The Rise And Fall...

In the music business, quite often songs are released that have every potential to become big hits - but somehow just dont get there! Let's take a look at two tracks that I felt should have been very big hits, but were not, and some of the reasons for why they didn't make it.



Princess Kylie released this incredible Freemasons remix of "The One" as a single in July 2008. Or did she?

Well, it was put on sale digitally - and that was that! No physical releases, since the bloody record company decided to cancel them. Kylie however went ahead and made a fabulous video for the song (supposedly on her own budget).

The single version was adored by most Kylie fans, the public seemed to like the track - a Top 10 hit for sure, yes? Erm, no!

"The One" charted at #36 in the UK - and became her first single ever to miss the UK Top 30 (it was also her first digital only release, go figure. She has since added two more digital-only releases that missed the Top 30). It didn't chart at all in Australia. The song did however find Top 10 success in Slovakia and Bulgaria. In New Zealand it became her biggest radio hit since "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", but it didn't even chart on the singles list (again, no CD single available). Kylie did also not do any promo for the song.

When you have an artist like Kylie, who has been releasing music in 25 years and has a lot of die-hard fans and collectors, do the record company really think that all these fans will buy digital-only releases??? It has been made very obvious with artists that have been in the business a long time and have a big fanbase aged 30 years and over that physical releases are a must as well!





Another single from the same year, released just a month after Kylie's "The One".

"Into The Nightlife" by Cyndi Lauper should have been massive! It was a perfect comeback song for an artist that had been more or less away from commercial music for a very long time. The first time I heard the song I thought "wow, this is exactly the song I have been wanting her to release for more then 20 years!". And while Cyndi may have been deemed as "old" or "a has been" by some, that very same thing did not stop Cher in having a massive comeback with "Believe" - and this felt like that sort of a comeback. There was a good (although perhaps a bit "too gay") music video made for the track and Cyndi did some TV promo for the song in both the US and the UK. So how did things turn out?

Well, the song did not chart in the US and in the UK it charted at #168. In Australia it peaked at #82, becoming her first single to chart there in 14 years. The song found it's biggest success on the US dance charts where it became a #1 hit.

There was no CD single or any other physical formats released for the single. I guess fans were once again expected to buy some MP3's, despite having collected physical formats from the artist for close to 30 years...



This is just a couple of examples - but the latest Madonna single "Girl Gone Wild" is another, very recent example. And speaking of Kylie, her latest single was also a digital-only release, which missed the UK Top 30. Now, I understand that there is a big market for digital music and that is fine. But I feel that the record companies are completely overlooking artists that have a very loyal, longterm fanbase who has been buying and collecting releases for decades and have no interest in MP3s. Promo CD's for these artists tend go for a lot of money because in many cases they are the only physical releases available to the fans.

Example: "We Take Care Of Our Own" by Bruce Springsteen was the first single from his 2012 album. The song did not chart in the US or UK top 100. However, the album went #1 and copies of the promo single went for big bucks online. I can not imagine many Springsteen fans having interest in buying an MP3 when they know they will buy the CD album and when they have to shell out a lot of money for a promo CD since a regular single was not made available.

If artists and record companies want more established artists to do well on the singles charts and actually sell their singles, they need to rethink their approach. Limited (not overpriced) CD singles, sold exclusively through Amazon for example  might be a good idea.

Music sales have been reaching an all-time low both in the UK and the US this year. Albums have been going to number 1 with less then 100.000 copies sold (like Adam Lambert in the US) and with less then 15.000 copies sold in the UK. That includes ALL sales, both physical and digital. People are of course still stealing a lot of music. And they stream it on-line via Spotify, YouTube etc, which it is not very different then buying/playing an MP3, I would imagine.

If music is to be sold in the future, purchasing it needs to be made a lot more exiting. People loved to go to record stores and buy limited editions in cool packaging, with posters, postcards, b-sides etc. Now that music is almost gone from people's TV's (there are no shows like Top Of The Pops, American Bandstand, CD-UK, Soild Gold etc anymore), MTV is a joke and radio has been formatted so much it is on the verge of killing itself, music has become much more faceless, generic and untouchable. The few CD singles that are still released are usually just 2trk and very overpriced. Vinyl singles are rare and hard to find. It is no wonder that sales are going down.

I love music! I love the business, the releases, the music videos, the charts - everything about it. But I feel that as a whole it has never before been as boring. Not because of the music, but because of everything else. I feel that most of the colors have gone from the whole scene, and I can only hope some of them will be back sometime in the future. Until then, I am spending small fortunes on-line and in second hand stores buying promos and second hand items, instead of putting the money into today's singles business...