempted to disagree with you*, but I'm not sure I can...
Great to hear from you, doc.
*For the sake of tradition, you understand ;-)
'Get your head down'
Arthur Smith's take on Christmas mirrors my own take on X-Factor etc.
'Time to get your head down, it'll soon pass'.
And the remarkable thing about this non-consensus age of 500 TV channels and the internet is that anything (9/11, X-Factor, Iraq, Katie Price) can be 'completely' avoided.
Compare John Lennon's death with Michael Jackson's.
In 1980, going into 1981, you could not avoid Lennon's music or face on the radio, in the pop chart, on the TV, in magazines.
However, Jackson's death I almost completely avoided (mercifully) seeing only about 15 minutes of that ceremony with Berry Gordy on it.
If he has peppered the chart with numerous No. 1 singles (like Lennon) I wouldn't know because TOTP isn't on anymore.
Ditto this X-Factor stuff.
By the way, does anyone actually believe all the figures that have been banded around in the last 15 years or so about various releases being the 'fastest selling albums of all time' etc.?
not true
my other problem with X-Factor is that it has creeped everywhere in the media. Wildhorses cropped up on RadMac the other night quite needlessly considering it's air time elsewhere. And of course ironically it appears here on this website quite regularly. You can try to avoid it but even if your watching the history channels some gormless continuity announcers will allude to Jedward or it will be on ad etc.
I'm Sorry...
I have nothing against Susan Boyle but her Wild Horses rendition sounds like something Andrew-Lloyd Webber put together.I don't "believe" her when she sings this song.Broadway/The West End beckons?
"Believe"
isn't in it. I don't listen to singers or performers because of their integrity, I listen to them because they make an interesting sound. Do you think Otis Redding "meant" the take of "I've Been Loving You Too Long" which was on "Otis Blue" after he'd done the thing to death whilst being hauled from pillar to post on no-paying soul revues?
Course he flippin' didn't, any more than that smacked-out trust-fund Stones-ligger Gram Parsons "meant" his "Wild Horses".
Do you think the washes of sincerity that Bongo daubs over every U2 record makes his group any less shitter?
I'd hazard a guess that most people who got wet from either hearing "Smokestack Lightning" for the first time or from visiting Cecil Sharp Houses in the 1960's weren't bothered about authenticity (whatever the f*ck that is) as much as they were thrilled by hearing something that sounded like it was made on another planet.
Boyle's "Wild Horses" isn't otherworldly, as it happens, but it is pretty good, and I've now had enough of the sainted Parsons country caterwaulings to last me a good few lifetimes.
one of the few sensible things
Dylans said is that it's important that the singer means it at the time they are singing the song.
But if you've seen him live
it's clear that he stopped "meaning" anything he sings donkey's years ago. His performances are usually nothing more than a series of spontaneous ullulatory formalisations based on ideas dreamt up way back by a young man he can barely remember who just happens to be called Bob Dylan.
That's why he's great!
So...
When you watch a film it doesn't matter if you're convinced by the performance,you just like the sounds coming out of the actors mouths.Righty-o.
Yes, and my favourite film is "Mr Apple Argument
meets Ms Orange Proposition in Non-Sequitur-Land".
And what's wrong with Broadway/West End?
Musicals can be a fabulous form of entertainment, and are as legitimate and authentic as any other marriage of music and lyrics created to tell a story or express an emotion. Some of the greatest songs of all time were written in the context of musicals - Porter, Kahn, Gershwin, Rodgers/Hammerstein + Hart, yes even Lloyd-Webber have all contributed greatly to our collective cultural happiness.
Good for her
she'll be able to afford a mink-lined straitjacket and duck-down padded cell when the sadly inevitable happens.
Ah, of course...
...jokes about mental illness. Can we do AIDS next, please?
I'm not a mental-ist
some of my best friends are nutbars.
No, but seriously, I'm not mocking her - I do actually fear for her. There's no denying that she is unstable and the pressure on her, even more so given this success, must be IMMENSE. My point was a serious one: all the success in the world is no use to anyone if it comes at the expense of your mental well-being.
OK
I do agree with you there.
Royalties from album sales
Don't X-Factor artists make about 0.1p per album? That would give Susan Boyle the tidy sum of £410 from her first week's UK sales.
Not nosey but......
I would very much like to know how SoBo's earnings compare to Mr Cowels on her performances and sales. Who acts as her manager Cowel? Who acts as her lawyer Cowel? Who acts as her accountant Cowel?
Wild Horses is a great song, covered many times. The great British public like SoBo because she is real. You could not get further from show buisness. That may be a bad thing for her peace of mind.
Cowel will be alright though.
I think she IS showbusiness..
...in a peculiarly British way. We've always had a love for performers that marry the spectacular with the ordinary, from Chaplin, through Gracie Fields and George Formby, Matt Munro (who will forever be remembered as "the singing bus driver" even though he only had the job for a couple of months), and "The Girl From Tiger Bay", all the way up to Johnny Rotten and Liam Gallagher.