Marketing and Pop in 2010

Finding this ever more fascinating and transparent in the digital age. Discussed this on Little Boots & Hurts threads a bit, but it obv goes beyond those two acts. Are things really so different now than say 20-30 years ago? It certainly seems like record companies want more immediate returns so they're less likely to invest in acts long term.

Poor old Joe Lean & The JJJ were dropped before even releasing an album, and the main story around the Klaxons is how their label rejected a bunch of their songs and that their new stuff will never recoup their costs (unusual enough that the label agreed to support them for this long).

LB is still doing her new album but her promo juggernaut has definitely slowed. Hurts reached just #50 with their first single proper, with a huge amount of PR push behind them. Plenty of people on the Popjustice forums pretending they'll be dropped by the end of the year.

Speaking of PJ, editor Peter Robinson had this to say in the Guardian Guide last October:

This comes to mind in light of one campaign from the last 18 months, aimed at launching a UK artist whose debut single – video costs excluded – was propelled into the top three by a marketing budget so unusually grotesque that it is not fit to reproduce in a family newspaper. Much was spent on buying up regional radio ad slots, then – when regional radio mysteriously started playing the song in question – taking news of this airplay to a previously reluctant Radio 1, saying, "How do you like them onions?" (Or similar). If you look at the subsequent chart position, it was all a roaring success, but it's one of those hits that doesn't really feel like a hit at all. Actual hit records take on a life of their own; they're not hooked up to a life support machine with occasional shocks to keep the heart pumping.

Any ideas what this song might have been?

That quote comes from this worth-reading piece: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/17/music-top-40-singles-charts

i remember reading that and wondering what the record he meant was. he offered the success of la roux's "in for the kill" as a more organic counterpoint, so it must have been a debut single within 18 months of that song's chart success, so i suppose sometime from 2008 until then?

I can imagine it being someone like VV Brown or yesteryear's underachieving equivalent to Pixie Lott.

Some interesting points from Passantino 5 years ago: Marketing and pop music in 2005

hmmm perhaps it was a single with an unusual chart trajectory? like gabriella cilmi's "sweet about me" or something, though i don't know how that particular single was promoted (it did have a particularly long ascent up to its peak, which is pretty rare on the uk charts at this point). i remember hearing it enough for it to 'feel like' a hit once it finally got up to the top 10, though.

oh but jk it couldn't have been gabriella because she is australian. HMMM this is a mystery i am willing to seriously investigate. *pores over chart archives*

ok, i have perused the charts. here is the list of singles that, starting in 2008, made the top 3, were by uk artists, and were the debut single for that artist (omitting charity singles):

leon jackson - when you believe
adele - chasing pavements [technically her second single, but the first was released on such a small scale that it might as well have not existed -- and was subsequently re-released anyhow]
h two o featuring platnum - what's it gonna be
geraldine - the winners song
alexandra burke - hallelujah
tinchy stryder featuring taio cruz - take me back [not sure if this was actually a debut single -- was it? maybe it wasn't]
la roux - in for the kill [see chasing pavements addendum]
pixie lott - mama do (uh oh, uh oh)
jls - beat again

popjustice would never bemoan jls's chart success, and besides i doubt it's any of the x-factor acts. or geraldine (lol). pixie lott it is? or perhaps this "h two o" shit, whatever the fuck that is. apparently it was a hard2beat release, so that doesn't really fit the whole "launching an artist" description, since they are all about cashing in on one-hit wonders and don't care to launch long-term artists. it's hard to recall the situation around "chasing pavements" but i do vaguely remember at the time feeling like the song was being shoved down my throat and being utterly delighted that it was held off from #1 for several weeks by such horrid crap as basshunter. i would still say it was a legit hit though. HMMMMM

eff why eye, h two o/platnum's "what's it gonna be" was among the finest singles of that year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd_4OrFH3EU

tinchy stryder was already one album and several mixtapes deep into his career by the time that piece of shit "take me back" came out

vv brown wishes she had a top 3 single!! i've never quite worked out why, of that crop of Quirky British Women (TM), the only two to really fail were vv brown and mpho. OH WAIT i see what they have in common.

i assume it's pixie lott, who felt like an industry juggernaut from the minute i heard of her. she's so boring. but "it didn't feel like a real hit" is kinda meaningless - obviously you have your unarguable "umbrella"s and the like, but what feels like a "real hit" beyond that is gonna be down to where you're paying attention to - eg "what's it gonna be?" felt like a real, massive hit to me, because it had been a club hit for ages before that, had been one of the biggest anthems of the bassline scene, that charging the charts felt inevitable. and yet teledyldonix says s/he's never heard of it before!

also, why are we citing the opinions of popjustice forum members? they are 90% racist morons.

wow i like that song, can't believe i hadn't heard it. fyi when i said popjustice would never bemoan jls's chart success i was referring to popjustice the person, as in peter robinson.

and don't h8 on me for not having heard it, i'm in the usa :(