diditagain

Definitely an OUCH for Westlife. A day or two ago, Digital Spy had a brief article in which Westlife were complaining (again) about being forced to do cover versions. After the performance of Safe, I wonder if any members of Westlife -- or Simon Cowell -- think that "The Reason" could have been a Top 5 hit that lingered around the Top 20 for 6 weeks like "What About Now" last year? It's probably a bit early to call Gravity a complete disaster (or is it?), but if a second single didn't materialize from Where We Are after a #2 hit, then I don't see them releasing a second single from Gravity after a #10 hit that is sinking like a stone. My guess is that Fall 2011 will see the release of a second Westlife greatest hits album (with 2-3 covers, one of which will be a single) or a full album of covers (in the Digital Spy article, they say Simon Cowell wanted them to do an album of movie songs, but they rejected the idea). Do the Westlife tours make tons of money? As Westlife's manager or record label, I'd be pretty disappointed by the diminishing album/singles sales, but if the tours still make lots of money (and Syco/Simon Cowell get a piece of that revenue), then maybe the diminshing album/singles sales aren't as big a problem.

I saw this on SayHey as well. All evidence leads to this being fake. The tracklist is the same one that has been floating around for months, that website link doesn't work, but even when you revise the link to go to the website's home page, I could not find any new posting about the album (the most recent Sophie-related post was about Not Giving Up On Love). Also, the cover shown is fan-made.

Regarding album sales, the key question for Fascination at the moment is how a new Sophie album of all originals will sell compared to a Sophie greatest hits album that contains several original tracks. It wouldn't surprise me if the number-crunchers at Fascination believe that an all-originals album will be bought by only die-hard Sophie fans (based on the low levels of sales and airplay for recent singles), while a greatest hits + new tracks album will appeal to both die-hard fans (who'll be upset at not getting a full album, but still buy a greatest hits for the new tracks and to support Sophie) AND casual music buyers (who are more apt to buy a greatest hits album during the holiday season because they probably don't have Sophie's individual albums). While I want an all-originals album, I fully understand why a greatest hits + new tracks album might be on the table, and I'll gladly buy whatever is released this fall.

The Not Giving Up On Love EP is available to pre-order on iTunes UK with an expected release of 20 August 2010. The label copyright is "Armin Audio B.V. under exclusive license to Armada Music B.V.," not Fascination, so it looks like this is being treated as an "Armin featuring Sophie" release. Also, iTunes UK has only the first four tracks in their bundle (no Glenn Morrison or Mischa Daniels remixes). However, the bundle is available for just 1.79 pounds. The Armada Music website also lists the times for each mix in the digital bundle, in case anyone was wondering: 1. Not Giving Up On Love (Album Version) (02:53) 2. Not Giving Up On Love (Extended Version) (06:52) 3. Not Giving Up On Love (Dash Berlin 4AM Mix) (07:06) 4. Not Giving Up On Love (Jorn van Deynhoven Remix) (06:54) So, God only knows if the new Sophie album will ever happen, but at least we'll be able to purchase a new Sophie single soon. I'll be treating it as "the next single from the new Sophie album that will probably never be released!"

EMI/Parlophone could release a "Kylie's UK Top 3 Hits" CD, which as of right now, would have 20 hits (as long as All The Lovers ends up at #2 or #3 this week)! I listed the UK #2 hits in an earlier post, but in case anyone was wondering, here are the seven #1 UK hits: 1988 - I Should Be So Lucky 1989 - Especially For You 1989 - Hand On Your Heart 1990 - Tears On My Pillow 2000 - Spinning Around 2001 - Can't Get You Out Of My Head 2003 - Slow And here is Kylie's lone UK #3 hit: 2002 - In Your Eyes Hmmm...maybe I'll make my own CD of "Kylie's UK Top 3 Hits" for the car!

It's Kylie and the curse of the UK #2 hits, which hasn't reared its ugly head since December 2004! If "All The Lovers" ends up peaking at #2, here are the other 11 songs it will join in the "Kylie UK #2 Club": 1988 - Got To Be Certain 1988 - The Loco-Motion 1988 - Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi 1989 - Wouldn't Change A Thing 1990 - Better The Devil You Know 1992 - Give Me Just A Little More Time 1994 - Confide In Me 2000 - On A Night Like This 2000 - Kids (Duet with Robbie Williams) 2002 - Love At First Sight 2004 - I Believe In You Should EMI/Parlophone have waited and had the download-only release coincide with the physical release, as originally planned? Would the combination of downloads and physicals available for the first time on the same week have been enough to give Kylie another #1?

Thanks Bray, I corrected the post. That's what I get for posting at work and copying the title Amazon UK gives the album (instead of actually looking at the CD cover on the website!).

The RAF Squadronaires album, "In The Mood - The Glenn Miller Celebration" (samples can be found at Amazon UK, which has the album listed as "In The Mood - The Glenn Miller Songbook") features 14 new recordings of Glenn Miller classics (In The Mood, Pennsylvania 6-5000, Little Brown Jug, etc.). This is their 70th anniversary, and I read that they have been doing a number of public events to celebrate. The album is wonderful. The songs are faithful to the original arrangements, and the sound quality is incredible (Miller's originals have been remastered nicely, but you can still tell they were recorded a long time ago -- the RAF versions sound just like Miller's originals, only cleaner and clearer because they were recorded in 2010). Stacey Solomon (from last year's X-Factor) sings vocals on "At Last" and does a great job. And "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree" features the original Andrews Sisters vocals (like the Natalie/Nat "Unforgettable"). All in all, it's a great album that is very worthy of a Top 5 position. It debuted at #9 two weeks ago, then rose to #7 last week, so seeing it rise again this week is nice (Decca Records must be thrilled).

TheSkeptic, I just went to iTunes UK, and since the album isn't released yet, you can only pre-order the full album (I don't think I've seen iTunes ever allow customers to pre-order select tracks from an album). Only when an album is officially released do the individual songs get individual prices and individual "Buy Song" buttons. So, unless the record company made a deal with iTunes that The Very Best of Enya could only be downloaded as a full album, you should be able to buy individual tracks for 79p or 99p on Nov. 23.

Regardless of what you think about John & Edward, their song choice for this Saturday is pure genius from an entertainment standpoint. And as opposed to the sappy, drippy ballads we're sure to get, the upbeat, energetic performance of John & Edward is sure to get the audience involved! Are the song choices ever "officially confirmed" before Saturday? Is any information about the choices before Saturday considered a spoiler?

And this first batch of sales for "What About Now" is coming before radio and video exposure, which means the single could hang around in the Top 10/Top 20 for a few weeks (from what I remember, previous singles have had 3-5 weeks of radio and video plays before release).

If was assume X Factor used the pre-Back Home, 40 million number as a starting point, then it is entirely possible Westlife sold 2.5 million albums in the past two years. If Back Home sold 1.2 million worldwide, then their other eight studio albums needed to sell a total of 1.3 million copies worldwide in two years. That means that from Fall 2007 to now, each of the eight older studio albums needed to sell about 160,000 copies worldwide, which is entirely possible (I bought Unbreakable six months ago because I didn't own it and it was only 4 pounds on Amazon UK). According to Wikipedia, Westlife have won only 2 Brit Awards, but they have received 4 nominations. If X Factor claimed "4 Brit Awards" on purpose to try and fool the public, then they're morons, because that statistic is incredibly easy to verify. However, notice that the number used in the intro last night (4) was the number of nominations. It's entirely possible that the person gathering the statistics for the intro accidentally used the # of nominations instead of the # of wins, and no one assembling the intro noticed that statistic was incorrect. I'm sure Louis Walsh knows how many Brit Awards Westlife has won, but I'd be willing to bet he's not part of the team editing X Factor intros. If I thought that there was no reasonable explanation for any of the statements made last night, I'd gladly say so. But based on all the information found online and quoted in this topic, I can present legitimate explanations for two of the statements.

The "best selling band of the decade" didn't explicitly say "only albums," so Westlife could very well take first place when album sales and singles sales (and possibly DVD sales) are totaled. Regarding the "43 million" statistic, I don't believe that Simon Cowell/X Factor would lie and simply make up a statistic like that, since it's not like they need to artificially inflate Westlife's accomplishments. Also, remember that "43 million" could be the rounded figure -- mathematically speaking, anything over 42.5 rounded to the nearest whole number is 43! So, if the "40 million" previous figure was from before Back Home, they would have needed to sell only about 2.5 million albums worldwide in the past two years (including Back Home, which was released in Autumn 2007, and continuing sales of their back catalogue).

I finally heard "The Girl From Tiger Bay" in full last night, and it has a perfect autumnal feel to it (reminding me of Kylie Minogue's "Some Kind Of Bliss" -- for obvious reasons!). Every time I listen to it, the song makes me smile, yet the reminiscing tone almost brings a tear to my eye. One of the classiest songs in recent memory.

Westlife just finished, and it was great (I'm sure a clip will appear on Youtube shortly!). I know they get sh*t for performing covers, but when they sing them well, I have no complaints. And how nice that Westlife live sounds just as good as Westlife on CD (compare their performance tonight to Whitney and even Cheryl Cole last week).

As of 4:52pm London time, What About Now has risen to #22! With an audience of 12-14 million watching, the X Factor performance will surely result in a huge jump.

After listening to the 30 second clip, I can't wait to download this next week -- so glad I opened an iTunes UK account using an iTunes UK gift card!. I have never liked Chris Daughtry's voice, but like the voices of the guys from Westlife, so I like this cover version. I do wonder if this was one of the "few covers" mentioned that would be on the album, but it wasn't necessarily planned as the first single. From a marketing standpoint, it probably would have been silly not to capitalize on the exposure of the original on X Factor (since Westlife's version was already finished for the album). Also, notice that the single is being released a full month before the album as opposed to the usual "two weeks before the album" strategy, presumably to build on the "X Factor momentum" of the original.

I wonder if the change to Nov. 24 had anything to do with the US? Nov. 24 is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Any CDs released that Tuesday would have zero sales from physical stores on the holiday (although online sales still occur). However, "Black Friday" is one of the busiest shopping days of the year here in the US, with ridiculous sale prices and many stores now opening at 3-4am with bargains. Any album released on Nov. 24 will be featured in the "New Releases" shelf in places like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc., which means maximum exposure on Black Friday. Also, stores usually offer lower CD prices as a Black Friday incentive (the Enya CD might be on sale for $9.99 since it is release-week, but on Black Friday they may drop the price to $7.99 for added value!). I can safely say that the reasons I explained above are why Simon Cowell chose Nov. 24 as the release date for Susan Boyle's album (large sales are pretty much a given in the US, but now anyone who liked Susan Boyle but hadn't heard about the album will see it prominently displayed if they go shopping on Black Friday). So, this could help Enya too!