Konicki Named Country Weekly Editor-In-Chief (updated)

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Lisa Konicki

Lisa Konicki

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — American Media, Inc. (AMI) announced today that Lisa Konicki, former Photo Editor of Country Weekly magazine, has been named the new Editor-in-Chief effective February 1. Konicki will also have responsibility over the brand’s web site, countryweekly.com.

It remains unofficial, but sources confirm that Larry Holden, the previous Editor-in-Chief has exited. Also leaving are David Scarlett and Jerry Holthouse.

In making the announcement, David Pecker, AMI president and CEO, said, “Lisa’s wealth of leadership qualities and exciting ideas will continue to make our magazine and its web site a must-read for fans of country music’s biggest stars.”

Konicki, who has been with the magazine for 13 years, said, “I’m excited to have the opportunity to serve Country Weekly as its new Editor-in-Chief. I look forward to making it the most influential voice in the country music market, both in print and online.”

Along with Konicki, other important staff changes included the appointment of new Managing Editor, Ken Tucker, who currently serves as Editor of Billboard Country Update. As managing editor, Tucker will oversee the writing and editorial staff.

Additionally, Country Weekly welcomes back former staffer Eva Elliott. Elliott, who has held the art director position at Relish and Spry magazines for the last four years, formerly served Country Weekly as the assistant art director and will now serve as art director. She will oversee the layout and design of the magazine.

Larry Holden can be reached at 615-491-2745 or [email protected].

David Scarlett can be reached at 615-500-1965 or [email protected].

About American Media, Inc.

American Media, Inc.  publishes  Star, Shape, Men’s Fitness, Fit Pregnancy, Natural Health, and The National Enquirer.  In addition to print properties, AMI manages 14 different web sites. The company also owns Distribution Services, Inc., the country’s #1 in-store magazine merchandising company.

Gillette UNCUT Film Series Features Tim McGraw

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TimmyGillette brought together some of the world’s most popular musicians yesterday (1/28), including country star/actor Tim McGraw, to launch its Gillette UNCUT music film series at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Directed by Danny Clinch, and executive produced by Greenlight Media & Marketing, the documentary short films provide viewers with unprecedented backstage access into the worlds of McGraw, will.i.am, Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 and the All-American Rejects featuring Tyson Ritter.

The event included a World Premiere screening of the Gillette UNCUT films, which feature the stars preparing for performances and revealing not only some of their pre-show rituals, but moments of introspection, self-doubt and re-assurance. In addition, Gillette has launched “Shave Like a Rock Star,” a series of tongue-in-cheek shaving tutorials featuring the gillettelikeness of each artist. Each of the films can be viewed here.

“I take every performance very seriously and my preparation for any show is critical,” says McGraw. “I’m excited to share this peek into my preparation in the Gillette UNCUT film directed by my friend Danny Clinch.”

Underwood To Sing At Superbowl

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carrieThe NFL and CBS have announced that ACM Entertainer of the Year Carrie Underwood will perform the National Anthem as part of Super Bowl XLIV pregame festivities at Sun Life Stadium in South Florida on Sunday, February 7. The performance will be televised live on CBS Sports prior to kickoff. More than 151 million viewers in the U.S. watched last year’s Super Bowl, the most-watched television program in history. The pregame show and Super Bowl XLIV will be broadcast worldwide in more than 230 countries and territories.

Underwood  joins a stellar list of performers who have sung the National Anthem at the Super Bowl including: Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Neil Diamond, Whitney Houston, Harry Connick, Jr., Garth Brooks, Natalie Cole, Vanessa Williams, Luther Vandross, Cher, Faith Hill, Mariah Carey, Dixie Chicks, Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson and many more. Underwood will be hitting the road in March for her headlining “Play On Tour.”

Taylor Swift Shatters Female Download Record

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tayBillboard reported today that Taylor Swift has broken Britney Spears’ 2008 record for best first-week download sales by a female artist with her current single, “Today Was a Fairytale.” The track sold 325,000 and is set to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Digital Songs chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both charts will be released tomorrow morning (1/28).

“Fairytale,” from the upcoming film Valentine’s Day, in which Swift co-stars, gives her the best Hot 100 start of her career and equals her highest peak, established with “You Belong with Me” this past August. Unlike “Fairytale’s” quick ascent, “Belong” took 16 weeks to reach the runner-up position.

Swift claims her first No. 1 on Digital Songs, having previously peaked at No. 2 with a pair of tracks; “You’re Not Sorry” (November, 2008) and “Jump Then Fall” (November, 2009). The only higher sales frame posted by one of her titles occurred during Christmas week 2008 when “Love Story” moved 360,000 downloads.

Turnpike Staff Revealed; Republic Nashville Adds Blythe

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turnpikemusicNine North Records President Larry Pareigis has announced a new division of the virtual label/artist services company called Turnpike Music. The new division’s focus will be promotion and marketing of artists to secondary country radio.

“Establishing Turnpike will allow an entirely new level of highly targeted service to both new and existing clients moving forward,” says Pareigis. “This will fit hand-in-glove with what we’re already doing with mainstream Country radio at Nine North.”

Nine North staffers Greg Stevens ([email protected]) and Ryan Barnstead ([email protected]) will transition to National Director roles for Turnpike. Stevens will handle the West region and Barnstead has been stations in the East region. Both have been on staff with Nine North since its opening in 2007. “I’m excited about what the future will bring with Ryan and Greg superserving currently underserved indicator, activator and secondary stations with Turnpike,” Pareigis says.

Turnpike opens for business Monday, February 1. Announcements about the roster are forthcoming.

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Stacy Blythe headshot

Stacy Blythe

Republic Nashville has hired Stacy Blythe for the newly-created position of Southeast Promotion rep. She will be based in Nashville and report to Republic National Promo Dir. Bobby Young.

“Stacy’s passion, creativity and professionalism makes her the perfect addition to our amazing promotion staff,” says Young. “Hiring her is another great catch for Republic Nashville, and I’m confident it won’t take long for her to get up and running in the Southeast, becoming another key component of our organization!”

Blythe’s resume includes stops at 1720, Category 5, and most recently, Stoney Creek Records. She is a graduate of MTSU’s Recording Management program. Reach her at 615-887-9860 or [email protected]. 

Videos From Gokey And Harp Get Exclusive Premieres

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harpThe music video for Warner artist Jessica Harp’s new single, “A Woman Needs” premiered exclusively on AOL’s The Boot yesterday (1/25). Directed by Kristin Barlowe, the video chronicles three girlfriends as they go through childhood, teen and adult years, and their tradition of marking a star symbol on their hands—first with stickers, then ink and lastly as a tattoo. Inspired by the video, Harp got a tattoo of three stars as a reminder of her first solo album, and the title track’s message about girls following their dreams.

“A Woman Needs” making-of-the-video webisodes are also on TheBoot.com. The webisodes run in correlation with a contest to win a weekend getaway to Nashville to meet Harp.

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danny gokey219 Recordings/RCA Nashville recording artist Danny Gokey found fame as a finalist on Season Eight of the FOX blockbuster, American Idol, and beginning today (1/26), AmericanIdol.com is offering a 48-hour exclusive premiere of his debut music video, “My Best Days Are Ahead of Me.” The single is the first track from Gokey’s Mark Bright-produced debut album, My Best Days, slated for release on March 2. Fans can pre-order it at dannygokey.com.

Ty Williams’s “More” Offers Moving Message

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Pictured L to R: News Editor Sarah Skates, Publisher/CEO David Ross, Williams, RowFax Manager Michelle Ross and Chart Director Jon Freeman. Photo: Jon Walker, AristoWorks

Pictured (L- R): Back: Publisher/CEO David Ross, Williams, RowFax Manager Michelle Stephens; Front: News Editor Sarah Skates, and Chart Director Jon Freeman. Photo: Jon Walker, AristoWorks

The team at AristoWorks put together a slide show using images of the devastation in Haiti set to the song “More,” from Cherry Heart Records artist Ty Williams. The 24-year-old veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom wrote the song about the importance of giving to others.

Williams recently visited the MusicRow offices to meet the staff and perform an acoustic set.

The Virginia native’s debut single and video, “Barn On The Rooftop,” is out now on CMT Pure, and premiered on The Daily Buzz.

Williams’ EP is available on iTunes and his self-titled debut album is slated for release later this year.

The Band Perry’s New Video; Josh Thompson At “Music In The City”

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Pictured l to r: Neil Perry, Kimberly Perry, Trey Fanjoy, Reid Perry Photo credit: Justin Key

Pictured l to r: Neil Perry, Kimberly Perry, Trey Fanjoy, Reid Perry. Photo credit: Justin Key

Republic Nashville’s The Band Perry – siblings Kimberly, Neil and Reid Perry – teamed up with award-winning video director Trey Fanjoy (Taylor Swift, Keith Urban) for their first video, “Hip To My Heart.” Shot last week in Nashville, the video is for the trio’s debut single, currently a Top 35 hit  – and climbing – on the country singles’ chart. The video is scheduled for release in the next few weeks.
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Josh Thompson

Pictured (l-r): Columbia Nashville Dir of Nt'l Promotion Mike Wilson, VP Promotion Skip Bishop, Thompson, Sony Music Nashville Chairman Joe Galante, Columbia Nashville VP of Nt'l Promotion Jimmy Rector.

Columbia Nashville recording artist Josh Thompson performed at Nashville Lifestyles’ “Music In The City” party on Jan. 19. The sold-out event at the Tin Roof benefited the W.O. Smith School. “Music in the City” also featured Love and Theft, Josh Kelley, Jessie James, and Steel Magnolia.

Face The Music: The New Sales Math

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“Record labels shouldn’t worry about falling album sales because digital track sales are making up the difference.”

The above statement, often heard in anecdotal discussions, is easy to prove wrong. Let’s look at 2009’s results for the overall industry. According to Nielsen SoundScan, digital track sales grew by 8.3% from 1.07 billion to 1.159 billion, an increase of 89 million. Album sales (including digital albums) slid 12.7% from 428.4 million to 373.9 million, or down 54.4 million units.

Now some basic math: Our formula includes revenue (to record labels) of .70¢ per digital track and average revenue of $9.25 per album sale.

Results: 2009 digital track revenue grew about $62.3 million while album sales revenue fell about $503 million showing a 2009 net revenue loss in excess of $440 million.

So clearly digital track sales are not fully replacing lost album sales revenue. In fact during 2009, digital track increases offset less than 15% of the revenue lost from shrinking album purchases.

SSchartAnother byproduct from album sales tumbling about 50% over the last decade (2000: 785.1 million units; 2009: 373.9 million) is that artists already on the Top Ten Selling Album Artists of the SoundScan Era (1991-1/3/2010) are increasingly likely to become “grandfathered.”

There are four Nashville artists on this exalted Top Ten list: Garth Brooks (No. 1; 68.363 million units sold), George Strait (No. 6; 41.843 million), Tim McGraw (No. 7; 38.677) and Alan Jackson (No. 8; 37.447). This group is likely to become the faces on the Mount Rushmore of all-time country album sales.

For example, Taylor Swift’s Fearless was the top selling album in 2009 and scanned about 3.217 million units. Across all her titles she reached about 4.6 million. Carrie Underwood was the second highest selling Nashville artist with a total of 1.895 million units. Trying to reach 40 million career album units in the face of diminishing album sales is becoming increasingly difficult. It will be extremely rare to see any new artists enter those rankings.

Our final math exhibit is sure to please calendar scribes. This year’s SoundScan numbers are based upon a 52 and 53 week period. Last year’s rankings ended on 12/29/08 and this year the closing date was 1/3/10, a 53 week period. However, SoundScan has chosen to view some data based on the full 53 weeks and some on a 52 week span, starting 1/5/09. This “apples to oranges” approach is confusing everyone. Basically note that for year-to-year sales comparisons the data researchers have used the 52-week period, but for individual artist rankings they are covering the full 53 weeks. This means that officially country sales (based upon 52 weeks, see chart page 1) were down 3.2% and overall industry album sales were down 12.7%. Note that except for the Jazz format, country had the smallest sales drop this year.

Paisley Creates Pop-up Book Video

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bpThe video for Brad Paisley’s latest hit, “American Saturday Night,” uses over 20,000 still photographs to build a world designed to look like a pop-up book. Paisley’s camp says it is a “2.5D world” that includes Paisley, his band The Drama Kings, and over 100 extras. Production company Branded Picture made the video, using several shoots in front of a green screen to get the final look. [Scroll to the bottom to see the video.]

Looks like a cameo from hit songwriter Ashley Gorley.

Looks like a cameo from hit songwriter Ashley Gorley.

“American Saturday Night” is currently No. 9 on MusicRow’s Country Breakout Chart.

Paisley was just announced as the headliner at the 7th Annual New England Country Music Festival at Gillette Stadium in Boston. Joining him on Aug. 21 will be Jason Aldean, Darius Rucker, Sara Evans and Easton Corbin.