Breaking news from the Hits Daily Double Rumor Mill:
THE SPARKS ARE GONE: Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment has terminated its management relationship with Jordin Sparks. The 19 Recordings label will continue as Jordin’s record company with its joint venture partner, Jive Records.
That’s all I got at the moment. I’m sure more will be revealed.
Fantasia Barrino, winner of Season 3, was dropped by 19M back in June.
Jordin’s album Jordin Sparks had the lowest 1st week sales numbers of all the Idol winners when it was released last fall, selling 119K her first week, and entering the Billboard 200 at #10.
However, the album spawned 3 successful singles that kept her album sales steady, and after a year, Jordin Sparks is about to go platinum. Her smash hit “No Air”, a duet with Chris Brown, certified double platinum, peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #3. The first single, “Tattoo” went platinum and peaked at #8. Her current single, at 980K, is about to go platinum.
She got off to a slow start, but in the end, her record sales were decent. I wonder what happened?
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Hmmm…since this is dealing with management, I’m not sure how to react. Just as long as she stays with her RECORD label. Consecutive top 20 hits is no joke.
By the way, I read Phil Stacey was dropped by Lyric Records and Clay and RCA have parted company as well. (Maybe this is just a rumor).
billboard.biz says that Phil “exited Nashville-based Lyric Street Records.” I don’t know if that means they dropped him, or he left them. He did tell some fans at a recent appearance that he was not with them any more. He also said in a recent TV appearance that he was doing a “Christian venture,” and he told a fan that he was going to do a Gospel album and include “Old Glory” on it. I am looking forward to what will be coming up for him, as I think he is awesome and has won fans at his appearances. He has really kept a very busy schedule, with his latest appearances being at churches; fundraisers; the 83rd birthday of the Opry; the Inspirational Country Music Awards; the Michael W. Smith tribute, and appearances with the Navy in his capacity as a reservist. He is now in Italy with the Navy and his wife, with whom he is celebrating his 10th wedding anniversary. Upon returning, one of his appearances will be as the grand marshal for the 56th annual Nashville Christmas Parade, where he will be performing as well.
I don’t know, but as good as Jording is doing, can she keep it up? She has had 3 strong singles and she only sold close to 1 million albums. Chances are she will sell a lot less next time. If you look into the future she does not seem like someone who is going to keep bringing the money.
Is Kelly Clarkson the only Idol who’s sophomore CD outperformed her freshman release?
I think so. Though it could be argued that while Carrie has sold less, she has remained at the top relative to the other artists in her genre, especially taking into account the overall decline in record sales. It will be interesting to see what happens with Daughtry.
I am at a loss to explain why 19 would drop Jordin. She’s one of the few acts (close to) going platinum right now. It may not seem like much but she’s at the top of the pack today. Is she having problem getting endorsements or something? Does she want to go in a different direction on her next album? I mean, they kept Rueben, why not her? The mind boggles. It has to be her decision, not theirs. Otherwise I just can’t explain it.
But that is the standard right now isn´t it… albums don´t sell like it used to…
I heard they were angry after she called them all sl*ts.
Seriously though, strange move but she’s going to be fine! I like her more now than when she was on idol. :)
lol… I agree Jordin will be just fine.. maybe she can go to Azzof with Archie… they both are so cute together…
I think Jordin did have a slow start in the beginning and I read somewhere that 19 was surprised she didn’t catch on right away. As an American Idol winner, they would be committed to her for only a year. Jive has done a fantastic job for her. Jive pushes singles more than albums I think and there isn’t that much money to go around selling singles. I found it interesting that she only started to catch on when they paired her with Chris Brown. That got her going on the charts in my opinion but I think that if she didn’t do “No Air” with Chris, she wouldn’t have done as well as she did.
I think that most people will agree that last season was a real bust and A.I. fans probably rank it as the worst season for talent in general. That might be a factor as to management’s decision to terminate her to separate themselves from that “lackluster” season and not have to work so hard to promote an artist even though that artist goes platinum. It took her a long time to get to platinum–wasn’t it close to a year? They want artists who go platinum quickly and put out a new album ASAP and again go platinum and are big box office draws.
Folks keep saying this, but I have to disagree. Her first single “Tattoo” did very well. It went platinum, and peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was a huge hit. “No Air” did better, but it was by no means her first success.
“Only sold close to 1 million”?
There is no “only” about selling 1 million. In this market, it’s fantastic. Platinum is considered an achievement for a reason. It seems like people sometimes expect everybody to go platinum. Heck, there is a notable certification before Platinum called Gold. If every album went Gold, they’d change the criteria (like they did a couple of years ago for digital downloads when 100K would get you Gold and 200K would get you Platinum. Imagine if those rules still stood?)
In the past, people would have expected an Idol winner to go Platinum, but times have changed. Jordin started with little fan base and grew one. That’s what labels like to see. These front loaded Idol sales worry them because it indicates a fad that will be over once a new Idol is crowned. Sustained sales and growing fan bases are good signs.
Jordin will be just fine as long as Jive keeps giving her good songs for the new album. She’s doing well with her current album, and I’d argue that there are very few good songs on it. I wonder if she’ll start writing for her second, since it’s not as ideal to rely on others to give you good material… I think she has a great pop voice, but is she a good musician?
Also, people keep mentioning Jordin may have had a one-year contract. I’m confused– DC signed with 19M right after winning in May/June, right? So wouldn’t one year for Jordin be over the summer rather than mid-November?
Selling 1 million is great and in these days not many can do it. But how many artists have 3 hit singles like she had? Not many. I think for someone with those 3 big hits I’d expect more album sales. I’m not even talking about her beeing an Idol winner, but a singer with 3 songs that were that huge.
Of course this is all speculation, but she does not seem to be an artits with staying power.
I do think Jordin was helped by Chris Brown, but if No Air weren’t on the album, Freeze would do just fine as a second single. However the rumored single Permanent Monday would be another story… WTF why does she even have a song that sounds like an Idol coronation song on her album..
This sounds suspiciously like a theory concocted by a disgruntled fan whose favorite hasn’t performed on the show yet. These types of “theories” have a way of eventually transforming into fact as they get passed round and round the internet.
I’m not saying it’s not true–who knows. But for now, I’ll take that bit of information with a grain of salt until it’s proven to be true.
SNL has a lot of indie band-of-the-moment rock acts featured. I doubt their labels had the money to outbid major label darlings every week. But you never know.
I don’t think Platinum is that great for Jordin, here’s why:
1. She was the winner of the biggest show on television with 20 million viewers weekly.
2. Two top ten singles, including an unprecedented duet with an established star.
3. She toured with Alicia Keys, how many first time acts can say that?
4. She has several year-after Idol appearances.
Hell, Taylor Hicks sold 750,000 and RCA didn’t do spit for him…unless you count the saliva in the wad of chewed gum that Simon Cowell instructed an auditioner to stick to Tay ***’s forehead. The handwriting was on the wall during Idols Live 2007, Idol viewers simply didn’t care about that cast, including Jordin. The initial sales were flat out bad, she had Black Friday numbers that were sub-McPhee-in-January.
Assuming a typical sophomore funk on album #2 she will be lucky, and I mean very lucky, to hit gold with two hit singles. Frankly, her goodie two shoes personality and judgmental comments like “sluts” simply grates with many people. I don’t follow her day to day performances but the few I’ve heard, namely the Idol finale, Australian Idol & KISS-FM Cafe, since her “recovery” from vocal chord injury makes the word recovery rather dubious.
Since it was mentioned a bid was put in for Daughtry I did some poking around trying to see if there was any SNL discussion amongst his fans and I came across this for what its worth
http://www.daughtryofficial.com/forum/who-wants-to-see-daughtry-snl
There’s a lot to read through there but unless I’m reading wrong someone that posts there by the name of “RCA Ed” did in fact say they lost their bid trying to get Daughtry on. This is all on the heels of talking about why David got on so soon so it’s interesting.
Admittedly I’m not a native english speaker but that’s not what I see s/he means.
Is that like the guy who works for CBS who said Cook is set to go platinum plus this week? Heh.
I’m not saying it isn’t true…just that I never take anything I read on the internet at face value.
TV shows like Leno and Letterman have bookers who work with the labels to book their acts. I’ve never heard that they charge for the privilege. Actors get paid union scale to appear on talks show.–I’m not sure about musicians.
It’s possible SNL is such a hot ticket that they charge, but I think there would be other factors that enter the equation, like what kind of ratings draw the act will be etc.
RCA Ed looks legit. That’s how the admins are labeled at DCO. Doesn’t mean he’s that much in the know, though.
Is Blake still with 19M?
It does not seem logical to me that a TV show like SNL would be paid to have artists perform. I just don’t believe it. That could not possibly be legal.
I think Trina is talking about this part:
Or this:
And reading those poster in Daughtry made me love more my archies and the poster here at MJS….
Those RCA boards give me a headache so like I said I could have been reading wrong, but it looked to me that before RCA Ed stepped in and posted some people were communicating with him, hence the people saying “sorry you lost the bid” and “thanks for PM’ing Ed” etc. Of course if the word “bid” was used by him in any way even to one person, whether it’s true or not I don’t think that was wise considering the overall feel of that thread is basically “so you spent money on the new guy but not the ones that have sold millions already”. If anything this guy should have worked some damage control. Truthfully the idea of bidding makes no sense to me but who knows. I do think he’s legit, on DC’s board there’s RCAJosh who’s pretty well known and legit.
Those posts were not from RCA_Ed though. Those are from regular old posters feeding off other regular old posters.
“Bid” does not necessarily mean money is involved, just that you put him up to be a performer and they said no.
Like I said, SNL is famous for putting on alot of hot indie band of the moment type acts, and I don’t think those people can pay wads of cash. But maybe that’s just me.
Well those posts weren’t made by the RCA person but mainly by “Deanna”, who I think it’s not very…(hmm finding the right word) credible, since she was encouraging people to write to NBC/SNL, which is such a terrible idea because, you know, those people write jokes for living. I’m pretty sure a “we did try to get him on” by RCA Ed would cause her to post whatever she posted.
^ I really don´t know,as I´m reading the post, those were the answer to a chat that took place before those post, yes I agree the poster was very angry… if there is necessary a bid or not to get an artist in SNL I really don´t know, and we will need more info to know if is true or not…
The teen market for clothes, posters, junk and stuff is being dominated by Miley, Taylor Swift, Rhianna and the casts of Twilight and HSM.
Jordin’s been crowded out of the trinket market.
I think Jordin is going to be OK. I don’t think Jive will drop her, she’s been successful for them. Holding on to her label contract is what’s important. She’ll find new managers without a problem. I suspect she’s got someone lined up already..
That’s exactly what I was going to say. I skimmed the posts, but I saw the RCA guy using the word “pitch” and the posters using the word “bid”.
I think so, too.
Let’s say it this way…
If you work for RCA, fans are angry about the label not “bidding” for a thing. Would you tell them that it’s not the label didn’t win the non-existing bid, but they simply didn’t want the act?
I don’t mean it as the truth, just IMO those fans weren’t given accurate information.
RE: Musical Guests pay to be on SNL
I don’t think so.
Logically, this makes no sense to me.
SNL is a show that relies on it’s reputation. They need a certain street cred. If people are paying to be on the show, that kind of reeks of informercial and there is not a lot of street cred in being an informercial. Featuring interesting indie or high profile acts increases their street cred. Strike 1.
SNL is also a show that relies on ratings. If the musical guest slot is open to the highest bidder, why isn’t Bill Gates Grandma singing on the show (I’m sure she’d love such a gift for her whatever birthday)? If they feature a bunch of musical guests of no interest to the general public, it’s yet another reason for people to stop watching the show. If they feature a bunch of musical guests which are ratings draws (or at least make the viewers feel like they are being introduced to somebody new and interesting), ratings go up. Strike 2.
I have no idea what the ad rate is for SNL. Idol makes almost 1 million dollars for every 30 second ad and a lot of their viewers are the kinds that aren’t in the desirable demographic. During the Palin/McCain episodes, SNL was drawing 15/12 million viewers in a very hard to reach demographic. So, I’m thinking they are making quite a bit of money from ads. Let’s go conservative and guess $200K every 30 seconds. The musical guest is on for like like 8 minutes. The equivalent of 16 thirty second ads. If the labels are paying the ad rate, that’s 3.2M dollars. I don’t think so. I don’t think they’d even pay $200K. Who has money like that to burn in this market? Strike 3. The theory is OUT, in my opinion.
I have no doubt that every manager worth their percentages tries to get their artists on SNL. I’m sure they even send a fruit basket or two to the booking agent. I’m sure SNL doesn’t have to go trolling for guests (though they might make a pitch for some of the extremely high profile ones themselves). But I don’t think they are selling the spot to the highest bidder. For whatever reason (they liked him, they thought he would draw viewers, whatever), Cook was on the show and some other Idols were not. I’m pretty sure he didn’t pay to get on there. It just isn’t logical. IMHO.
The relevance of this debate on RCA bidding or pitching for the SNL gig to 19M’s promo strategy is really confusing me.
We started off talking about 19M and their reputation for overspending and thus expecting big returns, so folks started laying out the differences between what Jive the label and 19M the management spends and makes… but now we’re saying the RCA bidding (which I’m not totally convinced of, btw, and see also Kirsten’s argument above) for gigs is somehow related to 19M overspending on artist promotions? Okay, I know the lines are blurred, but the argument is lost on me. I thought the label and management were separate? If the argument is that 19M is a big spender (compared to Jive the label’s relative frugal ways), then why are we looking at evidence of RCA the label’s “lavish” bids…?
Also, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around which promos the label shells for and which ones management shells for… anyone able to lay it out clearly for me?
Someone please answer this. I would absolutely love to know….
See, you(or we) are lost, Jive is not a management.
^ elisad, that’s exactly what I mean. Not sure if you’re agreeing with me, or if my post was too convoluted– did you see I tried to edit it like 3 times, and it still came out jumbled? Anyway, I guess I’m trying to ask: how did a discussion of 19M’s spending patterns on artists turn into one about how much RCA the label is allegedly spending on Cook for SNL?
Right. The comparison is between a record label and a management company. That’s what has me confused.
Jordin Sparks is still with Jive. She is no longer being managed by 19. Right? So…the recording career isn’t over.
Maybe she was being mismanaged. Maybe they thought she wanted more than they could provide. Either way, it doesn’t look like she’s finished just yet.
sma11ie, of course I agreed with you.
And RCA or 19, um I don’t know which one, has been wrongly blamed about it too many times. When Amazon sent out their very usual spamming emails, when iTunes sent out their emails to those who clicked “alert me”(send me an email alert for all inividuals in my Purchase History), when they set the album pre-order with an immediate download for the single.
I don’t deny David got good promotions, but nothing outrageous, it’s not like they bought half hour airtime on 3 networks. What exactly did they overspend on?
AI’s incestuous little management/record deal always makes things confusing. I think of it like this:
record label - tied to album and related sales/promo
management - tied to artist and related sales/promo
so things like Jordin’s awards ceremony presentations, photo ops at charity events, clothing line, overall image, would fall under management’s interest.
things like Jordin’s single selection/promo, single/album-related performances, touring, fall under label interest.
Obviously there’s overlap, especially with Idols, but management is supposed to look out for the artist’s interest especially when the label is making unreasonable demands — that’s a reason Idols often try to get out of 19M because there’s a conflict of interest when management and label have a business partnership. The artist gets the short end of the stick.
It seems like right now is the time when things are being decided for Jordin’s second album, so if business relationships were going to change this could be a natural time for it to happen.
Cookie will find out when he gets his royalty cheques or not. LOL. I still can’t believe RCA shelled out $200K for Blake’s video. I think there was some fancy accounting going on there.
Artists are often shocked at the “overspending” that goes on (artists should have accounts audit the costs).
RCA does have a reputation for spending a lot on promo. The word on the street why Barry (Jive) got to replace Clive (RCA) as the head of the BMG wing of Sony/BMG is because of Barry’s less risky (read: more frugal) ways. Of course, BMG is gone now, but I think Barry’s still heading up that wing of things for now.
Promo, if effective, is a good thing. It helps to move units.
The problem with promo is that a lot of it has to be paid back by the artist. This is where a good manager/lawyer makes sure that you get a good deal from the label. The label gives the artist X amount to make an album. From that money, they are expected to hire a producer (label gets to approve the producer), record the album and pay for their own living expenses. Once the record is made (and the label likes it), it can be released and promo starts. The label will do some promo on it’s own dime, but other things like the cost of videos are split 50/50 with the artist. The label will also provide some advance funds for a promo band (those guys that play behind the artist on Leno or those radio Jingle Balls (artists do not get paid to do them)) and perhaps for a tour band. Often that money has to be paid back too(get a good lawyer/manager). Once the money starts rolling in, the record label has to be paid back for expenses before the artists makes any money. A good lawyer will make sure that label pays the producer’s percentages (producers often get a flat fee and then a percentage) and later recoups it (some artists get stuck having to pay the producer themselves before they are out of recoupment so that every album sold actualy takes money out of their pocket when they aren’t making any themselves. Get a good lawyer/manager).
Meanwhile, managers are busy setting up tours and endorsement deals and advising and taking their percentage.
Michelle is right in that the Idol deals are typically pretty incestious. The show is run by 19E. You are signed by a 19R/Sony label. And often your manager is 19M. (Get a good lawyer and not one from 19L). Promo costs and responsibilities when the album is first released are always a little fuzzy (but a good lawyer will help to clear away the fuzz). It’s more fuzzy when everybody has a 19 in front of letter. Don’t forget there are also merchandising and touring divisions in the 19 family.
A few facts:
1) I don’t know what the deal is with 19M “dropping” Jordin.
2) Promo is good (but make sure the promo quality is good)
3) Record labels are very creative when doing accounting
4) Labels/Managers responsibilities can be mixed and only those privy to the contracts really know what is going on (and sometimes, even they don’t)
5) There is no crime in having a good promo team.
6) Fan wars are dumb.
7) I’m not an expert, so don’t make any financial decisions based on this post (get a lawyer/manager)
Bahahaha. Thanks for the info, Kirsten, as well as the good advice (get a good lawyer, but not one from 19L, got it!)
Also, I still have no idea why 19M “dropped” Jordin after all this informative speculation and learning about RCA’s spendthrift reputation, since Jordin isn’t on RCA. But, back on topic (and more speculation): maybe frugal Jive was so savvy when cutting their deal with Jordin that they’re the only ones making money off her single and record success, and she’s not making any/enough money for her management?
19L. I really laughed at that too.
MJ: I know that Jordin did well on Tatoo but I think that was more A.I. winner/fan driven. However, I know a lot of people myself who really liked No Air and that Chris Brown duet. I still stand that this single made it possible for her to go platinum. Nobody liked “This is my Now” some people liked Tatoo (primarily tweens/teens and A.I. fans) but non-Idol fans loved “No Air.” No Air is the song that made the difference.
I would have not bought “This is my Now” nor “Tatoo,” but I would have bought “No Air.” I know people who never watched A.I. bought No Air. No Air pushed her away from the A.I. tag.
I thought Jordin was talented but I found her voice too sugary sweet for my taste something I might expect to hear on Radio Disney. That is where I felt she might do best. I still think that’s her market. I am surprised that she did as well as she did because she sure had a slow start but Jive stuck with her and she went platinum.