jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 5, 2014 12:21:29 GMT -5
It's curious the way he is connecting with american audiences. I understand his UK success, but this kind of success so soon in the USA (british artist usually take some time and effort to break into the US market, and some very popular never managed to do it) is not usual. He is quite special, his voice is not the average singer on the radio, and he probably takes profit of the way Adele opened a market for crafted singers with lucious ballads. La, la, la and Latch are great dance songs (he apart of singer was part of the creative process of both, or at least that's what Billboard said) but not the kind of song that usually do well on the US charts.
I think in the top 50 thread some people talk about Bruno Mars comparisions, and it's quite obvious both got known after two successful collaborations, but i think in Bruno's case that was totally calculated, they know they have a potential very successful singer and make the effort to create some buzz before releasing his album. Here is different because he was in two collaborations at the same time on chart, both with foreign artist, and in the case of Latch, or a two year old song that didn't went top 10 on UK to start with. I was even surprised that he came out so early in his career. Not because of the possible impact on UK sales (Will Young has a successful ten year career so it that wasn't be an obstacle for sure) but because he was bound to be big in the USA too, and it's true that times have changed a lot in recent years, but the truth is the last openly gay singer with a top 10 on pop was Elton John in 1994
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EPG
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Post by EPG on Jun 5, 2014 14:43:19 GMT -5
Are there any pre-release numbers on what the label expects? It has to be six-figures, right? He's not just a one-off act in America anymore.
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Hefty Hanna
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Post by Hefty Hanna on Jun 5, 2014 14:44:36 GMT -5
Literally my theme song.
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kanimal
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Post by kanimal on Jun 6, 2014 2:21:10 GMT -5
It's curious the way he is connecting with american audiences. I understand his UK success, but this kind of success so soon in the USA (british artist usually take some time and effort to break into the US market, and some very popular never managed to do it) is not usual. He is quite special, his voice is not the average singer on the radio, and he probably takes profit of the way Adele opened a market for crafted singers with lucious ballads. La, la, la and Latch are great dance songs (he apart of singer was part of the creative process of both, or at least that's what Billboard said) but not the kind of song that usually do well on the US charts. I think in the top 50 thread some people talk about Bruno Mars comparisions, and it's quite obvious both got known after two successful collaborations, but i think in Bruno's case that was totally calculated, they know they have a potential very successful singer and make the effort to create some buzz before releasing his album. Here is different because he was in two collaborations at the same time on chart, both with foreign artist, and in the case of Latch, or a two year old song that didn't went top 10 on UK to start with. I was even surprised that he came out so early in his career. Not because of the possible impact on UK sales (Will Young has a successful ten year career so it that wasn't be an obstacle for sure) but because he was bound to be big in the USA too, and it's true that times have changed a lot in recent years, but the truth is the last openly gay singer with a top 10 on pop was Elton John in 1994 I don't think it was really much of a mystery though. I mean, I know we're not supposed to judge books by their cover, but come on... Plus, while you are right about the lack of gay success stories at pop, I think that's more ascribable to the fact that there just haven't been that many great acts that were gay. I can't think of anyone whose career was specifically hurt by their coming out. People like Ricky Martin and Clay Aiken were long irrelevant at pop before they revealed their sexuality. I also think his vocal driven style would take judgment over his sexuality off the table. Voice matters so much more than image/reputation in his case. Also...I'm not sure how legit the entire story is, but he apparently used to operate different Twitter accounts (pre-fame) and was blatantly open about his sexuality. In one alleged Tweet, he said he "Just got punched in the arm by a total stranger (homophobic)." While it's possible the Tweets are fake, there are also photos that clearly appear to be him with an even more flamboyant, Boy George-esque look. And if this is all this is out there, why not just own it? It's 2014.
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downsouth
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Post by downsouth on Jun 6, 2014 7:07:39 GMT -5
I thought Adam Lambert had a top 10 hit with WWFM in 2009. Wasn't his career hurt by him coming out so early? I know his 2nd album was BB #1 but it faded pretty quick. Of course, that was a couple years ago. A lot has changed in the last few years with the fight for equality, etc. here.
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 6, 2014 8:37:56 GMT -5
Adam had a top 10 on billboard hot 100 but Whataya want from me peaked at 13 on pop. I think the problem with Adam is that his label didn't make any effort to make him successful (something that happens with almost all idols), with the right promo Adam could be way bigger than he is. At least he is winning money because his tour was a success, and now in the new label maybe he gets a proper promo.
I agree with what you said Kanimal, the fact he is not a pretty boy destined to be the preteen girls dream helped making coming out a non deal, and the type of music (and the fact that he is a songwriter) help too. But it's not that he hasn't oportunities to hide. The week before his coming out a journal asked him if he was dating the female model of Leave your lover video (wich is his friend). There are a good bunch of successful singers (some in the chart right now) who are in pr relationships. And yes, he was clearly out before his career started, but Matt Dallas was out in high school and he only came out publicly recently. People like Matt Boomer and Zachary Quinto were known to be gay way before coming out publicly, but the main audience of their films didn't know it.
Music is full of gay people, and it's quite rare that the only portion that it's underrepresented is the singers. Given the fact that his songs use to be gender neutral i thought he would came out eventualy but after the album being released and he was proved a successful mainstream artist.
Anyway, good for him for not doing that. I still think that being british helped a lot because they had Will Young as example of being out from the beginning of his career without any damage
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Au$tin
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Post by Au$tin on Jun 6, 2014 10:34:08 GMT -5
I thought Adam Lambert had a top 10 hit with WWFM in 2009. Wasn't his career hurt by him coming out so early? No. Everyone knew he was gay long before the finale of the season of American Idol he was even on.
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 6, 2014 12:30:17 GMT -5
By the way, when Adam and Kris released Whataya want from me and Live like we're dying was the exact time i discover this forum.
Is there any perfomance planned for promoting the release of the album?
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 8, 2014 13:01:47 GMT -5
Ed Sheeran's cover of the song, as Jameela Jamil not the best move to promote your main rival's song for number one the week you release your single, but Ed get his first UK number one anyway. Stay with me remains at number 2 and In the only hour keeps number one on the album chart
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Au$tin
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Post by Au$tin on Jun 11, 2014 9:59:35 GMT -5
POP 19 15 SAM SMITH Stay With Me 5876 4675 1201 37.72 +207 spins +18 bullet +1.388 AI
HOT AC 16 12 SAM SMITH Stay With Me 3330 2768 562 22.390 +78 spins -21 bullet +0.706 AI
AC 39 21 SAM SMITH Stay With Me 192 30 162 1.416 +44 spins +40 bullet +0.216 AI
Absolutely SMASHING over on AC.
#4/151/252 on iTunes (#252 is Mary J. Blige remix.)
Overall AI: 18. SAM SMITH – Stay With Me: 69.409 (+2.628) ▲
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Mr. Thonk Eyes
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Post by Mr. Thonk Eyes on Jun 11, 2014 10:16:34 GMT -5
POP 19 15 SAM SMITH Stay With Me 5876 4675 1201 37.72 +207 spins +18 bullet +1.388 AI HOT AC 16 12 SAM SMITH Stay With Me 3330 2768 562 22.390 +78 spins -21 bullet +0.706 AI AC 39 21 SAM SMITH Stay With Me 192 30 162 1.416 +44 spins +40 bullet +0.216 AI Absolutely SMASHING over on AC. #4/151/252 on iTunes (#252 is Mary J. Blige remix.) Overall AI: 18. SAM SMITH – Stay With Me: 69.409 (+2.628) ▲ First time that AC has been really fast with something
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pnobelysk
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Post by pnobelysk on Jun 11, 2014 16:48:23 GMT -5
New peak of 10 on the hot 100 this week
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2014 22:56:41 GMT -5
So so happy for this and him! <3
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 12, 2014 0:23:35 GMT -5
Great, he has his first top 10 hit (hopefully first of many)
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Post by GivesYouHell on Jun 12, 2014 16:20:24 GMT -5
I like this song but I don't get the overall hype and see what's "special" about him.
He's talented but there's no innovation, diversity or originality in his music and based on the poor reviews critics probably think the same
IMO he's just as manufactured/generic as artists like Ke$ha,Katy,Britney,etc and his label is clearly hoping for him to follow in Adele's path.
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 13, 2014 0:21:49 GMT -5
The reviews are quite similar are what some critics said about Adele's 21, critics only care about how innovative an album is, but the truth is an album can be very good (and 21 is a good example) without being innovative at all. It's like book critics who constantly praise innovative novels no matter how little substance they have He is a soul singer, so probably not the best genre for innovations anyway. And frankly the comparisions with Kesha, Katy and Britney are quite unfair. He is a songwriter, the songs are about him, and he is able to sing, three things that clearly difference of those three. I could understand a comparission with Bruno Mars, as someone who is a good singer, a songwriter, but with no risk in his songs (even when one of Sam's collaborations is a house song and you can count the house hits per decade with the fingers of one hand), and even with that Bruno is a way safer choice for a label than Sam
And no matter how much success Adele had, she is an exception. Generally this type of music is not what you see in the charts. He is not the typical goodlooking guy the labels use to push for success. Now it's quite easy to claim that he is manufactured, but if that was the case, he is very very far from the usual manufactured artist
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evergreen
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Post by evergreen on Jun 13, 2014 1:14:26 GMT -5
Mary bought absolutely nothing to the duet. Left an awful taste in my mouth—who thought that was a good idea?
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YourFaveIsAFlop
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Post by YourFaveIsAFlop on Jun 13, 2014 8:31:02 GMT -5
Mary bought absolutely nothing to the duet. Left an awful taste in my mouth—who thought that was a good idea? Somebody at the label that thought it would be a good way to crack Urban AC.
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 13, 2014 9:51:30 GMT -5
Mary bought absolutely nothing to the duet. Left an awful taste in my mouth—who thought that was a good idea? Somebody at the label that thought it would be a good way to crack Urban AC. Probably, but frankly that's not a reason to make a duet (or at least it shouldn't be). And that song is near top 20 in that format and it was doing well before the duet
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No Brake$
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Post by No Brake$ on Jun 13, 2014 10:55:00 GMT -5
As from stated earlier, I can't believe how much the American Audiences are buying into Smith, which is a great thing. Huge talent, just can't believe we are seeing two Sam Smith songs tear up the charts, in America. Are they pushing him hard or what? It's interesting when so many acts from the UK were huge there and just completely flopped here ala Robbie Williams, maybe Kylie (I know she is Australian), hell, even Take That during a time where no boy bands were popular here. It's all interesting, good for Sam Smith.
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Carlitoz
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Post by Carlitoz on Jun 13, 2014 12:43:03 GMT -5
After three weeks of thinking about it, this morning finally I was able to pinpoint which song Stay With Me reminds me of. So much that I thought Stay With Me was a cover the first time I heard it. The song I finally remembered today was Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down"
Smith's chorus sounds like a slowed down version of Petty's verse. You need to replace the lyric "stay with me" by the "won't back down".
I am NOT saying Smith copied it. I'm just saying Smith's reminded me of something and I found out what it was. I googled this and discovered I was not the only one thinking this way. :)
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 13, 2014 13:27:51 GMT -5
I can see the similarities, and it's curious because at the same time both songs are totally different. After so many years it's difficult to find songs that not share a couple of notes. I remember when Bruno Mars released Locked out of heaven that the beginning of the song remind me so much the start of Crying at the discotheque from Swedish group Alcazar (and both songs are very very different). Anyway in any of both cases we are in a Me and my broken heart / Lonely no more situation.
No Brak€$, it's quite difficult to understand. This global age it's making more common that british acts (and even europeans) find some success on US charts. During a good while a lot of very popular british singers (and not only popular in UK, Robbie Williams during a period was probably the most popular male singer worldwide) tryed and failed to get some success in the USA. His success is quite sudden and unexpected anyway. I suppose his label is supporting him (and i expect some promo in the USA soon), but even with that it's not that easy to find the kind of success he is getting. A lot of teen groups with rabid fans are able to push their songs pretty high on itunes but then they fall soon. Adele had a lot of success with her first album, but it was ignored on the radio (not even the great Chasing pavements find the half of success it deserved), and only when Rolling in the deep exploded she became a radio darling.
As far as i know Taylor Swift twitted about him (she maybe seems uptight but she never has any problem to promote other artists), and he has a performance of Stay with me, wich made the song explode on itunes even without airplay (and it was able to stay in the medium part of the top 100 itunes without getting much airplay without problem), then his both collaborations started to climb (and La, la, la and Latch are the kind of songs that usually are big on UK but don't do nothing on US charts, and curiously now Latch is probably a bigger hit on USA than it was on UK), and then Stay with me started to climb in several charts.
He doesn't seem the kind of singer that gets that much attention from the beginning, but it's happening. The fact that soul had some success in recent years and there are a lot more different sound getting airplay in the pop chart right now sure helped.
Now we'll see if this love was temporary (we have the example of Sing that seemed destined to be very very big and end in the middle) or if he is to stay. His album will be released next week, we'll see if the reception is as good as it was in UK
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maine
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Post by maine on Jun 14, 2014 12:57:49 GMT -5
Rhythm remix under Cool New Music. There is now 4 versions of this song under CNM...
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 14, 2014 13:27:04 GMT -5
I think there will be a good bunch of his songs in the itunes top 100 next week with the release of the album. Right now he has three solo songs in the top 100, Stay with me (5), I'm not the only one (75) and Leave your lover (96) and two more near top 100, Money on my mind (106) and Not in that way (109)
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Lahey's Lucky Star
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Post by Lahey's Lucky Star on Jun 15, 2014 12:50:43 GMT -5
Top 50 on Rhythmic.
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 15, 2014 13:02:17 GMT -5
I think the effect of the release of the album will be clear, right now all his solo songs are up on itunes (SWM is at 3, INTOO at 70, LYL at 79, MOMM at 85 and NITW at 94)
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maine
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Post by maine on Jun 15, 2014 15:30:39 GMT -5
I think the effect of the release of the album will be clear, right now all his solo songs are up on itunes (SWM is at 3, INTOO at 70, LYL at 79, MOMM at 85 and NITW at 94) Can't forget that "Latch" is at #12 and climbing. "La La La" is at #73, but falling.
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 16, 2014 12:39:28 GMT -5
3 on itunes again. This is climbing fast even without a promo performance (in fact all his solo songs are climbing on itunes)
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EPG
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Post by EPG on Jun 16, 2014 17:19:26 GMT -5
"Stay With Me" will be #2 as soon as "Afire Love" starts dropping. It passed "Problem."
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jjose712
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Post by jjose712 on Jun 19, 2014 9:30:15 GMT -5
Number one in canadian billboard hot 100
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