?? I’m not making the connection between Clay’s song choices during a tour and his problems with RCA. LOL, he sounded great singing Sexyback. Maybe he should work with Timbaland!

I think doing ATDW was Clay towing the line. We have no idea if the label was opposed to OMWH or not. They could of been fine with him recording it. They told Clay they liked several of the songs and thought it would do well on radio. What happened from that point on and why it didn’t pan out, we don’t know. Yet.

It will be very interesting to see what happens now. Personally, I am much more interested in hearing what kind of music Clay wants to produce regardless of whether it is considered commercial or not.

Hmm. I don’t know that I personally blame RCA for everything. I think that they are the ones in control though. They hold the purse strings. They are the ones who decided that Clay shelve the album he worked for so long on and bang out a cover CD. They made the odd choices for singles. And they most certainly bear the responsibility for any decisions about how much they invest in promoting a project. So, yeah, I think they bear the biggest percentage of responsibility when an artist like Clay stalls in their career.

I still don’t see how Clay’s song choices in concert reflects on his decision making. I saw that concert and those parts worked well for me and the rest of the audience. You may not of liked it, but I thought it was fun! Everyone has different tastes in music. It is purely subjective, therefore difficult to categorize as a “mistake” or “bad/stupid decision”. Clay has performed a wide variety of genre’s in concert, so I doubt the TV theme song medley or mocking Sexyback is any real reflection on his personal taste in music. With that criteria, you could just as well say his taste in music was R&B/Country/Pop/Rock/etc…

The tv medley, and his mocking of When Doves Cry, and his parody of Like a Virgin, and other questionable choices he made on his tours, did affect the way he was perceived by a larger audience. These performances were on youtube and were talked about on blogs. He didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t portray himself as an artist to be taken seriously. This contributed to his lack of artistic credibility in the business. His performances reflect his tastes and his choices. To most people, they were tacky and amateurish choices. He didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t do himself any favors on those tours sometimes.

Really? My perceptions are really different. He certainly had fun with When Doves Cry, buy I never got the sense that he was mocking it. And his vocal performance on that song was spectacular! And it never occurred to me that having a sense of humor about himself, his music and people’s perceptions about him reflected on his artistic ability. Musicians do that all the time without people thinking that it damages the artist’s credibility. I guess Alanis Morrisette’s artistic credibility is totally shot since she made a video totally mocking “My Humps”.

What always struck me as strange about him is that he really isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t a student of music like most of idols winners and runners up. Kelly knows music, Carrie knows music, Ruben knows music, David Cook knows music, hell David Archuleta knows music. They studied different artists, different genres.

I think that is a misperception about Clay. He has a lifelong musical background in choir, musical theater, performance and even working with a band. He has a much broader knowledge of music than say Carrie Underwood, who was at quite a loss for several of the genre’s during her stint on Idol. Just because Clay doesn’t wax poetic about his musical inspirations doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them or doesn’t have any musical knowledge. He is quite proficient in several genres.