HERE’s WHAT YOU GET:
*A ticket in the first 10 rows
*Meet & Greet with photo op
*Exclusive pre-show acoustic showcase with David
*Pre-show party
*Early Hassle Free Entrance to venue
*Exclusive David Archuleta gift bag
*5-Star souvenir laminate
*Parking
*Crowd-free merchandise shopping

XM plays it a ton and so does radio disney, but for some reason, top 40 wonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t play it much.

Yeah, its like a good news/bad news scenario with that song. Bad news: didn’t go anywhere on pop. Good news: hit big on radio disney, where a huge part of his fanbase frequents. So he keeps a strong presence in that market, one that will be reinforced with an appearance on Miley’s show and a tour with Demi. So he has somewhere to start from with album #2. Worse case scenario is it hits only on radio disney again.. and he makes a killing through touring and merchandising. And he still could return to the pop charts on his next project.

Honestly, despite all the fan battles and stuff, it is hard to feel sorry for any popular idols. Once you’ve been successful on the show you can build a nice career for yourself for at least a few years, SOMEWHERE in the entertainment business. Even Rueben still plays paying gigs. 6 years later. So its all good!

I may be in the minority, but Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢d rather hear Adam sing commercial/relevant songs that Brit and Gaga have, than to hear him and his tongue screech at me with some old school rock song like Born to Be Wild.

ITA with this. I don’t mind Lady Gaga at all. To me its just dance music and I have fond memories of club hopping to songs like that. It is a little odd to hear that stuff on the radio. Anyway it’s fun, OTT music, made for the kinda surreal existence that comes with nightlife. Adam fits right in there. If TPTB let him do his best crazy electronica thing that is.

That said, I still want Allison’s album more.

soundscene and kristen, I’m enjoying your exchange, and I’m learning a lot from you both. Thanks!

Too bad those spoilers aren’t true as I’d love to hear Adam sing Call Me.

I hope he really camps it up tonight, or queens it up, or whatever fits.

I kind of get the whole à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“foreverà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  thingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Even after she got introà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢d to the US market by singing on SYTYCD that was like, last August and it still took a long, long time pop-radio wise for her to finally blow up how she did. I wonder why it works that way?

My station (KQMQ) is an early adopter independently and locally-owned station. It plays more non-hits than other stations because it usually adds songs right away, even if they may never blow up. I started hearing Just Dance a few months before it was played everywhere else.

Once Z100 added it, then it took off. Basically, Big Daddy Z100 is supposed to “know something” that other stations don’t know, I suppose because there’s a lot more advertiser money riding on what they play. Once Just Dance blew up to the degree it did, and radio brought Britney back as well, the new era of uptempo “dancy” tracks had begun. It became a semi-standard in the format itself meaning that Lady Gaga’s next track, Poker Face, which is very similar, got immediate airplay. Had she put out a slower less dancy single, I’m not so sure it would have taken off as well. She was helped because her style was determined to be “in” and, therefore, less risky, even if she was a newer artist.

Anyway, my original point about XM–XM20′s playlist is based almost entirely on the degree to which its listeners love the songs they play. Much like Idol, you can power vote for songs, both online and on the phone. The theory is that people will stick with a subscription service because it is responsive to what they really, really like. Now, there will be people who hate the song that some other users love to death, but XM has so many different stations in various formats, that it winds up not mattering so much. And those listeners can power vote for the songs they love. Taking advertisers out of the mix means that the consumers are the actual end-users, so XM is responsible for their hapiness, not the happiness of a company. XM cares only about the total amount of subscribers over its entire service.

Lady Gaga just turned 23, so FOREVER is a relative term.

Um, of course it’s relative. I meant it didn’t break in the US until a long time after its attempted release.

While Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m completely with you, noctem, that Matt is the most musically interesting and relevant guy (heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s my favorite), I happen to think he was one of the TCOà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s that TPTB are abandoning because heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s dropping the ball.

I totally agree with you. I think that Matt blew his chances (largely due to nerves). I don’t think he was their original favourite to win (they wouldn’t have had him sing so early in the semi-finals if he was unless they were trying to engineer a wildcard. Odd how early he went compared to the others. Maybe it was because he blew that first song choice), but he was one of the ones they would have gotten behind if things had lined up (he had done better and one of the higher priority chosen ones had slipped up).

I also agree that he is the most current and is one of the contestants with higher levels of musicality (Adam, Matt, Kris and Allison. Adam has the best vocals and has a better feel for what he can do with his voice. Allison is a little bit below Adam there. Neither seems to be able to play instruments (I don’t think Allison proved she can really play a guitar rather than just strum a few notes). Kris seems to be the best arranger and song picker and is pretty good on the guitar. His voice is a little weak. Matt is the best musician and he comes up with some good arrangements sometimes, but his song choices suck and he’s not clear on what his voice can do).

a) Lady Gaga is new and she is everywhere. There are lots of new artists that have broken out in the last year

b) Archie did play for free at tonnes of radio events. In fact, this almost seems like an argument that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Crushà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  was only a hit because of Jive doing the hard sell and was a crapastic middle of the road, inoffensive song. Personally, I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t buy that for a minute. Even commercial radio is going to play songs they think people want to hear (and Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ve seen enough Idols doing those radio promo things to know that doing them doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t guarantee you any kind of hit).

Lady Gaga took FOREVER to break. She was a hit in Canada with Just Dance aaaaages before it was ever played here in the States, and not for lack of releasing it. There are artists that break through, but you better bet her label put a hard sell on that song. She was also gaining tons of buzz from Perez Hilton–he’s been pimping her for awhile.

And I’m under no delusion as to why Crush was a hit–Jive put a hard sell on the song and promised David would play a bunch of Christmas concerts. I don’t think radio would have taken a chance on it otherwise (coming out of Idol his image was as an AC ballad singer–not a top 40 pop star). That’s the thing–I said hard sell AND/OR middle-of-the-road. A song can be both, but a good song by a new artist can get airplay simply because the label pushed it hard enough. Quality doesn’t mean jack as far as airplay is concerned. If you want to measure how much people love a song, then check out how much they’ve downloaded a song compared to its airplay. If it’s outselling its airplay it means the song is loved by a greater proportion of people that hear it, even if the song isn’t played all that much. Crush outsold its airplay. It stayed in the top 20 for months on iTunes after its release. It’s still selling around 11K every week. People liked the song a lot. So Jive gave the hard sell, but did it on a song people wound up loving–but they still had to sell it in order for radio to take a chance on it.

A song can also get played without the “hard sell,” if it does well in listener surveys. The way radio stations (especially Cumulus and CC-owned stations) decide to play songs is with these surveys–either online or in person with focus groups. People are hardly homogeneous in their musical tastes, so when you get a large number of people together, you wind up with songs that are least hated by everybody, not necessarily songs that are most loved. Commercial radio stations just want a song liked enough so you don’t change the station. They could care less about the degree to which a listener likes a song.

The same can be said for TV–the consumer for both commercial radio and broadcast television aren’t the end users, but the advertisers. So the system is inefficient in terms of quality control. TV shows that are considered “cult”–absolutely adored by those who love them even if not a lot of people watch them, are usually canceled due to poor ratings. Yet the people watching those shows were shown to (1) watch them live and hence, not fast-forward through the commercials, and (2) have better retention of the commercials because of that. But TV stations still work under the model that more eyes are better than less eyes who pay attention. Same goes for radio–more ears are better than less ears paying attention. What is “loved” doesn’t matter. What is “not hated” does. Highly inefficient. (Note: a song can be “loved” and “not hated” at the same time; just that a song can also be “not loved” and “not hated” too; still rendering the system inefficient).

Single sales in comparison to airplay will always be a better indicator of how much a song is loved. Airplay alone will not.

Occasionally, you’ll get the early adopter radio stations that will take chances on most new songs if the artist or the song has at least a minimal buzz. You’ll see these stations add pretty much anything. WZEE, KRCK, WSTW, KQMQ, etc. They’re usually independently or locally-owned stations. And even they will eventually drop a song if it doesn’t wind up taking off with CC or Cumulus stations.

Except Adam, unlike Brit and Gaga, can actually sing. It would be a shame to mask his vocals under all those computerized tricks.

I may be in the minority, but I’d rather hear Adam sing commercial/relevant songs that Brit and Gaga have, than to hear him and his tongue screech at me with some old school rock song like Born to Be Wild. Sorry, he can sing, and can sound great at times, but most of the time, his vocal pyrotechnics are more OTT than I can handle. Maybe masking some of the tongue-out screeching with computerized tricks will be a good thing for those like me who can’t handle the deep fried twinkie-ness, haha.

From the song I heard on IA of hers, it fits the junk that top 40 is playing IMO.

Well, I’m not going to argue that she’s good (she rates an automatic radio channel change from me), but I cannot argue she’s not popular with others. “Poker Face” has moved 2.3M units and “Just Dance” has moved 3.7M units. That’s a lot. I’ll give those buyers the benifit of the doubt and say they actually like those songs.

Idol is not an organic show. Things rarely à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“just happenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ . They start early. They strategize on what kinds of people they are looking for (reports are constantly coming in about how the frontline auditioners at the cattle calls are looking for à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“specific typesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ).

Bingo. Thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s why the cattle calls are such a crapshoot. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“fairà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  but for many, Idol is their shot, so if thereà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s even a slim chance that Lady Luck smiles on you, and you turn out to be one of the types theyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re casting for that year, then youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ve hit the jackpot. For all his talk about not being an avid Idol watcher prior to being on the show, David Cook understood that right off the bat at his audition: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“I think my voice is strong enough to carry me through, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s just a matter of whether or not Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m what theyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re looking for.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  That said, even if you are one of the potential TCOà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s as mapped out and pre-planned by TPTB, you gotta bring it or theyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re abandon you for the more compelling storyline. I definitely think they have several TCOs each year as part of their planning and mapping.

The only one of the guys who is both musically interesting AND relevant is Matt. I think he would be similar to the kind of artist that David Archuleta should be now. But, I guess TPTB think that Chris and his shitty guitar playing presents a more à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“attractive packageà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ .

While Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m completely with you, noctem, that Matt is the most musically interesting and relevant guy (heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s my favorite), I happen to think he was one of the TCOà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s that TPTB are abandoning because he’s dropping the ball. He screwed up too many times, and for various reasons he has failed to rally the fan support or the critical support that Adam and Kris have. Even when he’s good (Let’s Get it On), he’s bottom 3, and when he’s awesome (So Small), he doesn’t get too much buzz in the media. I personally find Matt more compelling, but Kris has been consistent and good, and heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s got a fanbase that Matt doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t. I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t think Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ success on the show has much to do with TPTBà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’ heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s just been doing well.