If you are an Adult Contemporary artist, it is prudent to have a holiday song if you plan on getting airplay between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every year hundreds of stations switch to "The Best Mix of Holiday Hits," many programming them 24/7. The stated reasoning is that holiday music is a sales success and often spikes the ratings for these stations.
Fortunately for the Jerry Lembo Entertainment Group, we actively promote and market several artists with songs celebrating the season. Most of our projects are original tunes. Here is a partial list (artist, song, and example of station frequently playing):
Donny Osmond Christmas Time" KUDL/Kansas City
Melissa Etheridge "Christmas in America" WLTW/New York
Ben Green "Holiday" WTSS/Buffalo
Tim Hockenberry "Christmas By The Bay" KOIT/San Francisco
David Corey It Looks Like Christmas" KRWM/Seattle
Trans-Siberian Orchestra "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 WASH/Washington, DC
The upside of writing an original holiday tune (and this also applies to Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc.) is that these songs get recycled annually and continue to deliver both mechanical and performance royalties. And if you're lucky enough to write a classic, they never go out of style!
Last year's Top 10 Most Played Christmas Songs (Source: Mediabase 24/7):
1) Brenda Lee "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" (1958)
2) Burl Ives "Have A Holly Jolly Christmas" (1963)
3) Bobby Helms "Jingle Bell Rock" (1957)
4) Nat King Cole "The Christmas Song" (1946)
5) Bing Crosby "White Christmas" (1942)
6) Andy Williams "Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" (1963)
7) Carpenters "Merry Christmas Darling" (1970)
8) Jose' Feliciano "Feliz Navidad" (1970)
9) Johnny Mathis "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" (1986)
10) John Lennon "Happy Xmas/War Is Over" (1970)
Writing a holiday song virtually guarantees that cash will replace coal in your stocking.
Happy Holiday$$$!
Monday, November 28, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
Rated PDG (Pretty Damn Good)
The only thing missing from The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard Film and TV Music Conference 2005 held November 15-16 at the Beverly Hilton was popcorn, candy bars, and soft drinks.
Day one highlights included Billboard Co-Executive Editor Tamara Coniff’s chat with composer Hans Zimmer, the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements. I even learned a bit of trivia during this session. Did you know Hans first enjoyed success in the world of pop music as a member of The Buggles (“Video Killed the Radio Star”)?!
Robert Kraft, President, Fox Music, was on a panel that discussed the ins and outs of soundtracks, music licensing, scoring, and discovering the perfect song. Kraft has overseen more than 150 Fox scores and soundtracks, including the record breaking Titanic.
Laura Carrillo, Executive VP, Creative Advertising, New Line Cinema, gave expert advice on the fine art of putting sound to trailers and television promos. Carrillo oversaw the advertising campaign for the successful trilogy for The Lord of the Rings.
The ASCAP Presents Making Money from Film and Television Music panel that featured Jeff Brabec, VP Business Affairs, Chrysalis Music Group, and Todd Brabec, Executive Vice President, Director of Membership, ASCAP, got ‘two thumbs up’ from the entire audience. I highly recommend the updated and expanded fourth edition of their book Music, Money and Success.
Newly signed Columbia recording artist Teddy Geiger performed songs from his forthcoming CD Underage Thinking (in stores February 14, 2006). His single “Confidence” is available now on iTunes.
Dave Stone, VP of Music, Bunim-Murray Productions, whose credits include seven seasons of The Real World, helped explain what it takes to get your music on the shows he oversees, many of which highlight unsigned acts.
Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive, Electronic Arts (The Washington Post called him ‘The Clive Davis of the Video Game Industry”), shared secrets and strategies on how to capitalize on new media, especially video games. Electronic Arts is forming EA Recordings, a digital only venture with Nettwerk Music Group, designed to sell EA owned original music from its many video games as digital downloads and/or ringtones.
One of the most entertaining and informative sessions featured award winning director Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby), composer Mark Isham (winner of a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Clio), and songwriter Bird York, whose music has been heard on TV’s Family Law, Nip/Tuck, Everwood, and House. They discussed their collaboration on the motion picture Crash. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, rent or buy it today; it is Oscar material.
The conference crammed so much content into two days that I suspect, as I begin to reap the rewards of my expanded knowledge of the behind the scenes business of Film and TV, it will be time to book my 2006 registration.
Day one highlights included Billboard Co-Executive Editor Tamara Coniff’s chat with composer Hans Zimmer, the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements. I even learned a bit of trivia during this session. Did you know Hans first enjoyed success in the world of pop music as a member of The Buggles (“Video Killed the Radio Star”)?!
Robert Kraft, President, Fox Music, was on a panel that discussed the ins and outs of soundtracks, music licensing, scoring, and discovering the perfect song. Kraft has overseen more than 150 Fox scores and soundtracks, including the record breaking Titanic.
Laura Carrillo, Executive VP, Creative Advertising, New Line Cinema, gave expert advice on the fine art of putting sound to trailers and television promos. Carrillo oversaw the advertising campaign for the successful trilogy for The Lord of the Rings.
The ASCAP Presents Making Money from Film and Television Music panel that featured Jeff Brabec, VP Business Affairs, Chrysalis Music Group, and Todd Brabec, Executive Vice President, Director of Membership, ASCAP, got ‘two thumbs up’ from the entire audience. I highly recommend the updated and expanded fourth edition of their book Music, Money and Success.
Newly signed Columbia recording artist Teddy Geiger performed songs from his forthcoming CD Underage Thinking (in stores February 14, 2006). His single “Confidence” is available now on iTunes.
Dave Stone, VP of Music, Bunim-Murray Productions, whose credits include seven seasons of The Real World, helped explain what it takes to get your music on the shows he oversees, many of which highlight unsigned acts.
Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive, Electronic Arts (The Washington Post called him ‘The Clive Davis of the Video Game Industry”), shared secrets and strategies on how to capitalize on new media, especially video games. Electronic Arts is forming EA Recordings, a digital only venture with Nettwerk Music Group, designed to sell EA owned original music from its many video games as digital downloads and/or ringtones.
One of the most entertaining and informative sessions featured award winning director Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby), composer Mark Isham (winner of a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Clio), and songwriter Bird York, whose music has been heard on TV’s Family Law, Nip/Tuck, Everwood, and House. They discussed their collaboration on the motion picture Crash. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, rent or buy it today; it is Oscar material.
The conference crammed so much content into two days that I suspect, as I begin to reap the rewards of my expanded knowledge of the behind the scenes business of Film and TV, it will be time to book my 2006 registration.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Successful Sound Insures Santana's Survival
As it states in his bio, Carlos Santana has been reinventing and reshaping the landscape of the known universe's musical culture for close to four decades. One of the concepts employed by Carlos and Executive Producer Clive Davis is to create multi-ethnic, multi-genre collaborations that maximize cross-marketing opportunities.
For certain artist development acts this could be a way to accelerate awareness and rapidly build your fan base.
On Supernatural, Santana's special guests included Dave Matthews, Everlast, Rob Thomas, Lauryn Hill and Ceelo, Product G&B, Mana, Eagle Eye Cherry, and Eric Clapton.
For Shaman, Santana enlisted Musiq, Michelle Branch, Seal, Macy Gray, Melkie Jean and Governor Washington, P.O.D., Citizen Cope, Chad Kroeger (Nickelback), Dido, Alejandro Lerner, Ozomatli, and Placido Domingo.
Santana's newest release is All That I Am. (Some say it should be called All Things To All People.) Making appearances on 'Supernatural Vol. 3' are Steven Tyler, Mary J. Blige, Big Boi, Joss Stone, Sean Paul, Los Lonely Boys, Bo Bice, Will.I.Am, Anthony Hamilton, Kirk Hammett, Robert Randolph, and a return visit by Michelle Branch (and the Wreckers).
I'm generally not a fan of an all you can eat buffet approach to albums. However, in my neighborhood, the parking lots are always filled to capacity at these establishments, which tells me there are fans of this concept.
So, it's a music marketing strategy worth considering. Who are the local or regional stars in the zip codes you are targeting? Record duets, play at each other's gigs, exchange databases, link to one another on your web sites, and do best Value sales (selling one of your CDs packaged with one from your guest collaborator).
The Best of Santana ("Jingo," "Evil Ways," "Black Magic Woman," "Oye Como Va," etc.) now appears to have served as the appetizer, with Supernatural, Shaman, and All That I Am as the entree. For dessert I'd like to see Santana and:
Stevie Wonder
Tom Petty
Keith Urban
Willie Nelson
Norah Jones
U2/Bono
Green Day
Bob Dylan
Lionel Richie
Bob Seger
Clive, you can reach me at jerry@lemboentertainment.com or 201-840-9980. (Bands looking for new marketing strategies and innovative promotional ideas can reach me there as well.)
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