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The former boy bander’s album sales went in One Direction for its second week on the charts– down. “Mind of Mine” dropped 86% in hard sales, from number 1 to number 8 in week 2.
On hitsdailydouble’s Streaming Plus Sales chart, the drop was “only” 72%. Zayn’s hard sales were a mere 16,493. Streaming boosted him to 43,140.
What does it mean? Around 100,000 fans dropped off from week one to week two. Problem is, Zayn — who looks constipated in most of his close-ups– hasn’t produced a hit single to go along with the album. The first single, “PillowTalk,” did so-so. Nothing followed.
What’s happened here should be of interest to the other members of One Direction who were hoping for solo careers.
God bless Steve Miller. At the press conference after his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction tonight he told the truth about “unpleasant” the people there are — including Joel Peresman, who’s paid $400,000 a year plus, and Jann Wenner. They only gave him a ticket for himself and his wife, and told him if he wanted more he’d have to pay $10,000. (I wish I could actually curse right here.)
Kanye West must be going crazy. “The Life of Pablo” debuts at number 1 with 90,000 streams in its first week of actual availability.
To put this in perspective: The number 1 physical CD-digital download was Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” with just 59,000 copies. Even combined with his streaming number, STapleton finished second to Kanye. Stapleton’s total total was just 72,877.
Hitsdailydouble explains that 100 million “streams” equals 65,000 “stream equivalent albums.”
Kanye’s 90,000 included 25,000 downloads of “Pablo” from his website. Imagine if “Pablo” were available in a normal way– for download on amazon and iTunes. But these are impressive numbers.
Without Kanye and “The Life of Pablo,” the business was silent.
Zayn Malik dropped a whopping 86% in his second week. He was a flash in the pan with “Mind of Mine.” Pop goes the weasel.
As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the “bathroom” law. HB2 — known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act — dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use. Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace. No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress. Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments. Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters. As a result, and with deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have canceled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them. It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.
This is sort of poetic justice. The number 1 streamed Beatles song on Spotify is George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun.” The classic song from “Abbey Road” has 18 million plus streams in the short time the Beatles have been streaming.
The runners up are “Yesterday,” “Come Together,” “Let it Be,” “Hey Jude,” and “I want to Hold Your Hand.”
Spotify’s UK office sent out some stats this morning quickly picked up around the interwebs.
The top four albums are “1”– the greatest hits, “Abbey Road,” “The Beatles” (white album), and “Let it Be.”
Isn’t it interesting that the album considered most important– “Sgt. Pepper”– isn’t at the top of the list, nor any of its songs? I’m surprised.
Harrison’s frustration with being part of the Beatles was not getting enough of his songs on albums. As it turns out, quality overrules quantity as his achievements– “Something,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Here Comes the Sun” — are standouts in the Beatles’ repertoire.
Here’s a little bit of rock trivia on the eve of Steve Miller being inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Whatever.
Paul McCartney co-wrote and played on a 1969 Miller track called “My Dark Hour.”
Paul was listed as “Paul Ramon,” and the track has remained a deep secret in rock history except to very knowledgeable McCartney fanatics.
Produced by Glyn Johns, “My Dark Hour” came about when Johns happened into the studio right after a big fight among the Beatles. The subject was Allen Klein, who McCartney didn’t want mixed up in their business. But John Lennon did, and had convinced George Harrison and Ringo Starr to let Klein be their manager.
When Johns arrived, the others (including Klein) had left. McCartney was fuming. He told bis friend and biographer Barry Miles:
Steve Miller happened to be there recording, late at night, and he just breezed in. ‘Hey, what’s happening, man? Can I use the studio?’ ‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Can I drum for you? I just had a fucking unholy argument with the guys there.’ I explained it to him, took ten minutes to get it off my chest. So I did a track, he and I stayed that night and did a track of his called My Dark Hour. I thrashed everything out on the drums. There’s a surfeit of aggressive drum fills, that’s all I can say about that. We stayed up until late. I played bass, guitar and drums and sang backing vocals. It’s actually a pretty good track.
It was a very strange time in my life and I swear I got my first grey hairs that month. I saw them appearing. I looked in the mirror, I thought, I can see you. You’re all coming now. Welcome.
The song sounds a lot like would become “Fly Like An Eagle” about six years later. It also sounds a lot like would become Wings type music in the interim. This is the kind of thing that should be on a McCartney historical box set. Alas, the set we’re getting soon from McCartney is just a rehash of prior greatest hits. Macca really needs a curator!
The big “American Idol” finale was beaten by a new episode of “The Big Bang Theory.”
Still, Idol did well enough, with 13.24 million viewers and a 3.0 in the key demo. But that made it second for the night. They tied their best rating for the season. And they were up 900,000 viewers from last week.
But with a steady decline and no real uptick as this season wound down, maybe it’s time for “Idol” to take a break– and not the veiled threat of it coming back soon in a new form. Let’s feel nostalgic for it first.
Most of the old winners and judges were there except for Mariah Carey– conveniently on tour in Europe. Simon Cowell? Nicki Minaj?
Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, and LaToya London had a lovely number together. How times have changed! This year’s R&B diva lost to a white guy country singer. That’s been the trend for several years. And maybe that’s why the show lost so much thunder.
Everyone is waiting on tenterhooks for Janet Jackson’s news.
My sources say that even her family has not been told whether she’s pregnant. “She hasn’t even told her mother, Katherine. Janet is the type who will wait until she knows everything is all right before she makes an announcement.”
But Janet’s video release on Twitter this week showed her almost giddy as she told fans she was “postponing” her world tour– which has been cancelled and moved around many times since its launch last August.
There are reports that Janet’s ticketholders aren’t receiving refunds yet because the tour has not been officially cancelled. The fans, like Katherine Jackson, will have to wait until the doctor gives confirming news of a pregnancy that will hold.
At 49, Janet would have to be using a donor egg for the pregnancy. Her biological clock has ticked. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have a safe pregnancy and a healthy, happy child. Plenty of women do this, and it works. For Janet, it would certainly be a bundle of joy.
Meantime, in other Jackson news, I’m hearing that Joseph Jackson has finally moved back to Las Vegas. He’s been in Los Angeles for almost a year since summer 2015 strokes and heart attack in Brazil caused by sex-enhancing drugs (according to reports he wanted to be ready for action on his 87th birthday).
Run, don’t walk, fight to get into the last weekend of Danai Gurira’s “Familiar” off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.
Tamara Tunie (you know her from “Law & Order” and “As the World Turns”) is exceptional and leads a stellar cast in this dramedy about a Zimbabwean family transplanted to Minnesota.
Tunie plays an MIT schooled physicist named Marvelous– and indeed, Tune is marvelous as the mother of a would be bride who has to face up to her family’s past even though she has done everything to assimilate as an American.
Gurira already has a play on Broadway– “Eclipsed” starring Lupita Nyong’o– and she’s likely to win the Tony and some other prizes for it. Television audiences will know her as Michonne from “The Walking Dead.”
Gurira was born in Iowa but her family is from Zimbabwe so yes, “Familiar” is autobiographical. She is represented in the play as Tunie’s youngest daughter, Nyasha, played by Ito Aghayere. And the play is just like Arthur Miller or Eugene O’Neill in that it illuminates the struggle of immigrants, the fight for assimilation vs. tradition. Once it was about Jews, Irish and Italians trying to fit into the U.S. It’s about time we heard from more recent generations of emigres. It’s a universal theme.
As with “Eclipsed,” “Familiar” jumps off the stage as a piece of real, exciting theater because it takes us someplace unique, where we have not been. Plus it introduces a talented cast you’d like to see move to Broadway rather than disband– it reminded me of seeing “Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike” at Lincoln Center and knowing it had to be moved also. Plus there’s a wonderful set by Clint Ramos you don’t want to miss.
Kudos to director Rebecca Taichman. And shout outs to Broadway vet Myra Lucretia Taylor, Roslyn Ruff, Melanie Nicholls-King, Harold Surratt– as the family– and Joby Earle and Joe Tippett as their prospective in laws. But really, Tamara Tunie– four star performance. Manhattan Theater Club– take them in. There are colors here we haven’t seen before.
HBO sent out a press release this afternoon that’s been poured over like it was “Sgt. Pepper” being played backwards.
On “Game of Thrones” first episode of the new season: first there’s a summary of what happened at the end of season 5– “Jon Snow’s bloody fate at the hands of Castle Black mutineers”– which doesn’t really say anything.
Then later, a definitive “Jon Snow is dead” in the episode summary. Hmmm….All will be known this Sunday in Los Angeles at 5pm Pacific Time, when there’s a red carpet premiere. Maybe.
Except: actor Kit Harington is listed in the IMDB Internet Movie Database as an actor in the episode. And there are no other cast lists for future episodes, which is odd unless HBO held back rather than expose the truth that somehow JON SNOW IS ALIVE!
And what fun! It still seems hard to believe that Harington is back for the new episode just playing a dead Snow, as he has suggested in recent interviews. He certainly wouldn’t be listed with the cast.
Also since “Game of Thrones” stopped shooting season 5, Harington has shot just one movie. If he’d left for a big career, you’d think it would have started. Another clue: he’s also been AWOL from photo ops most of the last nine months. And he still has Jon Snow’s hairdo– which you know he’d have cut off if he were trying to change his image.
One last clue: an HBO insider didn’t shoot me down when I suggested that Snow was not dead after all.
Plus, does a hit show, a hot show, really kill off its heart-throb at the height of the show’s popularity? Nope, they don’t.
All this may be a ploy to drive record breaking ratings on April 24th, when “Game of Thrones” returns. Keep hope alive!
