Who Is Fancy - "Goodbye"

[maine]

Apr 10, 2015 13:18:05 GMT -5 Kurt said:

The Billboard story is up - quoting an interesting section on the rollout below:

Braun and Big Machine initially wanted to tease out the mystery campaign a little longer, until it was a bona fide hit at radio and a top seller on iTunes. But influential radio programmers and personalities like Z100’s Elvis Duran began pushing back, complaining they couldn’t get behind the song much longer without having a tactile identity. Listeners were confused, too, speculating that Who Is Fancy could be anyone from Lady Gaga to Justin Bieber to Zayn Malik.

“It got to a point where, the landscape’s too crowded -- there are too many great new artists with great new songs now,” allows Braun. “And they’re all out there on the promo circuit working their ass off, shaking hands. Although we feel we have a long way to go with the public and continuing to build his awareness, I had Elvis calling me getting pissed. So I said to Fancy and my team, ‘What do you guys think?’ I went over and I saw him perform and said, ‘You know, he’s come so far in rehearsals that now’s the time to have the Today show and Jimmy Fallon step up and say, ‘We want to reveal this. Let’s go national.’”

Don't get why Elvis Duran got pissed. Just because he doesn't have an identity and there was supposed to be mystery for the campaign, doesn't give him a reason to be pissed? Kinda dumb if you ask me.

ETA: Quoted it since it landed at the bottom of the page.

[tamed09]

If you listen to the Z100 interview he clearly was not happy with the rollout(he as in Elvis). He kept saying that Jake should be accepted for who he is and he felt it gives consumers the wrong mindset that you can't have a certain visibility and look a certain way

[jjose712]

That would be more accurate some years ago, but in recent years we have Mary Lambert, Sam Smith or Meghan Trainor who don't have the weight of a supposed star. And teen girls love Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran who doesn't look like hearthrobs at all.

I think it was simply an strategy to put him in the map. He is almost an unknown and his previous works were in a totally different style so i don't think it's wrong put a little mystery in the mix.

It didn't worked and it's a pity because the song is good, hopefully he will have more luck with the second single. The label seems quite invested in him, so he probably will have more opportunities (maybe with a more frontal promo it will work better)

[kanimal]

Apr 10, 2015 14:26:04 GMT -5 jjose712 said:

That would be more accurate some years ago, but in recent years we have Mary Lambert, Sam Smith or Meghan Trainor who don't have the weight of a supposed star. And teen girls love Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran who doesn't look like hearthrobs at all.

I think it was simply an strategy to put him in the map. He is almost an unknown and his previous works were in a totally different style so i don't think it's wrong put a little mystery in the mix.

It didn't worked and it's a pity because the song is good, hopefully he will have more luck with the second single. The label seems quite invested in him, so he probably will have more opportunities (maybe with a more frontal promo it will work better)

I mean - this is it right here.  I remember they used some BS line about "making this about the music" at the iHeart Summit, but the campaign for this song was about everything BUT the music.  "Who is Fancy" was designed to create intrigue around his identity.  As was the "I'm Fancy" campaign on social media. As was the format they used for the music video.

The hook here was "Who is Fancy."  "Goodbye" was reduced to an instrument for building the mystery.

Saying it was "about the music" is the same backwards logic Sia uses when it comes to not showing her face.  She says she doesn't want people to talk about her look, but performing behind ridiculous masks or curtains or with her back turned to the audience puts attention on her appearance.  If you don't want people talking about your face, don't draw attention to it.

If you want people focusing on the music, don't make people focus on what the artist really looks like.

On top of that, the bit tamed09 quoted also sums up a psychological ramification.  By masking someone's appearance--and drawing attention to the fact that you're masking it--you make people wonder why...and if you worry people would judge what you're hiding harshly.

I also think it's wrong to dismiss what Elvis Duran was saying because it happened to ruin the campaign.  He made a very interesting point:  people couldn't get behind the song without knowing who sings it.  This is a game of personal connections; putting a face and name behind the work makes it easier for people to connect to it.

[Linnethia Monique]

Scooter got cocky and Elvis called him out on it. Simple as that.

[getonthebus]

Apr 10, 2015 15:39:27 GMT -5 kanimal said:

Apr 10, 2015 14:26:04 GMT -5 jjose712 said:

That would be more accurate some years ago, but in recent years we have Mary Lambert, Sam Smith or Meghan Trainor who don't have the weight of a supposed star. And teen girls love Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran who doesn't look like hearthrobs at all.

I think it was simply an strategy to put him in the map. He is almost an unknown and his previous works were in a totally different style so i don't think it's wrong put a little mystery in the mix.

It didn't worked and it's a pity because the song is good, hopefully he will have more luck with the second single. The label seems quite invested in him, so he probably will have more opportunities (maybe with a more frontal promo it will work better)

I mean - this is it right here.  I remember they used some BS line about "making this about the music" at the iHeart Summit, but the campaign for this song was about everything BUT the music.  "Who is Fancy" was designed to create intrigue around his identity.  As was the "I'm Fancy" campaign on social media. As was the format they used for the music video.

The hook here was "Who is Fancy."  "Goodbye" was reduced to an instrument for building the mystery.

Saying it was "about the music" is the same backwards logic Sia uses when it comes to not showing her face.  She says she doesn't want people to talk about her look, but performing behind ridiculous masks or curtains or with her back turned to the audience puts attention on her appearance.  If you don't want people talking about your face, don't draw attention to it.

If you want people focusing on the music, don't make people focus on what the artist really looks like.

On top of that, the bit tamed09 quoted also sums up a psychological ramification.  By masking someone's appearance--and drawing attention to the fact that you're masking it--you make people wonder why...and if you worry people would judge what you're hiding harshly.

I also think it's wrong to dismiss what Elvis Duran was saying because it ruined the campaign.  He made a very interesting point:  people couldn't get behind the song without knowing who sings it.  This is a game of personal connections; putting a face and name behind the work makes it easier for people to connect to it.

YAS GIRL YAS. This whole campaign was bulls**t, and actually seems kind of insulting to LGBT people. The good sis Sam Smith just swept the Grammy's, so I think the market is pretty open for non-traditional acts right now.

[tamed09]

I think just because the good sis Sam had success doesn't mean the market is just flat out open right now.

[🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾]

Apr 10, 2015 14:26:04 GMT -5 jjose712 said:

That would be more accurate some years ago, but in recent years we have Mary Lambert, Sam Smith or Meghan Trainor who don't have the weight of a supposed star. And teen girls love Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran who doesn't look like hearthrobs at all.

They aren't what we consider "traditional popstars", but that definition is hopefully slowly changing for the better. Those artists have released some pretty good music that connected with the public beyond just the image. Sidebar: I am not here for Meghan Trainor, but I know many are so I will just leave it at that. Sam, Ed, Mary, and Meghan's public personas in interviews and on social media have been fairly down to earth and the fans connected with that to so that helped. They have an "everyman/everywoman" kind of demeanor which is super relatable.

Apr 10, 2015 15:39:27 GMT -5 kanimal said:

I also think it's wrong to dismiss what Elvis Duran was saying because it happened to ruin the campaign.  He made a very interesting point:  people couldn't get behind the song without knowing who sings it.  This is a game of personal connections; putting a face and name behind the work makes it easier for people to connect to it.

A connection with the person singing the song is fairly important, however, I can see why they tried to create this huge "mystery" and lead up to a huge rollout because Fancy doesn't look like the typical popstar (he isn't bad looking or anything like that, but he desperately needs a stylist to fix the hair), but as others mentioned that we have had many non-traditional ones do well recently, this whole thing may not have been needed, but there is the public's need to categorize everything into a box that has a frame of reference to something that they already know. It's this idea of it has to be either this or that, not the other, and if it is that other category, they may be uneasy about it. When people have certain notions and ideas about a certain person or thing, it's very hard to change that because they will usually stick firmly with said notions and ideas.

If Fancy were an established artist like, for example, Justin Bieber, the general public has an unfavorable view of him and his music so people may have gone from liking it to hating it all of a sudden. That may be very true for some who cannot articulate or deal with the horror of liking something by him (I know many people who were in complete shock when they somehow *gasp* liked a song by Justin Bieber during his last album era) and that is so shallow and ridiculous for them to go do that 180 and suddenly hate it just because they found out who was really the singer.

Back in the mid 2000s, LaToya Jackson wanted to make a comeback to the music scene, however, her reputation was a mess due to the turmoil surrounding her personal and professional life at that time, however, she had moderate success in the 1980s and early 1990s with her music. She decided to release the song under an alias called Toy which was just a shortened form of her name and the song did get some buzz on the club chart do okay considering there was all this mystery surrounding the record at the time. However, many were simply not here for that record after they found out it was really recorded by LaToya Jackson. Some felt taken by her and that she had been dishonest with them. Subsequent single releases went absolutely nowhere and her comeback album never materialized in a meaningful manner.

Apr 10, 2015 22:41:33 GMT -5 tamed09 said:

I think just because the good sis Sam had success doesn't mean the market is just flat out open right now.

Grammy success/Grammy love hasn't always translated into lasting success so it's too soon to tell if he will continue to be successful. I hope he will be though.

[jjose712]

I wouldn't put Sam as example of anything. I remember back in the day a journalist commenting on the top 50 of the hot 100. Stay with me was not top 20 back them and i remember his words saying there wasn't an artist with such sense of inevitability since Mariah Carey.

Sam Smith only needed a performance to establish himself in the USA. Nobody knew him (well, maybe Taylor Swift fans because she twitted about him, but she supports a lot of people) and two performances at SNL and 2 songs on the top 10 of itunes the next day.

Compare that with Ed Sheeran who has a similar success right now, and it's obvious who have an easier access to the USA charts. Not that he didn't worked hard, he did it, but he was accepted from the minute one.

Yes there was some backlash about his weight or he not being that handsome, and probably he was destined to be mocked if he didn't come out, but he did, and that put a positive spin (no matter some gay journalist were harsh with him for being so conservative).

Music is a difficult market, today you are the flavour of the day, tomorrow you are forgotten, but Sam has a big advantage, if some day pop market is less receptive, he could go on an adult audience. Josh Groban or Michael Buble sell a lot of records without radio support and he could do the same.

For a lot of years british acts had a tough time trying to be successful on the USA, the market is so big that it needs a lot of word, some voices that are liked in Europe have not the same effect in the USA. But now they are living another british invasion, and curiously not even cuter singers like George Ezra or James Bay are really marketed like traditional pop singers for teens

I don't really thing knowing the one who sings is that important (for the release of a single, a career is a very different story), a lot of people don't know who sings in David Guetta, Avicii or other djs (when the singers is not that popular), and kids are not even that interested in it anyway (i remember reading an article about the big sales of a book supposely written by a youtuber when everybody knows she is not the real writer). The problem here is the strategy failing.
And i don't think it's radio fault. Radio supported the song way beyond its sales. If the songs became a hit on its own, the strategy should have work because people will be wondering who was the one singing that smash hit.
When the song didn't became a hit the singer became irrelevant.

Now they have to build his career again and give him another start. Curiously, mabye a more direct aproach will work better. The truth he is not bad looking, and with a better stylist he even could look good. Give him a good song (as far as i know he is a songwriter so probably he has a lot of material) a good video and try again.
There are a lot of good songs ignored every day (and a lot of crap having success) and labels should understand the music like they did in the 80's, the fact that not being a hit at the first try doesn't mean that you should quit (legends like U2 didn't get successful till the third album)

[The Upper Hand]

[Kurt]

Gone from Playbook's pop section. Gooooodbyeeeeeee :/

[Aaron]

The irony.

[Dylan :)]

Idk, the image feels sooo forced. Love the song, though :(

[maine]

Apr 13, 2015 12:54:55 GMT -5 Dylan :) said:

Idk, the image feels sooo forced. Love the song, though :(

This was exactly my thought when I saw the Fallon reveal. It was very over the top. The make-up, nail polish, eye liner, everything. His gay image seemed very forced.

[Dylan :)]

Apr 13, 2015 13:33:13 GMT -5 maine said:

Apr 13, 2015 12:54:55 GMT -5 Dylan :) said:

Idk, the image feels sooo forced. Love the song, though :(

This was exactly my thought when I saw the Fallon reveal. It was very over the top. The make-up, nail polish, eye liner, everything. His gay image seemed very forced.

Don't get me wrong, there are gay men out there who are more feminine than this, or just as feminine (or the complete opposite). And whether someone is or isn't doesn't matter, this just doesn't feel genuine at all, and isn't necessary, and idk why they feel the need to. I could be wrong, though, in which case, good for him, idc! 

[maine]

Apr 13, 2015 13:44:17 GMT -5 Dylan :) said:

Apr 13, 2015 13:33:13 GMT -5 maine said:

This was exactly my thought when I saw the Fallon reveal. It was very over the top. The make-up, nail polish, eye liner, everything. His gay image seemed very forced.

Don't get me wrong, there are gay men out there who are more feminine than this, or just as feminine (or the complete opposite). And whether someone is or isn't doesn't matter, this just doesn't feel genuine at all, and isn't necessary, and idk why they feel the need to. I could be wrong, though, in which case, good for him, idc! 

I do believe he is actually gay, but you're right, it doesn't feel genuine. 

[Dylan :)]

Apr 13, 2015 13:45:49 GMT -5 maine said:

Apr 13, 2015 13:44:17 GMT -5 Dylan :) said:

Don't get me wrong, there are gay men out there who are more feminine than this, or just as feminine (or the complete opposite). And whether someone is or isn't doesn't matter, this just doesn't feel genuine at all, and isn't necessary, and idk why they feel the need to. I could be wrong, though, in which case, good for him, idc! 

I do believe he is actually gay, but you're right, it doesn't feel genuine. 

Same, I just question the image 

[Daryl the Beryl]

Debuts at #98 on the Hot 100

[frank]

Apr 16, 2015 7:30:50 GMT -5 Daryl the Beryl said:

Debuts at #98 on the Hot 100

Probably going to be its peak, now that it's been purged/falling. What a shame. This deserved so much better.

[The Upper Hand]

Apr 13, 2015 11:52:30 GMT -5 Kurt said:

Gone from Playbook's pop section. Gooooodbyeeeeeee :/

What is Playbook and what does it mean?

[Daryl the Beryl]

Apr 16, 2015 21:20:59 GMT -5 The Upper Hand said:

Apr 13, 2015 11:52:30 GMT -5 Kurt said:

Gone from Playbook's pop section. Gooooodbyeeeeeee :/

What is Playbook and what does it mean?

Republic Playbook shows the songs that are currently being promoted by Republic Records (Fancy's label)

[frashcoholic]

Goodbye Fancy :(

[jjose712]

Well, it was obvious that the promo came simply too late (and frankly, it was pretty clear the strategy was not going to work when the song started to stall barely after reaching top 30)

Anyway, i don't think this will be the end of Fancy, the label seems quite invested in him. The strategy didn't work (which is a pity because the song is good) but there's no reason to think a more conventional approach will fail with the next single.
He get enough airplay for radio be receptive to the next song, and it would be smart not wait too much to relesase it

[getonthebus]

Apr 17, 2015 8:02:00 GMT -5 jjose712 said:

Well, it was obvious that the promo came simply too late (and frankly, it was pretty clear the strategy was not going to work when the song started to stall barely after reaching top 30)

Anyway, i don't think this will be the end of Fancy, the label seems quite invested in him. The strategy didn't work (which is a pity because the song is good) but there's no reason to think a more conventional approach will fail with the next single.
He get enough airplay for radio be receptive to the next song, and it would be smart not wait too much to relesase it

At least he'll have something to discuss with interviewers during the promo campaign for single #2, I guess.

[Dylan :)]

I must admit, when I saw Goodbye on the CHR chart, I looked it up and when I saw all these people in different videos, I actually got interested in figuring out who he was and searched him, which I say a lot of people would have done if they pushed the song more (e.g. send to more formats). When it started reaching its peak on CHR (which I didn't expect to happen then), it entered the top 100 on iTunes. If only this performance had come two weeks earlier, or radio gave it another shot after the performance :'(

[jjose712]

Well, i think the label should look for the positive, the performance it had a good reaction, the song climbed a lot which is something really good for an unknown. Unfortunately as DylanGLC said, it was two weeks late.
Now it's time to find a good song and try a more conventional promo

[Deleted]

I always feel bad for new artists on major labels. The pressure for something to break though is probably incredibly intense, and it must be terrifying to wonder how much the label will invest in them before they give up. Fancy has a good voice and this was catchy so I'm rooting for him, but it's not looking good right now.

[Deleted]

Wow, looking at the thing with Scooter and Elvis, it seems like the people on the radio side just found the whole idea annoying and try-hard. In order for the idea to work, the label needed radio personalities to be an active part of the "who is Fancy?" hype machine, and the radio peeps clearly had no interest in doing that - as well they shouldn't, because it isn't their job to promote your artist. It's their job to play what they think their listeners would like to hear, and some of those confused listeners may have simply refused to 'commit' to liking the song until they could rest easy knowing that it's not from someone they really dislike. People don't like to admit how much they let personal biases affect what they buy, but many of us do just that.

Radio might have gone along with it if the song was selling well enough, but that was a catch-22 - the song needed to be heard repeatedly by more people to boost its sales, and radio was holding out on airplay until the song started selling more.

Of course, what it ultimately came down to is that "Goodbye" may be a nice song, but it wasn't nice enough to make people request/buy the song in droves regardless of who Fancy might be. And if people are that indifferent to it, why should radio feel anything more than indifference?

I don't know if it's necessarily true that people need to be able to attach a face to every song - I don't think many people know much of anything about Natalie La Rose, for example - but it's when you purposely try to 'hide' that it feels overdone and you either get a push against it, or people deciding they really don't give a damn and not paying attention at all. Scooter and Big Machine would have been better off simply sending this to radio and working it for a while, letting it grow and have the suspense build more naturally. "This Goodbye song is really good. Who is this Fancy guy?" Then once it has hit a certain point, send him out on the talk show circuit.

[🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾]

Apr 13, 2015 13:44:17 GMT -5 Dylan :) said:

Apr 13, 2015 13:33:13 GMT -5 maine said:

This was exactly my thought when I saw the Fallon reveal. It was very over the top. The make-up, nail polish, eye liner, everything. His gay image seemed very forced.

Don't get me wrong, there are gay men out there who are more feminine than this, or just as feminine (or the complete opposite). And whether someone is or isn't doesn't matter, this just doesn't feel genuine at all, and isn't necessary, and idk why they feel the need to. I could be wrong, though, in which case, good for him, idc! 

I was talking about this with some friends earlier and they think he's "too gay" (whatever that means) to appeal to mainstream especially in light of all the anti-gay marriage stuff happening in the U.S. right now.

[jjose712]

Apr 18, 2015 1:29:13 GMT -5 🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾 said:

Apr 13, 2015 13:44:17 GMT -5 Dylan :) said:

Don't get me wrong, there are gay men out there who are more feminine than this, or just as feminine (or the complete opposite). And whether someone is or isn't doesn't matter, this just doesn't feel genuine at all, and isn't necessary, and idk why they feel the need to. I could be wrong, though, in which case, good for him, idc! 

I was talking about this with some friends earlier and they think he's "too gay" (whatever that means) to appeal to mainstream especially in light of all the anti-gay marriage stuff happening in the U.S. right now.

All the anti gay stuff in the USA is nothing new, in fact it's the change of mentalities what is provoking this reaction as it happened in all countries gay marriage was approved. That's the general reaction before realizing nothing has changed after gay marriage is aproved.
there will always be people complaining, but in recent years the reaction (at least on tv shows) is not caring at all about the complains (specially because people complain about tv shows that are a success like Empire, Spartacus or How to get away with murder, and when the numbers are in your favour tv channels couldn't care less).

For a singer is a tricky situation. If you look closely to Sam Smith's career you will se how difficult is navigate in the mainstream for an openly gay singer.
Sam is probably the less threatening pop star now, he is very inclusive in his lyrics (which in my opinion is a good part of his success) and he is openly gay from the beginning, but he recieved a lot of backlash from some gay writers. Gawker's Rich Juzwiak seems to hate him, almost everything Sam said end being distorted and prepared for controversy.

In america a gay masculine guy has a lot more probabilities to not receive backlash than a straight feminie guy. In europe there are a lot of singers whose oufits, make up and stage attitude are far from typical masculine attitudes, and there's not a problem at all. I remember all the screaming girls for Tokio Hotel not so many years ago.
In my opinion Adam Lambert had more problems to be a mainstream artist for the make up and the outfits than for being gay. In fact Adam is a particular case because his stage presence is way more flamboyant than his real persona

And right now, the gay presence in the charts is so new, that if three or four gay artist reach the chart at the same time there will be probably a good bunch of listeners complains about the classic i have no problems with gays but there's too many on the chart right now

And it will be very interesting to see if Fany is able to make another hit, or how it's going to be the reception of Adam's new material, because right now it seems americans have a lot less problem to accept a gay star if he is not american