NEW YORK (Billboard) – Jon McLaughlin can't deny that millions more people saw him perform at the Academy Awards than heard his new album.
"Indiana," his major-label debut, has sold 98,000 copies since its release in 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That pales against the viewership for the Oscar telecast, where he performed "So Close," a tune from the hit fantasy "Enchanted."
Still, though the 25-year-old singer calls his "Enchanted" appearance "a great thing," he also admits, "I don't really want to be known as the guy in the movie who also has a CD coming out."
The October 7 release of McLaughlin's second Island Records set, "OK Now," may provide some help in that mission. An appealingly eclectic pop-rock disc laced with touches of blue-eyed soul, ELO-style glam and what McLaughlin calls "totally cheesy '80s pop," the album covers much more ground than the piano-heavy "Indiana" did.
John Fields, who produced the new album, says that considering how young McLaughlin is, "his musical complexity is refreshing."
"I work with a lot of kids his age," adds Fields, who's produced records by Mandy Moore and the Jonas Brothers. "A lot of them use the same chords -- what I call 'the four chords of doom.' Jon understands that you've got to try to diversify from that. He can kind of do anything."
McLaughlin cites as motivation the "not uncommon dream for an artist to go into the music world and just be able to do whatever." He points to Ray Charles' "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" as an example of the kind of creative freedom he covets.
"OK Now" was originally to have included a would-be pop hit called "Smack Into You," which was written and produced by the team behind Rihanna's "Umbrella." Yet after McLaughlin and Fields completed the rest of the album, the singer decided "Smack Into You" "didn't really fit in" with the other tracks.
"As you sit with a record you start changing your mind about certain things," McLaughlin says. "That wasn't the only song that was going to be on the album that we took off."
Fields says he can understand the label's desire to hook up McLaughlin -- "a great-looking guy who looks like a lifeguard" -- with proven hitmakers. But he insists "Beating My Heart," the album's lead single, has serious top 40 potential as well, and the label hopes it will broaden McLaughlin's audience beyond his fan base of 18- to 34-year-old females.
McLaughlin just completed a headlining tour, and he'll begin a stint on Hard Rock Cafe's Pinktober trek September 29 in Chicago.
McLaughlin says he's currently more concerned with the number of shows he plays than with the number of records he sells. "You could sell 5 million and not see any long-term benefit," he says. "Or you could sell 100,000, keep doing it the right way and watch it build."
Reuters/Billboard
http://news.yahoo.com/story//nm/20080902/music_nm/mclaughlin_dc
1 opmerking:
I can't believe they actually took off "Smack Into You" from the album! I hope that's not true :( Maybe it's the reason why the album was pushed 2 months (originally to be released August 19th).
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