MusicRowPics: The Shuggah Pies Artist Visit

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On Tuesday (12/18), The Shuggah Pies visited the MusicRow Headquarters. The trio, formerly known as Pearl Heart, is made up of sisters Angela, Courtney and Amy.

The newly named Shuggah Pies played several songs, including their first single, “I’m Ready,” which can be purchased on iTunes. The sisters also played “Radio” and “Keep on Crying,” telling MusicRow to keep a lookout for new music in 2013.

For more information, visit theshuggahpies.com.

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Sugarland Performer Adds Role as Keynote Speaker

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Kristian Bush

Sugarland‘s Kristian Bush will deliver the keynote address to kick off the 4th annual Nashville Recording Workshop + Expo in 2013. The workshop and expo will return to Rocketown Event Center in downtown Nashville on February 15 & 16. Bush’s longtime collaborator, Tom Tapley, will join him for a look at the stages of a recent production.

NRW+E is designed to allow audio professionals to share their expertise with home studio owners, whether they be musicians, songwriters, producers or engineers. The event will also feature exhibits by leading audio gear manufacturers and an opening evening reception. The Nashville Recording Workshop + Expo 2013 is presented by the AES Nashville Section in conjunction with the Audio Engineering Society.

Previous artists highlighted at the Nashville Recording Workshop + Expo are Ricky Skaggs, Ben Folds and Keb Mo.

Weekly Register: It’s A Red Christmas!

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taylor390As we prepare to delve into the mysteries behind the year’s biggest music sales week, let me begin by wishing all Weekly Register readers a happy holiday and wonderful New Year.

Week 51 was a monster (ended 12-23-12), but unfortunately unable to muster a gain over 2011. Christmas week country album sales were off a slight .73%, but all-genre for the same one-week period was down a more substantial 15.8%. Meanwhile, lo and behold my stocking was stuffed with a special gift from the good folks at Nielsen SoundScan—a shiny TEA chart which as WR readers know converts track sales into handy album equivalents (10 tracks = one album) and will undoubtedly sharpen our 2013 analysis.

weeklygrid12-23-12The elves over at Big Machine, must have been working furiously right up ‘til the night before … since Ms. Swift’s Red (the color of Christmas) scanned another 276k units for the week, giving this project an impressive 2.866 million in 9 weeks! Oh yeah and please paste a “No. 1” sticker on it—it easily topped both the country album and Top 200 album lists. The singer-songwriter also was well represented atop the Digital Track list with “I Knew You Were Trouble” moving up to No. 1 with 221k weekly downloads and an RTD of 1.46 million.

Finally, consulting our nifty new TEA rankings, the precocious, ruby-lipped lass added to her weekly Red album sales with a total of 355k downloads from various Red tracks creating a weekly TEA albums total of 311k. The other part of our SS data surprise, “YTD TEA” shows Red with 3.535 million RTD. Tracks ‘n’ TEA added about 19% to Red’s total.

weeklygrid12-16-12Moving on, we also saw nice jumps for this year’s offerings from Lady Antebellum (No. 2; 78k), Blake Shelton (No. 4; 72k) and Scotty McCreery (No. 9; 48k). Little Big Town (No. 3; 72k) and Jason Aldean (No. 5; 69k) filled in the Top 5. Congrats are a few days premature, but “Cheers!” to Jason as his Night Train will pass the million scans mark before the end of next week.

There’ll be lots to discuss after the end of next week as we close out the stats and shift the analyzer machine into high gear.

But for now you’ll look pretty smart at this weekend’s cocktail parties if you just smile and say, “Yeah, country is doing better than the overall industry—up 3.1%, but not by a whole lot.” Then quietly add, “Labels continued to consolidate this year (Universal and EMI) but it’s exciting to see more than a third of the Top 25 country albums peppered with new faces and fresh sounds.”

Have a safe and happy new year!

 

The Fray, Love and Theft At Nashville’s NYE Bash

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The Fray

Nashville will ring in the New Year with an eclectic mix of music from The Fray, Love and Theft, Sixpence None The Richer, Striking Matches and Lennon and Maisy Stella as part of the fourth annual Music City’s “Bash on Broadway.”

This year will mark the inaugural New Year’s Eve “Bash on Broadway” Family Hour presented by Twice Daily. Lennon and Maisy Stella, (the sisters who portray Connie Britton’s daughters on ABC’s Nashville, and are real-life daughters of husband-wife duo The Stellas), will headline the new event.The Family Hour will also feature the raising of the 15-foot-tall music note (covered in over 150 LED lights), fireworks and discounted non-alcoholic beverages from 7 to 8 p.m. CT.

Love and Theft

Later in the evening, The Fray will headline, with additional performances by Sixpence None the Richer, Love and Theft and Striking Matches. Attendees of Music City’s “Bash on Broadway” will count down to the New Year with the “Music Note Drop®,” triggering a fireworks display and major confetti cannons as it reaches the midnight mark.

 

CMA Releases Holiday Sales Survey Findings

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Recent research released by the Country Music Association shows that technology, as expected, has increasingly weaved its way into the holiday purchases of country music listeners, whether through shopping online or via using smartphones to do product and price comparisons.

Findings from a recent survey include:

  • 41 percent of County Music fans planned to purchase or download holiday music CDs to complement their holiday celebrations.
  • 72 percent of Country Music fans considered purchasing and giving Country Music as a gift.
  • 83 percent of Country Music fans planned to shop online, which is slightly less than the percentage that planned to shop at traditional retailers (93 percent).
  • Top stores for holiday shopping included Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s and Macy’s. Country music fans also planned to make frequent purchases at online retailers such as Amazon and eBay, as well as the online counterparts for the aforementioned retail outlets.

Technology plays a large role in the purchasing process for many Country Music fans–eight out of 10 report that they planned to do product and price comparisons using their Smartphone.

The survey was conducted online with respondents ages 18 and older from the CMA Insider Fan Panel, a group of more than 13,000 Country Music fans recruited from various industry and consumer sources. The make-up of the CMA Insider Fan Panel includes adults from all demographic groups. Results of this panel research are not projectable to the overall U.S. population.

CMT Adds Senior VP, Development

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Joe Livecchi has joined CMT as Senior VP, Development. He will oversee multiple network development teams, along with all external and third party productions. Livecchi will be based at the Viacom Media Network headquarters in New York and will report to Jayson Dinsmore, CMT’s EVP Development and Programming. CMT’s West Coast development team of Claire McCabe, Melanie Moreau and Eliot Goldberg will report to Livecchi.

“Joe is a fantastic collaborator, a passionate story teller, and an even more dynamic person,” says Dinsmore via a release. “As we continue to drive forward our ambitious plan to provide more surprising, engaging and compelling programming, having Joe in the mix will be a tremendous asset to CMT. I couldn’t be happier to bring him on board.”

Previously, Livecchi held positions as Executive Director of development and programming at BBC Worldwide, Vice President and Creative Director of NBC 2000, a creative think tank within The NBC Agency in Burbank, Calif. and Director of Interstitial Programming for ABC. He is a 1990 graduate of Hofstra University.

Scott Borchetta Named One of the Most “Disruptive” People

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Big Machine Label Group President and CEO Scott Borchetta was named as one of “10 People That Totally Changed The Industry in 2012” in a special report by Digital Music News.

According to the news site, Borchetta “had a deliciously disruptive 2012. Big Machine is now inking some groundbreaking, direct licensing deals with major radio conglomerates, and chipping away at a decades-old legacy of extreme radio royalty complication. He’s also shown the chutzpah to thumb his nose at Spotify, while maximizing revenue through deals that emphasize full album sales.”

Others to make the list include Jeff Price (former CEO of TuneCore), Daniel EK (CEO of Spotify), Ellen Shipley (songwriter), Brian Zisk (SF MusicTech Summit), Daniel Glass (Glassnote Records), PSY (artist), Axel Dauchez (CEO of Deezer), Rich Bengloff (President of A2IM), Jimmy Iovine,  Dr. Dre and David Lowery.

In 2012, BMLG had the biggest album debut in over a decade with Taylor Swift‘s RED, marketed and distributed music for ABC’s Nashville, entered into a performance royalty rights agreement with Clear Channel and Entercom, formed partnership with General Mills and Feeding America called Outnumber Hunger and achieved multiple No. 1 singles for its roster of artists including Taylor Swift, Brantley Gilbert, Eli Young Band, Rascal Flatts, Martina McBride, Greg Bates, The Band Perry and Florida Georgia Line.

By The Numbers: CMA Country Christmas on ABC

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2012 Country Christmas. Pictured (L-R): Dierks Bentley, Host Jennifer Nettles, Martina McBride and Keith Urban

ABC aired the 3rd Annual CMA Country Christmas broadcast last night (Dec. 20) with Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles serving as host.

Additional artists who joined the three-time host in celebration of the season included Dierks Bentley, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Lady Antebellum, Scotty McCreery, The Band Perry, Keith Urban, Colbie Caillat, Katherine Jenkins and John Legend.

Nettles opened the show with “Naughty Would Be Nice For Christmas,” while reclining on a white couch before backup dancers join her. The Band Perry performed “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” and Lady Antebellum turned in a rendition of “Holly Jolly Christmas,” from their album On This Winter’s Night. Other highlights include Legend’s performance of “This Christmas,” Little Big Town’s rendition of Amy Grant’s “Tennessee Christmas,” McBride’s “O Come All Ye Faithful” and Urban’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”

This year’s two-hour special garnered 7.28 million live, plus same day views according to initial reporting by TV by the Numbers. The official tally, which takes into account on-demand viewing, will be forthcoming. In 2011, the broadcast drew more than 9 million viewers, an increase of nearly 23 percent over the inaugural broadcast in 2010.

Robert Deaton is executive producer, Paul Miller directs the event and David Wild is the writer.

The program, taped at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, will re-air on the network this Saturday (Dec. 22) and Sunday (Dec. 23).

MusicRowPics: JJ Lawhorn Artist Visit

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Average Joe’s JJ Lawhorn stopped by the MusicRow headquarters on Dec. 10. The Virginia native, who recently moved to Nashville, was discovered when he was 15 after posting a Justin Moore cover song on YouTube.

Now 19, Lawhorn played a set of four songs during his visit, including “Tanlines,” “She Kissed Me Anyway,” “That’s How The Country Grows Them” and his current single “You Can Tell a Man by His Truck.”

Lawhorn just wrapped filming his new music video for “You Can Tell a Man by His Truck,” as well as a touring stint with Colt Ford. For more information, visit jjlawhorn.com.

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Video Roundup: Lady Antebellum, The Voice

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Lady Antebellum has been entertaining fans with more than just their music. The trio’s “Webisode Wednesdays” series gives fans a peek into life on the road and in the studio. In this week’s episode, Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley reprises his character “Lady Aunt B” and welcomes “Euneeda Biscuit” (played by Laura Bell Bundy), along with Dierks Bentley.

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The fourth season of The Voice will launch early next year with two new coaches, Usher and Shakira, joining Blake Shelton and Adam Levine. A promo for the new season has been released. As the foursome ride in Shelton’s pickup truck, it quickly becomes obvious that their musical preferences are diverse–so diverse they begin arguing about what songs should be blaring through Shelton’s truck speakers. Ultimately, it takes a classic power ballad to get all four coaches singing along at the top of their lungs.