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Roztoczański Park Narodowy
Top Music Stories of 2007
10) Who is Hannah Montana? |
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9) Timbaland!
It was impossible to turn on a radio in ‘07 without hearing the influence of the man called Timbaland. Carrying over from his 2006 successes, hits he produced on Nelly Furtado’s Loose and Justin Timberlake’s Future Sex/Love Sounds continued to make the Top 100, while a collaborative album called Timbaland Presents Shock Value made it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
Working with artists as diverse as Dr. Dre, Fall Out Boy and Elton John, Timbaland not only gave a boost to established acts but brought mainstream attention to new artists like the group One Republic (“Apologize”). In 2008, Timbaland will keep himself very busy by working with both the ingénues (Ashlee Simpson, Jennifer Hudson) and the established (Duran Duran, Madonna) on new material.
8) The Britney Meltdown
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Never in the history of music has one artist been in the news more for matters that have nothing to do with their music. Britney Spears started the year getting carried out of a New Year’s bash in which she was out before midnight and ended the year dodging her ex-husband’s lawyer pretty much citing a case of the Mondays. In between she embarrassed herself in numerous ways whether it was publicly shaving her head, getting caught without her undies, stabbing a car with an umbrella, loosing her kids to her freeloading ex, or stumbling horribly while performing at the MTV awards. I think she also released an album. Now I’m not usually one for the gossip, although I have been enjoying the new show Gossip Girl, but the publicity Chernobyl that has become the life of Britney Spears was just too big to ignore in ‘07. How does pop’s princess, the young woman declared as “the next Madonna”, go from millions of albums sold to train wreck living on Perez Hilton? How does a woman with the career, the talent and the millions of Britney end up looking like the negligent parent when standing up against an unwashed, untalented freeloader, whose sole skill seems to be the fact that he’s really, really fertile? |
Of course, news that baby sis Jamie-Lyn was pregnant won’t do well to make people forget the white trash roots of the Spears clan, although, ironically, it did put an end to Mama Spear’s forthcoming book about parenting. Here’s hoping that this professional upswing is accompanied by a less turbulent personal life that will allow Britney to go back to prostituting herself rather than embarrassing herself.
7) Feist and iPod
If there’s a side benefit to the iPod, aside from being a great way to carry around one’s music, it’s that the advertising for the device introduces to a lot of other great music. This fall, Feist taught us all how to count with the hit single “1234” which was prominently featured in the commercial for the iPod Nano, extending Leslie’s reach beyond Canadians, who already knew of her greatness, to across the border and across the Atlantic.
After the commercial aired, “1234” went from 2,000 weekly downloads to 73,000 total downloads on iTunes and in Britain the song jumped from the 102 spot to number eight on the UK charts. Feist also contributed to corporate synergy with the use of “Mushaboom” from 2004’s Let It Die in a perfume ad for Lacoste. TV commercials have never sounded so good.
6) Kanye Vs Fiddy: This time – it’s for money!
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This was exciting. A whole new genuine rap turf battle between the Louie Vuitton Don and the Man so Nice they shot him nine times. Both Kanye West and 50 Cent were scheduled to release new discs, Graduation and Curtis respectively, on September 11th and it wasn’t too soon afterward that the trash talk began. The feud culminated in 50 Cent’s declaration that if Graduation outsold Curtis, then he’d retire from music, which he retracted a little while later. Good thing too because Curtis sold 617,000 copies as compared to Graduation's 957,000. Both numbers were respectable, but the real winners were the good people at Universal Music, the parent company of both men’s record albums. |
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5) High School the Musical While personally not my cup of tea, the power of High School couldn’t be denied. Aside from being the best-selling soundtrack of the year, it’s also the biggest selling disc of 2007, period. And with the crossover appeal of heartthrob Zac Efron confirmed with his prominent role in Hairspray, High School the Musical is a certified phenomenon. Unfortunately for everyone involved, bubbles burst eventually. |
| 4) The Recording Industry continues downward spiral According to Neilson Soundscan, record sales lost another 15 per cent it really couldn’t afford to lose, making 2007 the eighth year in a row that sales have been down for the recording industry. Making matters worse, some big name bands are dumping traditional record releases and major labels entirely. (See #2) This past January, the Dreamgirls soundtrack broke the record for the lowest sales for a number one album in history with only 66,000 sold. This record was broken only a week later when Dreamgirls sold only 60,000 to hang on to the number one spot on Billboard. While the nearly one million copies sold of Kanye West’s Graduation is encouraging, these instances are proving to be the exception and not the rule. |
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3) Sing for Climate Change
| Not since Live Aid has so much, done so little for such a big problem. Live Earth had stages in all seven continents (including Antarctica) and featured some of the biggest acts in music all for the purpose of bringing attention to global warming and the climate crisis, according to concert organizer Al Gore. Unfortunately for Mr. Gore, the event was widely criticized as little more than a dog and pony show and that the concert actually did more environmental damage than it sought to resolve leaving a total carbon footprint of 74, 500 tonnes according to one source. So ‘A’ for effort, but I think a lot of people already knew about global warming and two huge worldwide concerts have yet to do anything to solve world hunger and poverty |  |
2) Radiohead ditches discs and labels
On October 1st Radiohead told the world where and when they could get their seventh studio album and wasn’t going to be in any store and it wasn’t going to be for any specially marked price. Ten days later, inrainbows.com went live and for the price of whatever you feel like you could download your very own copy of In Rainbows. Two separate surveys found that between 33 and 60 per cent of the people downloading the album were paying nothing to do so, while those that were paying shelled out between ₤2.90 and ₤4 ($5.80-$8 CDN) for the privilege. Still, the fact remains that In Rainbows sold more digital copies than all other digital copies of Radiohead albums combined. And it caused an industry already rushing to play catch-up scratching their heads.
1) The Comebacks
Finally, 2007 was the year of the band reformation; anyone that was ever in a band thought twice about putting it back together this year. It stared with The Police as Sting, Andy and Stewart came back swinging after 20 years on hiatus becoming one of the best selling concert tickets of the year. Rage Against the Machine proved that they could still rock and rail against Bush at Coachella in June, while Bill Corrigan and Jimmy Chamberlain played on without D’Arcy Wretzky and James Iha with a re-formed Smashing Pumpkins.
Most surprising though was the resurgence of “Girl Power!” as Ginger, Scary, Sporty, Posh and Baby (I forget their real names) decided that they’d not been heard from for long enough. And somehow, I think even they were surprised by the kind of reception they got as millions of fans around the world logged on for the coveted title of “Spice City” (Toronto won! What an honour!) If there’s a lesson to be taken form the year that’s past, it’s that you can never over-estimate the power of nostalgia.
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