Pop music did the predicatable thing at the Brit Awards last night, with Lady Gaga making three trips up to the stage, but then the Brits are more about patting industry winners and safe bets on the back than exposing new musical talent. A slight nod to creativity in the critics’ choice award (which went to vodcoder fan Ellie Goulding and not Laura Marling like it should have) and some of the old guard coming back for a cry and a reminisce. Favourite quote of the evening – Peter Kay introducing Lady Gaga as ‘New York’s answer to Sue Pollard’.
Here’s the list:
International Album – Lady Gaga ‘The Fame’
International Female Solo Artist – Lady Gaga
International Breakthrough Act – Lady Gaga
International Male Solo Artist – Jay-Z
British Album – Florence And The Machine ‘Lungs’
British Single – JLS Beat Again
British Female Solo Artist – Lily Allen
British Breakthrough Act – JLS
British Male Solo Artist – Dizzee Rascal
British Group – Kasabian
Brits Performance Of 30 Years – The Spice Girls ‘Wannabe / Who Do You Think You Are’ (1997)
Critics Choice – Ellie Goulding
British Album Of 30 Years – Oasis ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’
Outstanding Contribution To Music – Robbie Williams
Lady GaGa will play North American and European arenas this year and Live Nation Entertainment’s global touring division will take the reins as promoter/producer.
Lady GaGa is set to begin a run of dates in the U.K. (promoted by AEG Live) on Feb. 18 at the MEN Arena in Manchester, followed by shows in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, which are all almost sold out. According to sources, it is now expected that the artist will play arenas in Europe some time this spring, then North American arenas in the summer.
Live Nation has previous run heavy international tours for both U2 and Madonna, so Lady GaGa will be in good hands.
Even though we don’t do her digital music distribution, we still love Lady Gaga. She’s every bit as much of a paragon for the new music industry as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, as a long article on the Wall Street Journal, in which they extol her virtuosity at replacing the ‘lost’ revenue from the music she gives away with other sources of income: touring, licensing, make-up endorsement deals…
An interesting point made in the article is that:
…much of Gaga’s audience got her music for free, and legally. They have listened to free streams—by the hundreds of millions—on YouTube and the other online services that Gaga currently leads, according to research firm BigChampagne. On MySpace, Gaga has had 321.5 million plays. By contrast, singer Susan Boyle tallied only 133,000 plays, despite scoring the No. 2 selling album of 2009. A difference (among many) between Gaga and the dowdy Scotswoman discovered on a British talent show: Ms. Boyle’s material, including “Amazing Grace,” was traditional—and so were most of her buyers. Some 97% of her albums were sold on compact disc.
This really underlines the generation gap between Gaga and Boyle, which points at a larger truth – while it is still possible to have enourmous commercial success through the traditional routes, Boyle’s fame being delivered mostly through the TV and her sales being on CD, this market will be dwindling with time. Young consumers are more used to getting their music online and for free.
According to Universal’s blog Lady Gaga today hit the top spot of Billboard’s Airplay chart today, becoming the first artist in the chart’s history to get the first five singles to top of the chart since the chart’s archives began in 1991, all 5 tracks having been released in one year. “Bad Romance” is Gaga’s first hit from her second album, The Fame Monster, all the others being from her imaginitively titled previous release, ‘The Fame’… Presumably the next will be something like ‘The Fame Monster Goes Fishing’.
Neilsen gathers information from both bricks and mortar and online stores in the US, and has released a full report of music sales in 2009. The album charts are more or less what you might expect, apart from the last minute addition of Susan Boyle, who sold almost as much in the 5 weeks after her debut was released as Taylor Swift, the next biggest selling artist of 2009. Michael Jackson’s death in the Summer undoubtedly caused his high chart position, but dear old Lady Gaga has smashed into the number 4 position from practically a standing start. Shows what you can achieve if you’re prepared to take your clothes off in a college bar, dole out some pizza and start selling your hair.
In terms of an artists’ overall units, rather than single albums, MJ topped the list, with the Beatles (whose catalogue is owned by the Jackson estate) making a surprise appearance at number 3, presumably supported by their Rock Band license deal.
2009 TOP TEN SELLING ARTISTS
(based on Album sales from 12/29/2008-1/3/2010)
Michael Jackson ~ 8,286,000
Taylor Swift ~ 4,643,000
Beatles ~ 3,282,000
Susan Boyle ~ 3,104,000
Lady Gaga ~ 2,813,000
Andrea Bocelli ~ 2,668,000
Michael Buble ~ 2,280,000
Eminem ~ 2,166,000
Carrie Underwood ~ 1,895,000
Black Eyed Peas ~ 1,881,000
Another widely expected, but still pleasing phenomenon is that while the CD slides sickeningly into obscurity, vinyl sales are up: 33% in a single year, to 2.5 million albums. The Beatles and Jackson feature high on the list in the vibyl format, resting on a bed of heavy listening, serious music fan music like Fleet Foxxes, Animal Collective and Radiohead.
2009 TOP TEN VINYL ALBUMS
(12/29/2008-1/3/2010)
Abbey Road/ Beatles ~ 34,800
Thriller/ Michael Jackson ~ 29,800
Merriweather Post Pavilion/Animal Collective ~ 14,000
Wilco/ Wilco ~ 13,200
Fleet Foxes/ Fleet Foxes ~ 12,700
Backspacer/ Pearl Jam ~ 12,500
Veckatimest/ Grizzly Bear ~ 11,600
Appetite for Destruction/ Guns N’ Roses ~ 11,500
Big Whiskey & the…/Dave Matthews Band ~ 11,500
In Rainbows/ Radiohead ~ 11,400
2009 TOP TEN VINYL ARTISTS
(based on vinyl album sales from 12/29/2008 – 1/3/2010)
Radiohead ~ 45,700
Beatles ~ 38,800
Michael Jackson ~ 30,400
Metallica ~ 30,200
Wilco ~ 29,600
Bob Dylan ~ 24,500
Animal Collective ~ 20,600
Pearl Jam ~ 19,900
Bon Iver ~ 17,100
Iron & Wine ~ 16,600
You know what time of year it is… and since it’s been a while since we posted anything about Lady Gaga, here’s a Christmas Carol, barbershop version of her song ‘Bad Romance’, from a strange group of people called the ‘Cherry Tree Singers’. Cherry Tree is a sub label of Universal’s whose roster includes Feist, Sting, Tokio Hotel and Lady G, so I’m guessing that these are label employees that have recorded an office sing-song of their more famous client’s releases. Consider this a taster for tomorrow’s upcoming Xmas playlist. [I know. I'm sorry.]
As we published in this post, that’s certainly the standpoint of Swedish artist, Magnus Uggla and the Lady might well feel the same, based on the information in this post, saying that she was only paid a pittance by the Swedish performing rights society for a huge number of plays on the music streaming service Spotify:
According to a report today, Lady Gaga’s track “Poker Face” was one of the most popular tracks during a five month period on Spotify and was played more than a million times. So how much money does she get paid by STIM (the Swedish Performing Rights Society) for this massive achievement?
SEK 1150 – that’s around $167 or roughly 113 Euros.
But that’s not quite the whole story… The performing rights contribution splits out to $0.000167 a play, but so what? Lady G (or more likely her record label) will also be being paid directly by Spotify with a flat fee per play (a couple of pennies per track) and a chunk of the service’s ad revenue. Lady Gaga’s direct revenues from that many streams will be in the five figure $USD range, and the performing rights system probably does more to support their own bureaucratic infrastructure than it contributes towards paying her a sensible wage. It would be interesting to know exactly what proportion of their receipts is paid to artists, and what is spent on running the society, as well as why the PRS collects a fee for every track played on services like Spotify, even those of tracks by non-PRS-members.
Lily Allen has previously complained on Twitter “@citricsquid did you know the major own hold massive stakes in Spotify, and earn advertising revenue at yet another loss to the artist”that she’s not seeing any of the revenue from her Spotify plays, but this is likely to be because the majors have all bought shares in Spotify, and are both giving them an easy ride on the music licensing fees and taking their own substantial cut of anything that comes back. Lily Allen would do well to have a little faith in Spotify, given her well publicised feelingsagainst file sharing.
Of course, this diminished revenue wouldn’t be a problem if she’d signed her music up for digital distribution to with someone like RouteNote, who get the full per track rate, and only take 10% on the back end.
That said, the decision of the majors to support Spotify and other streaming services is a pragmatic one; if it is really the case that freemium services are reducing piracy and providing a way for labels to ‘monetize’ their catalogues online then it makes sense for the majors to be in on the ground floor and take advantage of future success, especially since they’re looking such ghastlyfinancials [pg. 33 for the headlines] in the face. Right, now that’s sorted we can all go back to wondering whether or not the Lady is a trap…
You can’t buy her old Volvo as a part of the package, but a lock of Lady Gaga’s hair looks like a bargain next to the thousands of dollars freaky stalkers super-fans are willing to pay for celebrity residues. For the consideration of a mere $114.98, you get a bundle of Gaga goodies that includes:
Pre-Order Lady Gaga Super Deluxe Fame Monster Bundle
Pre-Order Lady Gaga Super Deluxe ‘The Fame Monster’ Bundle and receive the exclusive slim-fit T-shirt at a special price!
The ultimate peek into the Haus Of Gaga spanning music, fashion, art, fans and gossip! ‘The Fame Monster’ includes:
* 8 new studio recordings with production by RedOne, Rodney Jerkins, Teddy Riley, Fernando Garibay and Ron Fair featuring the smash single “Bad Romance” and “Telephone”
* The original album ‘The Fame’
* The definitive “Book of Gaga”-A highly stylized collector’s edition art table book housed in a custom slipcase documenting Gaga’s journey into pop superstardom including:
* A lock of Lady Gaga’s hair
* Collectible puzzle
* Pictorials
* A behind the scenes look at her creative process
* Pull out posters
* Themed fanzines
* A paper doll collection
* 3 D glasses to view forthcoming Gaga visuals
* Personal notes from the artist
* Each book individually numbered
A select amount of the Lady Gaga Super Deluxe bundles will be autographed by Lady Gaga personally. We will be randomly giving these away to people who preorder the Super Deluxe bundles via her Official Webstore. Place your order today and have a chance at receiving one.
Pre-Order Lady Gaga Super Deluxe Fame Monster Bundle
Pre-Order Lady Gaga Super Deluxe ‘The Fame Monster’ Bundle and receive the exclusive slim-fit T-shirt at a special price!
The ultimate peek into the Haus Of Gaga spanning music, fashion, art, fans and gossip! ‘The Fame Monster’ includes:
* 8 new studio recordings with production by RedOne, Rodney Jerkins, Teddy Riley, Fernando Garibay and Ron Fair featuring the smash single “Bad Romance” and “Telephone”
* The original album ‘The Fame’
* The definitive “Book of Gaga”-A highly stylized collector’s edition art table book housed in a custom slipcase documenting Gaga’s journey into pop superstardom including:
* A lock of Lady Gaga’s hair
* Collectible puzzle
* Pictorials
* A behind the scenes look at her creative process
* Pull out posters
* Themed fanzines
* A paper doll collection
* 3 D glasses to view forthcoming Gaga visuals
* Personal notes from the artist
* Each book individually numbered
A select amount of the Lady Gaga Super Deluxe bundles will be autographed by Lady Gaga personally. We will be randomly giving these away to people who preorder the Super Deluxe bundles via her Official Webstore. Place your order today and have a chance at receiving one.
Personally I’d be uncomfortable selling stuff that fell off my body to members of the public; the idea of their inclusion in dolls, real or voodoo would be a bit too much for me.
Whether you like her or not, she’s a show stopper; like Lily Allen, she’s got the knack of maintaining notoriety and exploiting the ink, electronic and otherwise that comes from being headline news. I have a feeling that the rumours about her sexual ambiguity and her ‘outrageous’ onstage antics are part of a calculated Cowellesque marketing plan. Soon, the lesbian relationship, then the pregnancy, the 3rd world adoption, the breakdown and the clean comeback…
Pop music did the predicatable thing at the Brit Awards last night, with Lady Gaga making three trips up to the stage, but then the Brits are more about patting industry winners and safe bets on the back than exposing new musical talent. A slight nod to creativity in the critics’ choice award (which went to vodcoder fan Ellie Goulding and not Laura Marling like it should have) and some of the old guard coming back for a cry and a reminisce. Favourite quote of the evening – Peter Kay introducing Lady Gaga as ‘New York’s answer to Sue Pollard’.
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