Marguerite

If he's there at all, don't blink, you'll miss him :lol:

If both of them had released really great tracks and they'd flopped I think 'is pop dead' would be a legitimate question. Both tracks were mediocre to say the least, and the sales suffered for it. The only lesson to be learned is, whether it's a first or fourth track from an album, make an effort and don't take the fans for granted.

Snap Suggy 24th February for me too :lol:

Have a good one Chrysalis :cheer: :dance: :cheer: :dance: :yahoo:

He introduced a brand new song in the shape of Save Yourself last time, and I think he's very likely to introduce us to one, maybe even two new ones on this tour. :cheer:

Val, just how easy do you think it is to 'do your own thing' in this business, especially when you're just a voice for hire from a tv talent show? Do you actually think these singers can tell their label to shove their contract and just move on to another label who will jump at the chance to sign them? If only it was that easy ;) Shayne, for the moment, is earning a profit for Syco. Cowell isn't into artist development, that's a waste of time & money as far as he's concerned. If Shaynes sales drop, like Gareth's sales dropped, he'll move on, there's loads of kids out there who will play the game for a while, earn a few bob and then disappear into obscurity. You obviously have faith that Gareth will be back, with a new album ,and record companies will be queueing up to sign him. All the labels will be interested in is will Gareth earn them money, they certainly won't take a risk of losing any, too many shareholders to answer to.

Well there you go Val :D I think Shayne is better looking, has a better voice than James Blunt, and I'm not even a fan :lol: I also think that if he got to release something that didn't sound like Westlife rejected it years ago, the boy may have a great career, but he's never going to shed Walsh & Cowell until they want out and by then, it'll be too late. l

Take a look at the chosen forum list. Now how can I put it? Here goes ;) There's a couple of guys on that list who currently are not releasing music. One of them is Elvis, so that's hardly suprising, the other one isn't :D

I don't think people here are critisising Shayne, on the contrary, most people have acknowledged that he does have a good voice. The question is, is a good voice and good looks enough to maintain a career once the initial hype is over. The answer is very obviously no and we've had quite a lot of evidence of that this past couple of years, especially where male solo singers are concerned. The problem for most of them is their management and the material they've released. The public haven't bought into them and they're dead & buried. Then look at James Blunt, not a particularly good voice, nor is he particularly good looking, but he's got a fantastic team behind him and a very popular song, and bingo the biggest seller in the UK, against the trend it must be said.

I'm waiting for that forum to top the chart, I think it'll be hilarious and somewhat ironic too don't you think :lol:

I can get on OK Suggy

What a pity we still don't get to know what the download sales have been for Keep On. I suppose they must be over 60K otherwise Sony/Bmg wouldn't have applied for his 3x platinum status

The problem we have is there are so many sites, or forums within dedicated sites, that we end up spreading ourselves a bit thin (well except on the OS or D of course :lol: ) Some people aren't as lucky as us and only have here to chat about the past ;)

3 million is what Simon thought Shayne would have sold by now. ;) Still, only another 1.5 million to go Simon :lol:

All of these people who interview Walsh, be it on radio/tv or in magazines/press are probably totally unaware of any of these artists sales. All of them are household names all of them are in the music business and that's as far as their knowledge of them goes :D Walsh is well aware of this fact and uses other peoples lack of knowledge to, in effect , lie about his artists successes. I think even if he was challenged, he'd still lie through his teeth and bluff it out ;) Shayne has a long way to go yet before his success can be measured against Wills, the only person seemingly oblivious to the fact, is the pratt who is Louis Walsh :rolleyes:

Yes, I read the message on his site too Val ;) I'm not particularly worried about Gareth, I merely used his name to illustrate Simon's attitude to his artists. All Simon cares about is hitting that no.1 spot and he has all the tools necessary to do it, except that he just needs a voice to hire to make it happen. A young, good looking voice for hire, to sing the songs he's got from his Swedish music factory and make lots of money for his label. Who it is, doesn't really matter, they're just a means to an end for Simon.

This is taken from Simons autobiography and describes just how he works with his artists. Simon had been watching Mamma Mia with his girlfriend and heard 'I Have a Dream', He turned to her and said "That's it, that's the Xmas no.1". He then phoned Louis Walsh and told him they were going to record it and then asked Pete Waterman to produce it. The very last people to be told were Westlife, who actually recorded the song. So that's how Simon & Louis work. Shayne's apparently not a songwriter, so the material he does will be chosen by them, the producer booked and probably Shayne will find out what he's singing, the day he goes into the studio to record it. If Shayne doesn't tow the line, he'll be out, Simon will lose interest like he did with Gareth. There's another XFactor coming up and there'll be another Gareth or Shayne in there just waiting to take their place.

You're not the only one becoming confused about Wills overseas promo ;) After all but writing it off on the Will in Italy thread, I'm beginning to wonder if there's a whole other meaning to Wills long break. I had visions of him backpacking round some remote cities in the Indian sub continent. Perhaps he means he's taking a break from us here in the UK while he plies his music travelling around the World. I don't think he'd advertise the fact that he's trying to break in another country, perhaps what we've heard before is 'Will speak' for exactly that :lol:

It'll be interesting to see the outcome of the work he's been doing with Groove Armada. He's in Ibiza with them now isn't he? and he was certainly finishing off some other work with them just before Xmas, Wills OS told us that ;) He was with Nitin Sawhney just before Xmas too, so obviously there's ongoing work there as well, yet somehow, I don't think it's for Wills next album but will we ever get to hear what it's all about :D Will certainly seems very keen on acting and quite serious about the auditions he's got coming up. He really sounded very precious when he told the Dutch interviewer Albert, that he WAS an actor now ;) I think there's one hell of a lot going on in Wills World, but promoting KO overseas, isn't high on his list of priorities.

Yes, I agree with you Laura. I think Will has met so many people now, in the 4 years he's been in the business, that he's absorbing a whole lot of outside interests. I don't think the commitment to the music (as in making albums) is half as strong as it was, but I bet that if he was writing film scores or tracks with Nitin, it would be another story. He appears to still love to sing, but not to promote. He's certainly not gonna be your average pop star for much longer, when he said he had 2 years left as a chart star, I think he's probably right. He just doesn't like that side of the music business and he's got enough money now, enough contacts in other areas, to step back from that and do what he wants to do, without being controlled by a record company.

Up until 21st May, Shayne had sold 339,700 albums, he's probably sold about 12k this week taking him over the 350k mark and leading Journey South now by about 7k .

Will appeared quite a lot considering there was 500 VIP guests there. I think the camera person was a fan. We even got a glimpse, right at the end, of Will duetting with James Brown again. In fact, they were the only entertainment shown I'm pleased I watched it. I've even decided I like Victoria & David but I'd like to shove one of Gordon Ramsays platters down his gob, sideways.

No, I don't think you're confused :D Will has sold almost 3.5 million albums, which translates as a clear profit for his label of 3.5 million pounds. (Robbie reckons the label makes £1 per album profit ;) )A high percentage of artists signed to a label, lose them money, so, even though Sony/BMG probably think he could have made them loads more by going abroad long ago, they're still quids in by keeping him on board.

I don't expect his record company expected to hear him say that he was going to take a long break, do some acting and concentrate on other projects either Laura :D They may have a 1 album at a time deal with Will, which would mean they'd have no say in what he does inbetween, which seems highly likely. Shame about the European promotion, but without the commitment necessary to promote, it's a waste of time even thinking he'll sell over there.

I think we all agree with you on this. I mean people are hardly likely to buy something that they don't even know is for sale are they? :angry: Really don't know what has happened, because it seemed that before Xmas, all concerned (Will, the label and his management) were eager to go to Europe. He's done 2/3 very successful showcases but I would imagine it's Will that's had a change of heart and kept it low key. Sony/BMG have been anxious for him to go to Europe since Fridays Child was released, so they're not likely to be the ones who have pulled out on the arrangement.