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CartThe Kids Are All Right
Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:22:19
If breaking a new artist takes Herculean effort, then launching a new
pop act now requires nothing less than a miracle. Teen tastes are
shifting ever-earlier away from synthetic sounds, while pretty boys
equipped with guyliner and guitars are filling the void once stocked
with million-unit boyband debuts. But a new genre is bucking the
trend—eschewing conventional industry wisdom to sell millions of
units to a rabid fanbase. Tweenpop is in full bloom, and it may just
offer the blueprint to reverse the doom-laden decline in music
industry revenue.
When it comes to making an impact with a new artist, conventional
industry wisdom is clear. Myspace and YouTube may give an unexpected
boost, but what matters for sales are reviews in
newspapers and magazines, national coverage and airplay, airplay,
airplay. When the system works, it can work big. Akon made his debut
in 2004, and thanks to crossover hits and a string of collaborations,
he's now inescapable: you could seal yourself in a hermetic,
media-free bubble to escape his distinctive croon, but if you walk
into a store, scan through the radio frequency or turn on some kind of
music programming, he'll soon appear. Tween country-pop girl Miley
Cyrus, on the other hand, won't—she may have surpassed Akon's 2.3
million album sales since her debut with the Hannah Montana soundtrack
in 2006, but when it comes to mainstream airplay, Cyrus doesn't even
register. Neither do Aly & AJ (700,000 albums sold), Ashley Tisdale
(300,000+) or Corbin Bleu (a Number One iTunes digital download).
Such anonymity is standard in the world of tweenpop: a strange and
wonderful place where artists can produce gold- and platinum-selling
discs, move millions of DVDs and whip national crowds into a frenzy,
but exist in such a blind-spot for those outside the 8-14
year-old age bracket that they don't merit so much as a metacritic rating.
Unless you have a younger sibling, you won't have heard of them, but
these shiny-toothed youngsters are following a new rulebook for chart
success that ignores mainstream crossover exposure in favor of
hyper-selective niche marketing and multi-platform branding.
When High School Musical bopped its tumble-dried stars to the top
of the charts last year, newspaper commentators united in shock and
awe at the power of the tween dollar—and then promptly moved on. But
now that the glitter confetti has long since settled, it's clear that HSM
was only the beginning: from Hannah Montana (the TV show in which
15-year-old Cyrus has a secret pop-star alter ego) to Jump In
(a 2007 Disney Channel jump-rope epic), a program of cute, catchy acts
has been carefully launched off the back of tween TV shows and movies
to huge success.
HSM gave birth not just to the original soundtrack
(now pushing the four million sales mark), but live concert CDs and
individual albums from the stars Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale and
Corbin Bleu. Corbin also starred in Jump In, whose soundtrack has
already been certified gold since its January release and spawned
Corbin's bouncy hip-hop-lite hit "Push It to the Limit." Meanwhile,
sisters Aly and AJ Michalka feature in straight-to-DVD films
Cowbelles and forthcoming My Super Sweet 16 (with Aly also starring in
Disney's Phil of the Future TV show) in addition to releasing their
Christian confessional-rock albums Acoustic Hearts of Winter and
Into the Rush.
While you may not love their squeaky clean pop hits, the
tween-poppers are more than just a kids' craze. Labels are unanimous
about the gloomy outlook for record sales, yet these acts have shifted a
vast amount of product without the traditional model of mainstream,
blanket exposure and marketing.The tweenpop acts demonstrate a
different blueprint, leveraging the assets of shiny, bouncing
performers across many platforms to maximize exposure and generate
multiple revenue streams.
With their track record in marketing to kids, it's
little surprise that Disney is at the forefront of this strategy—using
the same stars to create programming for its TV channels and music
content for Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records (home to all of
the tween acts thus far mentioned). Additionally, they have the means to promote
these acts to a niche audience on Radio Disney, which now has a loyal audience
of over 3.2 million kids.
This synergistic strategy has been in development
for several years; Hilary Duff proved the archetype back in 2003.
Breaking out on the kooky-cute Disney series Lizzie McGuire, Duff's pop career was launched through her big-screen outing The Lizzie
McGuire Movie, whose plot conveniently included her being mistaken
for a European pop star and taking to the stage. After the Walt Disney
Records original soundtrack came Duff's own Disney Radio airplay-ed albums, tours and
merchandising—but all along, her activities for one Disney arm (as
McGuire or herself) only helped sell products for the other.
Other genres might be well-advised take note, not simply of the niche marketing and
cross-platform promotion, but the way in which tween-pop formats have
elevated the "product" beyond simply being a disposable song. Instead,
the labels have created an interactive listening experience around the
shows and performers that commands fierce audience devotion—and substantive revenue streams. Fans have sought to recreate their HSM experience
with karaoke DVDs, the live tour and even a forthcoming ice show, in
addition to carrying their brand loyalty to all the stars' solo
projects.
This emotional connection to the music formed by context,
not content alone, is being utilized by other industry players:
soundtracks, in particular, offering not only exposure to artists, but
a way to imprint emotional associations on the audience. The OC and
Grey's Anatomy have led the field, with music supervisor Alexandra
Patsavas bringing acts like Tegan and Sara, Metric and The Dears to
some 20 million viewers a week and giving a forum to The Fray and Anna
Nalick's atmospheric background songs.
Nonetheless, while soundtrack exposure can help an act pick up airplay
and other media coverage, no other genre has developed a sales
strategy as self-contained and independent from external media as the
Disney model. But as labels wake up to the revenue potential this
blueprint provides, we could see indie acts start to chase the
multi-platform synergy dream. Patsavas recently founded Chop Shop
Records as an imprint of Atlantic, repositioning herself to sign acts
that she could then place on TV soundtracks to promote—perhaps even
on a corporate sibling network. The tween-pop legacy may prove more
than just a collection of dance-pop hits: it could change the way
labels approach marketing altogether.
—Abby McDonald
06.14.07
