Tag Archive for: featured-2

John Rich Wins "The Celebrity Apprentice"

John Rich hears he is winner of The Celebrity Apprentice.


John Rich was named winner of NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice last night (5/22) by Donald Trump. The season finale aired live from the Skirball Theatre in New York City, where Rich became the show’s first country music winner, beating out actress Marlee Matlin.
In last night’s episode, Rich surprised everyone by playing his “Trump card” and becoming the first contestant to bring in additional money in the finale. Rich added a donation of $250,000 from Dollar General and Reckitt Benckiser, and $25,000 from The Melting Pot. Rich also performed his new song “For the Kids” during the episode.
As the newest Celebrity Apprentice, Rich received a $250,000 prize for his charity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The show’s charity earnings for the season totaled $3,120,852 – the largest amount ever raised by a TV series.
“Today has been an unbelievable day!” said Rich. “I got Trump to put on a Stetson hat on national television and now I get to drive down to Memphis with a $250,000 check for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. This entire experience has been for the kids and I’m so excited to raise money for this cause and help save lives. Everyone, please purchase the song ‘For the Kids.’ All of the proceeds will go straight to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital!”
Last week, Rich released two new Six Pak albums via Warner Music Nashville: Rich Rocks and For the Kids. He has also teamed with fellow Celebrity Apprentice contestants Meat Loaf, Lil Jon and Mark McGrath to record “Stand In The Storm,” a new single benefiting their respective charities from the show.

John Rich chats with St. Jude patient T'Ara during a recent visit to the hospital to shoot for the show's finale episode.




 

Americana Nominees To Be Announced Live From NY

As reported last week on musicrow.com, (read details here) the Americana Music Association will formally reveal its Awards nominees May 23 at the Gibson Showroom in New York City. It has now been confirmed that the invitation-only media event will be broadcast live on SiriusXM Outlaw Country channel 60 and streamed live on Livestream.com and via MusicCityroots.com. Artist and organizational members of the AMA will receive a code that will enable them to view the conference via Facebook.
Rosanne Cash will read the nominee list and music will be offered from Levon Helm and his Dirt Farmer quartet, Jim Lauderdale, The Civil Wars and some surprise guests!  Nashville Mayor Karl Dean will be in attendance to make remarks about the association and Music City.

Eye On Idol (5/20/11)

And then there were two.
Following last night’s (5/19) exit of Haley Reinhart from American Idol, only country contestants Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina remain. That’s right, an all country finale, which has never happened in the show’s 11 seasons.
No matter who wins, this is great news for Nashville. We get not just one, but two, Idol voter-approved talents to mold into the next future stars. But as is the case with any new artist, there will be some important hurdles. Below is an examination of those hurdles and an Idol finale scorecard.
First off, let’s talk talent. Detractors have criticized Scotty for not being a great singer or perhaps sounding too much like Josh Turner. Sure he may not be the rangiest vocalist out there, and he may have sung “Your Man” one too many times in the early rounds, but I haven’t heard him hit too many sour notes so far. He seems to know his limitations and wisely stays close to his sweet spot. Lauren, on the other hand, is a naturally gifted singer with a gorgeous tone and extraordinary range. She gets the win in this category.

Haley Reinhart


There’s also an aspect of preparedness to consider. Scotty has a definite lead in this category, showing a confidence onstage and in front of the camera that belies his 17 years. He also has a keen ability to adapt and make instinctively appropriate choices for the moment, like choosing Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You” on the Wednesday following Osama Bin Laden’s death.
By comparison, Lauren’s song choices seem completely slapdash. For example, her own song choice for Wednesday’s (5/18) highly critical Top 3 show was Faith Hill’s cute-but-forgettable “Wild One.” Hardly a slam dunk. And I’m still not exactly clear how she sees herself as an artist… is she more Miranda or Martina or something completely different? Issues her label will have to confront.
Country radio is still an important piece of the puzzle, and Scotty in particular may face some challenges there. If Phyllis Stark’s recent article for Radio-Info is any indication, many country PDs and MDs aren’t going to be signing up for the Scotty fan club anytime soon. The response to Lauren was less hostile, provided that she comes with some A-plus material.
Hopefully, some of these folks in country radio will come to their senses and realize that both artists are young and still developing their skills. They should also pause to consider just how many of their listeners (and potential new ones) have been calling to vote for these kids (95 million total votes this week, fyi). And I won’t want to presume to speak for the labels here, but I imagine great care will be taken to ensure Scotty is not just a Josh Turner soundalike. His performances and choices suggest a wide range of ability and taste and it shouldn’t be a problem for him to bury that criticism.
Lastly, there’s a certain all-important X factor. Scotty has this in droves. He’s the all-American kid that helps your grandmother cross the street and rescues helpless kittens out of trees. Seriously, how can you compete with something that symbolic? To her credit, Lauren possesses a likeable southern girl charm but she’s no match for Scotty in this area.
Yes, both contestants have some checks in their columns. Both are distinct talents with their own set of pluses and minuses. But for my money, nothing short of the supposed Rapture tomorrow is going to stop Scotty from being crowned the next American Idol.

Cloud Battle Will Rain On Consumers

[UPDATE: When this article was published on May 19, only EMI Music and Warner had finalized licensing deals with Apple for its cloud service. Now CNET is reporting that Sony Music has also struck a deal with Apple, making Universal the lone holdout.]
Apple has reportedly signed a licensing deal with EMI Music for a cloud-based music service, and is close to finalizing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music.
Warner Music Group reached an agreement with Apple last month, and having EMI on board will bring the tech giant one step closer to offering a full-featured cloud music service. At present, available cloud options from Google and Amazon are unlicensed.
Once deals from Sony and Universal are finalized, Apple will be in a position to offer a service with more bells and whistles than its rivals. With Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on the horizon for June 6, the company might finally be ready to unveil the long-awaited service.
It remains unclear, however, which new options and features will be part of the Apple cloud experience. One possibility is the ability to scan a user’s iTunes library and match tracks with existing master copies in the cloud, thereby eliminating the need to upload gigabytes of files. Apple could also charge a subscription fee for cloud usage.
The stripped-down Amazon cloud interface could stand some improvement. Aside from a clunky file uploading process, it’s essentially just a hard drive with some navigational features to help track down the album, artist or song desired. Furthermore, the service offers no clear way to find any track-specific information like number of plays or year released. On the upside, users can apparently download the files to any computer and new mp3 purchases from Amazon are automatically sent to the cloud.
But there’s also also a strange disconnect between the Cloud Player and Amazon’s massive retail arm. One of the things that has always made Amazon such a vital and exciting place to shop is its discovery and recommendation engine. If a user rates, say, the latest Miranda Lambert album AND an old Talking Heads record, then Amazon makes all kinds of recommendations based on the purchasing habits of other users who own similar things. None of that appears to be happening in the cloud.
This is one area where the iTunes cloud service will likely triumph over its competitors. As an organizing tool, iTunes is without peer. Presumably Apple will inject its cloud product with a similar logic for grouping and sorting music in myriad ways. If it can also include an engaging recommendation tool that will encourage users to explore and discover, Apple will have the edge.
The major labels are rumored to be pulling for Apple to win the cloud battle. If a fully-licensed Apple cloud takes a huge chunk of the digital music marketplace, then Amazon and Google will be forced to secure licenses for their services to stay relevant.

Weekly Chart Report (5/20/11)


CMT Radio Live visits with John Rich as he prepares for the big “Celebrity Apprentice” finale this Sunday. (L-R): CMT Radio host Cody Alan, Rich


SPIN ZONE
No lie at all, The Band Perry’s “You Lie” takes over the CountryBreakout Chart’s No. 1 spot, making this the sibling trio’s second consecutive No. 1. Taylor Swift is still chasing the Perry clan with “Mean,” which advances to No. 2. Toby Keith’s “Somewhere Else” gets a bump to No. 3, but within a hundred spins are Justin Moore’s “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away” at No. 5 and Blake Shelton’s “Honey Bee” at No. 6.
Make way for more summer smashes, people. Lady Antebellum’s “Just A Kiss” is already huge, rocketing up to No. 18 in its third week charting. In hot pursuit is Zac Brown Band’s Jimmy Buffett-assisted “Knee Deep,” which climbs onward to No. 20 in its fourth week. Songs with guest performers are a hot item, apparently, as Kenny Chesney’s “You And Tequila” featuring Grace Potter slides upward to No. 30 after three weeks. Also performing well are Billy Currington’s “Love Done Gone,” at No. 38 and Thompson Square’s “I Got You” at No. 43.
Darius Rucker’s latest, “I Got Nothin'” clearly has something, because it leads the pack of chart debuts at No. 67. Also making first appearances are Jonalee White’s “Sugar” at No. 76, Landon Michael’s “This Ain’t California” at No. 78, and Glen Templeton’s “I Could Be The One” at No. 80.
Frozen Playlists: KBCR, KRVN, KVVP, KWWR, KYEZ, Nashville XM 11, WCMS, WKWS, WTCM




Upcoming Singles
May 23
The Lunabelles/A Place To Shine/BNA
Shawna Russell/Get Right Or Get Left/Way Out West
Phil Vassar/Let’s Get Together/Rodeowave
Joe Nichols/Take It Off/Show Dog – Universal
Darius Rucker/I Got Nothin’/Capitol
Josh Kelley/Gone Like That/MCA
May 31
Kenny Chesney feat. Grace Potter/You And Tequila/BNA
Bobby Dean/Rebound/Lamon
Jaron and TLRTL feat. Big Kenny/Beautiful Lies (Jaronwood/Universal Republic/Nine North)
• • • • •
New On The Chart—Debuting This Week
Artist/song/label — chart pos.
Darius Rucker/I Got Nothin’/Capitol — 67
Jonalee White/Sugar/Lick — 76
Landon Michael/This Ain’t California/Big Dog Records — 78
Glen Templeton/I Could Be The One/Capstone — 80
Greatest Spin Increase
Artist/song/label — spin+
Lady Antebellum/Just A Kiss/Capitol — 505
Kenny Chesney feat. Grace Potter/You And Tequila/BNA — 438
Zac Brown Band and Jimmy Buffett/Knee Deep/Southern Ground / Atlantic — 282
Darius Rucker/I Got Nothin’/Capitol — 215
Billy Currington/Love Done Gone/Mercury — 213
On Deck—Soon To Be Charting
Artist/song/label — spins
Sarah Darling/Something To Do With Your Hands/Black River — 202
Phil Vassar/Let’s Get Together/Rodeowave — 199
Jadi Norris/Workin’ Man’s Saturday Night/IGO Records — 198
Ben Gregg/From Lonely To Love/Cupit — 193
David St. Romain/Twenty Years Late/Aria/Turnpike — 180
Most Added
Artist/song/label — New Adds
Kenny Chesney feat. Grace Potter/You And Tequila/BNA — 22
Darius Rucker/I Got Nothin’/Capitol — 16
Thompson Square/I Got You/Stoney Creek — 14
Lady Antebellum/Just A Kiss/Capitol — 11
Joe Nichols/Take It Off/Show Dog-Universal — 11
Phil Vassar/Let’s Get Together/Rodeowave — 10
Rachel Holder/Chocolate/All Entertainment — 10

Brett Eldredge visits with WKDF/Nashville staffers before an acoustic performance for the station. (L-R): WKDF PD Marty McFly, Eldredge, MD Matt Bradshaw


WIRK/West Palm Beach and Bud Light presented a concert The Plaza at CityPlace recently, featuring performers Corey Smith and Easton Corbin. (L-R): Smith, WIRK personalities Sammy Cruise and John O'Connell, Corbin


MCA's Ashton Shepherd poses with the staff of WUSY/Chattanooga. Shepherd's sophomore album "Where Country Grows" is due out July 12. (L-R) MCA regional "Uncle" Louie Newman; WUSY's Gator Harrison; Shepherd; WUSY staffers Bear, Mo (Melissa Turner), and Dex.

Shelton Shares New Album Details

Blake Shelton today (5/19) revealed details about his upcoming album. The full-length release, titled Red River Blue, will come out July 12 on Warner Bros. Produced by multi-award winner Scott Hendricks, it is his ninth album, and follows his two most recent projects which were Six Paks.

The lead single “Honey Bee” is Shelton’s fastest rising song to date. Less than seven weeks since its debut, the feel-good summer tune is already No. 6 on MusicRow’s Country Breakout chart. During its first week the single sold over 138,000 digital downloads, a feat unmatched by any country male soloist. Read MusicRow’s exclusive coverage of the single sales strategy here.
Shelton is the reigning CMA Male Vocalist and is currently one of the musician coaches on NBC’s The Voice. He is part of a panel with stars Christian Aguilera, Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine on the hit show that has already been renewed for a second season.
“Honey Bee” follows his three consecutive No. 1 hits: “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking,” “All About Tonight” and “Hillbilly Bone.”

Country Stars On "Forbes'" Celebrity 100

Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith all scored slots on Forbes’ annual Celebrity 100 power list. The ranking of musicians, actors, television personalities, athletes and other fabulons takes into account press coverage, social media, and earnings during the previous 12 months.

Source: Forbes


Proving the power of social media, Lady Gaga takes the No. 1 spot, driven by an enormous number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans.
Social media influence and an estimated net income of $45 million helped propel Swift to number seven.
Brad Paisley ranked No. 48 ($40 million), followed by Toby Keith at No. 51 ($50 million) and Tim McGraw at No. 61 ($35 million).
The earnings consist of pretax income between May 1, 2010, and May 1, 2011. Management, agent and attorney fees are not deducted. Forbes has been publishing the list annually since 1999.
More here.
 

Nashville Songwriters Claim BMI Pop Song of the Year

BMI held its 59th annual Pop Music Awards in Los Angeles yesterday (5/17) and for the second straight year, Nashville songwriters wrote the BMI Pop Song of the Year. Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood along with publishers DWHaywood Music, RADIOBULLETSPUBLISHING and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing earned the top honor for Lady Antebellum’s world-conquering “Need You Now.” Previously the award went to Taylor Swift and Liz Rose for “Love Story.”
During the ceremony, David Foster was named a BMI Icon, while Lady Gaga, Jason Derülo, and JR Rotem were all honored as BMI Pop Songwriters of the Year. Sony/ATV Songs LLC was named Pop Publisher of the Year. BMI President/CEO Del Bryant co-hosted the event with BMI VP/GM Los Angeles Barbara Cane and BMI SVP Writer/Publisher Relations Phil Graham, which also saluted the writers and publishers of the year’s 50 most-performed pop songs.

Members of Nashville’s family gathered for a group photo at the 2011 BMI Pop Awards. (L-R): BMI’s Jody Williams, Warner/Chappell Music’s B.J. Hill, Sony/ATV Publishing’s Troy Tomlinson, BMI’s Clay Bradley, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood, and Warner/Chappell Music’s Steve Markland.

ReThinking Track Equivalent Albums

The TEA concept creates a way to compare album and track sales in an apples to apples approach. This is especially helpful because the music marketplace has been rapidly evolving. But is the current 10 tracks = 1 album the best way to accomplish this task?
Nielsen SoundScan recently announced that 2011 vs. 2010 music sales are showing a 1.6% increase through 5/8/2011. Good sales news has been in short supply for the music industry, making the release especially newsworthy. The number was calculated by combining physical and digital album sales plus track equivalent albums (TEA).
============
According to Nielsen SoundScan Data (through 5/8/2011):
Total Albums w/TEA          +1.6%
Overall Albums       -1.5%
Physical Albums      -8.3%
Digital Albums         +16.8%
Digital Tracks           +9.6%
============
The actual number of tracks per album, however varies widely. For example, Jason Aldean’s latest chart topping hit album has 15 tracks. Katy Perry’s CD has 12 cuts plus there is a 17 cut deluxe version. Adele’s blockbuster album has 12 cuts. Then we also have six paks and eight paks. Regardless of the number of cuts an album contains, each time it’s scanned it counts as one unit.
Not surprisingly, rebalancing the equation could result in big swings. Looking at SoundScan numbers in the table below, using 11 tracks=1 album in 2011 would add 42 million equivalent albums compared with 46.3 million using 10 tracks=1 album.

Solutions?
Could this TEA process be improved? One way to sharpen the tabulations might be to calculate each album’s “TEA rate” based upon the number of cuts it contains. So for example Jason Aldean would have to sell 15 tracks from his current album to add an additional TEA unit to that album. And John Rich, who is releasing a new six pak this week would need only six downloads of any of the tracks contained on this new release to get a TEA unit credit. SoundScan is all about units—not dollars—so although this might seem unfair to artists with a higher number of cuts on an album, in reality it simply applies a constant yardstick across album and track purchases.
But what about the financial side of these transactions? Is it possible to compare pricing, margins and profitability across album and track sales for retail and wholesale? The degree of difficulty here is high. The additional burden of offsetting marketing, distribution and manufacturing costs, makes this method highly complex.
However, giving each downloaded track an individual TEA sales equation based upon the number of cuts available on the album from which the cut was released, seems both doable and more accurate.
What are your thoughts? Do you have another solution?


DISClaimer Single Reviews (5/18/11)

Five newcomers, four up-and-comers and one Hall of Fame member—those are the ingredients for this edition of “DisClaimer.”
The McClymonts, Keenie Word, Justin Haigh, J.T. Hodges and Jesse Keith Whitley are the names in the first category. In photo finish, Justin Haigh edges out Hodges for the DisCovery Award.
Billy Currington, Thompson Square, Jerrod Niemann and The LoCash Cowboys comprise the second category. My money is on the always entertaining Jerrod Niemann. He has the Disc of the Day.
The Hall of Famer is Charley Pride, who deserves a better song.
JUSTIN HAIGH/All My Best Friends Are Behind Bars
Writer: J. Haigh; Producer: Lew Curatolo; Publisher: Apache, ASCAP; Apache Ranch (track) (www.justinhaigh.com)
—He has a really cool voice, full of drawled resonance and honky-tonk authority. The drinking song is as cool as its title implies, and the band is country, country, country. An absolute winner.
JERROD NIEMANN/One More Drinkin’ Song
Writer: Jerrod Niemann/Richie Brown; Producer: Jerrod Niemann & Dave Brainard; Publisher: New Songs of Sea Gayle/Ozworth/Words & Music, BMI; Arista/Sea Gayle (track)
—The boy is on a roll. This time out, he’s rolling through a swaying, lilting, beach-vibe tune that has its tongue firmly in cheek. Care to sing along? I think so.
J.T. HODGES/Hunt You Down
Writer: J.T. Hodges/Mark Collie/Rivers Rutherford; Producer: Mark Wright, Don Cook & Mark Collie; Publisher: Songs of Universal/Adeline 29/Sing Station/Boomer Sooie/Collie Dawg/Alex Bridge/Memphianna, BMI/ASCAP; Show Dog Universal
—I love the bubbling, bobbing production. This fizzy little outing is about a casual sexual hook up that has a dozen built-in smiles. Jaunty and irresistible.
BILLY CURRINGTON/Love Done Gone
Writer: Shawn Camp/Marv Green; Producer: Carson Chamberlain & Billy Currington; Publisher: International Dog/Big Yellow Dog/Scamporee/Warner-Tamerlane, BMI; Mercury (CDX)
—I’m not crazy about brass in country music, but this single’s melody is so incredibly catchy that you could arrange it with any instrumentation in the world and still have a winner. Billy, as usual, sings with warmth and sincerity.
LOCASH COWBOYS/You Got Me
Writer: Chris Lucas/Preston Brust/Eric Halbig; Producer: Jeffrey Steele; Publisher: Sony-ATV Cross Keys/Sony-ATV Tree/Vibrating String/Cherry Heart, ASCAP/BMI; Stroudavarious (www.locashcowboys.com)
—Sunshiny bright, with a totally positive, happy lyric and a breezily rocking tempo. Very summertimey. These guys seem to go from strength to strength with each release.
THOMPSON SQUARE/I Got You
Writer: Shawna Thompson/Keifer Thompson/Jason Sellers/Paul Jenkins; Producer: New Voice Entertainment; Publisher: This Is Hit/Fibber & Molly/Big Loud Bucks/Magic Mustang/Mack 2/Sony-ATV Cross Keys/Becky’s Boy/Sony-ATV Tree, ASCAP/BMI; Stoney Creek (CDX) (615-320-1372)
—The LoCash Cowboys are rocking to “You Got Me.” Thompson Square is rocking to “I Got You.” Equally well, I might add. Take your pick.
JESSE KEITH WHITLEY/Kentucky Thunder
Writer: Sonny Lemaire/Sam Tate/Annie Tate; Producer: James Stroud; Publisher: none listed, BMI/SESAC; Octabrook (CDX) (615-426-1786)
—The title refers to moonshine whiskey, as well as to fire-and-brimstone preaching and wild country singing. Appropriately, the performance is laced with snarling guitar work and minor-key “outlaw” menace. This well-written song is the debut single from the son of Lorrie Morgan and the late Keith Whitley.
THE McCLYMONTS/Wrapped Up Good
Writer: Brooke McClymont/Samantha McClymont/Mollie McClymont/Nathan Chapman; Producer: Nathan Chapman; Publisher: EMI/Sony-ATV, no performance rights listed; UMA/Fontana (CDX) (615-269-7071)
—Creamy harmonies and a slick production are the calling cards here. A smooth-tasting audio beverage.
CHARLEY PRIDE/America The Great
Writer: Larry Mercey/Edward Allen Gowens; Producer: Charley Pride; Publisher: Larry Mercey, SOCAN/BMI; Music City (CDX) (www.charleypride.com)
—“Are we losing family values/Did we push God aside?” this asks. The big concerns are that the 10 Commandments aren’t in the courthouses and “The Lord’s Prayer” isn’t in the classrooms. In other words, Buddhists need not apply.
KEENIE WORD/The New Girl
Writer: Billy Aerts/Caroline Deloache; Producer: Billy Aerts; Publisher: Stormey, BMI; KW (track) (www.keenieword.com)
—The title tune to this youngster’s five-song EP is plaintive and youthful sounding. Well written. It’s kind of surprising that no songwriter before now has addressed this universally felt experience of a kid moving to a new place.