smoothcriminal12
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Okay, bringing life into the now dead MJNO thread. Here, you post articles based on HIStory, stuff from HIStory, HIStory promotion, and more. Here goes:
HISTORY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE BOOK I
The HIStory album was released on June 20, 1995, and was Michael's first solo album to contain a greatest hits package along with new tracks!
In total the two-disc album contains 30 songs adding up to over 150 minutes of music! Special editions of the HIStory album were released in Canada, Germany, Holland, and France in which Michael spoke directly to his fans of these countries thanking them for their support over the years and promising to tour their countries soon.
The first disc "HIStory Begins" of this album contains 15 of Michael's number one hits - songs that made him the 'King' of the entertainment industry.
The second disc "HIStory Continues" of this album contained 15 brand new songs, 12 of which were composed and written by Michael himself. The second disc of the 'History' album also credited Michael for the first time with playing the keyboards, Synthesizer, drums and percussion, and guitar.
Special appearances on the album were made by Janet Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, the late Notorius B.I.G, Boyz II Men, and Slash.
The album was controvercial, with many angry songs - Michael's reply to the press and allegations that had been plaguing his life and career over the previous few years, as well as had a softer edge with ballads such as "You Are Not Alone", "Earth Song", "Stranger In Moscow" and "Smile". Shortly after it's release the 'HIStory' album was pulled from the shelves due to the the controvercial lyrics in the song "They Don't Care About Us", and new copies of the album were released with a formal apology written by Michael to those who may be offended by the lyrics.
5 singles were released off of this album; "Scream", "Earth Song", "You Are Not Alone", "Stranger In Moscow", and "They Don't Care About Us". The album hit #1 in 19 countries around the world, with world wide sales of over 15 million. The "You Are Not Alone" single broke a world record when it became the first-ever single to debut at #1 on the Billboard music charts.
from all Michael jackson.com
_____________________________________
Michael Jackson's 'HIStory' shows the growing stature of global marketing.
E-MAIL Print Single-Page Save Share
DiggFacebookMixxYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy NEIL STRAUSS
Published: November 25, 1996
WHO had the last laugh in the Michael Jackson ''HIStory'' debacle?
When the double album was released in June 1995, Sony Music, Mr. Jackson's record label, heralded it with great fanfare and a $30 million marketing campaign. In various interviews, Sony Music executives said they expected the album to generate eight or so singles, sell 20 million copies worldwide and still be a hot item two Christmases later.
The album entered the pop charts at No. 1, held on to the top position for two weeks and then slid rapidly into obscurity. Sony's campaign for the album became a national joke, derided as an indulgent waste of money, hype and time on an artist who could no longer create a blockbuster like 1982's ''Thriller,'' which sold 46 million copies worldwide to become one of the biggest albums ever. Now, two Christmases since the release of ''HIStory: Past, Present, Future, Book I,'' the album has long since disappeared from the top 200 music charts and the American pop consciousness.
But just because the album is history here doesn't mean it has been forgotten everywhere else. It is actually climbing the charts in Malaysia, Australia, France and elsewhere. It remains a top-seller in dozens of other European and Asian countries, and a single, ''Stranger in Moscow,'' not even released in the United States, has just entered the English top 20. According to Sony Music, the album has sold 11 million copies worldwide. Mr. Jackson is currently touring Australia and plans on moving through the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Hawaii and South Africa in the next couple of months before touring Europe in the spring and summer. Two more singles from the album will be released abroad during this period, and Sony says it is shipping as many as 100,000 copies of ''HIStory'' overseas every week.
This sounds like a marketing campaign that is in full gear. In fact, it is outlasting Sony's 18-month plan, and might even come very close to the company's goal of selling 20 million albums. Considering that they are priced as double albums, this would make ''HIStory'' almost as big a source of revenue as ''Thriller.''
In addition, record labels have advantages in selling music overseas. Many companies reduce artists' royalty rates by as much as 50 percent abroad. And in Europe and Japan, compact disks cost about twice as much as they do in the United States.
''We think globally,'' said Mel Ilberman, the chairman of Sony Music International. ''We always dealt with 'HIStory' as a global album. We don't care where we sell it. And in this case, we've been selling well in the high-priced markets where our profit margins are even better.''
Of course, Sony's story should be taken with a little bit of skepticism: the sales estimates are the company's own, and in many countries unit sales are hard to track and profits are whittled away by government tariffs, tangled distribution networks and bootleggers. But despite these problems, Mr. Jackson is breaking new ground for a superstar -- whether by choice or necessity -- in generally dismissing the United States as a market for its homegrown pop music.
Increasingly, musicians have been thinking global. One reason the artist formerly known as Prince signed a six-album deal with EMI after his deal ended with Warner Brothers is that EMI, with a smaller share of the domestic market than most of its competitors, is a big player internationally. And acts from Bon Jovi to Celine Dion have been touring extensively in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
The band Mr. Big, which had a No. 1 hit here in 1991 with ''To Be With You,'' hardly even promoted its new album, ''Hey Man,'' on Time Warner's Atlantic label in its home country. Instead, it went to Japan, where the album became one of the few American records to hit No. 1 there. In fact, the band has released three albums (with titles like ''Japandemonium'' and ''Raw Like Sushi'') exclusively in Japan.
Asia and Eastern Europe are the world's fastest-growing markets for pop music, and are No. 1 priorities for most major labels. From 1991 to 1995, music sales rose 87 percent in Asia, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. A recent study by the magazine Music Business International predicted that while North America's share of the global music market would slip to 28 percent from 35 percent (other estimates predict a drop to 20 percent) and Western Europe's will slide to 30 percent from 34 percent in the next five years, Asia would take up the slack. Sales there are expected to increase by 74 percent, while the market share grows to 29 percent from 22 percent.
It is the mushy stuff in particular that translates well overseas -- romantic balladeers like Mariah Carey and Ms. Dion and instrumentalists like Kenny G. But hip-hop bands like the Fugees and heavy-metal bands like Van Halen are also finding international sales as strong as American sales.
Of course, it is not just Western artists who are creating Asia's boom. More and more, regional stars -- including Hong Kong ''Canto-pop'' crooners like Jacky Cheung and Japanese pop-soul acts like Dreams Come True -- are accounting for the bulk of overseas business. As countries once reliant on Western pop culture develop more sophisticated music of their own, American pop singers will have to work as hard as Mr. Jackson to retain superstar status abroad.
All of this is already having a direct effect on American fans of pop music. A band's tours no longer take a season or half a year. Now, they can encompass most of the world and last as long as two years, making the interval between new albums three years or more. If the international market keeps expanding, and it shows every sign of doing so, fans may be seeing and hearing a lot less of their favorite bands in the future as these acts scatter across the globe promoting themselves. On the bright side, maybe it will mean that the American pop audience will have to open its ears to a wider variety of international music.
from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.htmlres=9D02E3DC133DF936A15752C1A960958260
I'll post more later. :happy:. Enjoy.
HISTORY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE BOOK I
The HIStory album was released on June 20, 1995, and was Michael's first solo album to contain a greatest hits package along with new tracks!
In total the two-disc album contains 30 songs adding up to over 150 minutes of music! Special editions of the HIStory album were released in Canada, Germany, Holland, and France in which Michael spoke directly to his fans of these countries thanking them for their support over the years and promising to tour their countries soon.
The first disc "HIStory Begins" of this album contains 15 of Michael's number one hits - songs that made him the 'King' of the entertainment industry.
The second disc "HIStory Continues" of this album contained 15 brand new songs, 12 of which were composed and written by Michael himself. The second disc of the 'History' album also credited Michael for the first time with playing the keyboards, Synthesizer, drums and percussion, and guitar.
Special appearances on the album were made by Janet Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, the late Notorius B.I.G, Boyz II Men, and Slash.
The album was controvercial, with many angry songs - Michael's reply to the press and allegations that had been plaguing his life and career over the previous few years, as well as had a softer edge with ballads such as "You Are Not Alone", "Earth Song", "Stranger In Moscow" and "Smile". Shortly after it's release the 'HIStory' album was pulled from the shelves due to the the controvercial lyrics in the song "They Don't Care About Us", and new copies of the album were released with a formal apology written by Michael to those who may be offended by the lyrics.
5 singles were released off of this album; "Scream", "Earth Song", "You Are Not Alone", "Stranger In Moscow", and "They Don't Care About Us". The album hit #1 in 19 countries around the world, with world wide sales of over 15 million. The "You Are Not Alone" single broke a world record when it became the first-ever single to debut at #1 on the Billboard music charts.
from all Michael jackson.com
_____________________________________
Michael Jackson's 'HIStory' shows the growing stature of global marketing.
E-MAIL Print Single-Page Save Share
DiggFacebookMixxYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy NEIL STRAUSS
Published: November 25, 1996
WHO had the last laugh in the Michael Jackson ''HIStory'' debacle?
When the double album was released in June 1995, Sony Music, Mr. Jackson's record label, heralded it with great fanfare and a $30 million marketing campaign. In various interviews, Sony Music executives said they expected the album to generate eight or so singles, sell 20 million copies worldwide and still be a hot item two Christmases later.
The album entered the pop charts at No. 1, held on to the top position for two weeks and then slid rapidly into obscurity. Sony's campaign for the album became a national joke, derided as an indulgent waste of money, hype and time on an artist who could no longer create a blockbuster like 1982's ''Thriller,'' which sold 46 million copies worldwide to become one of the biggest albums ever. Now, two Christmases since the release of ''HIStory: Past, Present, Future, Book I,'' the album has long since disappeared from the top 200 music charts and the American pop consciousness.
But just because the album is history here doesn't mean it has been forgotten everywhere else. It is actually climbing the charts in Malaysia, Australia, France and elsewhere. It remains a top-seller in dozens of other European and Asian countries, and a single, ''Stranger in Moscow,'' not even released in the United States, has just entered the English top 20. According to Sony Music, the album has sold 11 million copies worldwide. Mr. Jackson is currently touring Australia and plans on moving through the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Hawaii and South Africa in the next couple of months before touring Europe in the spring and summer. Two more singles from the album will be released abroad during this period, and Sony says it is shipping as many as 100,000 copies of ''HIStory'' overseas every week.
This sounds like a marketing campaign that is in full gear. In fact, it is outlasting Sony's 18-month plan, and might even come very close to the company's goal of selling 20 million albums. Considering that they are priced as double albums, this would make ''HIStory'' almost as big a source of revenue as ''Thriller.''
In addition, record labels have advantages in selling music overseas. Many companies reduce artists' royalty rates by as much as 50 percent abroad. And in Europe and Japan, compact disks cost about twice as much as they do in the United States.
''We think globally,'' said Mel Ilberman, the chairman of Sony Music International. ''We always dealt with 'HIStory' as a global album. We don't care where we sell it. And in this case, we've been selling well in the high-priced markets where our profit margins are even better.''
Of course, Sony's story should be taken with a little bit of skepticism: the sales estimates are the company's own, and in many countries unit sales are hard to track and profits are whittled away by government tariffs, tangled distribution networks and bootleggers. But despite these problems, Mr. Jackson is breaking new ground for a superstar -- whether by choice or necessity -- in generally dismissing the United States as a market for its homegrown pop music.
Increasingly, musicians have been thinking global. One reason the artist formerly known as Prince signed a six-album deal with EMI after his deal ended with Warner Brothers is that EMI, with a smaller share of the domestic market than most of its competitors, is a big player internationally. And acts from Bon Jovi to Celine Dion have been touring extensively in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
The band Mr. Big, which had a No. 1 hit here in 1991 with ''To Be With You,'' hardly even promoted its new album, ''Hey Man,'' on Time Warner's Atlantic label in its home country. Instead, it went to Japan, where the album became one of the few American records to hit No. 1 there. In fact, the band has released three albums (with titles like ''Japandemonium'' and ''Raw Like Sushi'') exclusively in Japan.
Asia and Eastern Europe are the world's fastest-growing markets for pop music, and are No. 1 priorities for most major labels. From 1991 to 1995, music sales rose 87 percent in Asia, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. A recent study by the magazine Music Business International predicted that while North America's share of the global music market would slip to 28 percent from 35 percent (other estimates predict a drop to 20 percent) and Western Europe's will slide to 30 percent from 34 percent in the next five years, Asia would take up the slack. Sales there are expected to increase by 74 percent, while the market share grows to 29 percent from 22 percent.
It is the mushy stuff in particular that translates well overseas -- romantic balladeers like Mariah Carey and Ms. Dion and instrumentalists like Kenny G. But hip-hop bands like the Fugees and heavy-metal bands like Van Halen are also finding international sales as strong as American sales.
Of course, it is not just Western artists who are creating Asia's boom. More and more, regional stars -- including Hong Kong ''Canto-pop'' crooners like Jacky Cheung and Japanese pop-soul acts like Dreams Come True -- are accounting for the bulk of overseas business. As countries once reliant on Western pop culture develop more sophisticated music of their own, American pop singers will have to work as hard as Mr. Jackson to retain superstar status abroad.
All of this is already having a direct effect on American fans of pop music. A band's tours no longer take a season or half a year. Now, they can encompass most of the world and last as long as two years, making the interval between new albums three years or more. If the international market keeps expanding, and it shows every sign of doing so, fans may be seeing and hearing a lot less of their favorite bands in the future as these acts scatter across the globe promoting themselves. On the bright side, maybe it will mean that the American pop audience will have to open its ears to a wider variety of international music.
from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.htmlres=9D02E3DC133DF936A15752C1A960958260
I'll post more later. :happy:. Enjoy.
