Category Archives: Music

Justin Bieber’s Vanity Fair Lowest Selling Issue in 12 Years

Duh…

As some of you may recall, I questioned this when I got my copy of “Vanity Fair” in the mail.  Justin Bieber is not exactly the type of celebrity that appeals to the “Vanity Fair” audience.

He’s more like “Tiger Beat”.  But apparently even his “Teen Vogue ” cover also tanked…

I guess the ‘tweens and teens are more digital.  Another “Duh…”

I only took one Marketing course in College, but even I remember the concept of “target marketing”.  Justin Bieber just doesn’t appeal to “Vanity Fair’s” target market – or to most educated, discriminating upscale music buyers and listeners.

Massive marketing failure….

Justin Bieber may have more than 10 million Twitter followers, and a hit with his documentary Never Say Never — but that doesn’t translate into newsstand sales for the magazine covers he graces.

The February Vanity Fair that featured the 17-year-old covered in lipstick kisses is on track to become the worst selling issue in 12 years, Women’s Wear Daily reports. It may also become one of the three worst sellers for the magazine since Graydon Carter was named editor in chief in 1992.

“Who knew 12-year-olds didn’t buy magazines?” said a Vanity Fair spokeswoman.

It’s sold 246,000 copies, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation’s’ Rapid Report — which is not yet audited, so numbers could change slightly.

AND

Bieber didn’t only lower numbers for Vanity Fair. His October 2010 Teen Vogue cover sold 121,054 copies, which is about 12 percent below the magazine’s 2010 average, WWD points out.

People’s April 2010 Bieber cover sold 961,762 copies, which was down 25 percent from its annual sales in 2010, and became the third worst seller of the weekly that year.

via Justin Bieber’s Vanity Fair Lowest Selling Issue in 12 Years – The Hollywood Reporter.

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Happy Birthday, Stevie Nicks

I can’t believe she’s 63 today…

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Happy Birthday, Leslie Uggams

I love Leslie Uggams.  She really should have been a bigger star….

The great singer and performer is 68 years old today.

Here’s one of my favorites of her performances:

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The Times They Are A Changing…

Bob Dylan’s been singing that song a long time….

He’s 70 years old today….

Let’s hope he keeps going and the times keep changing…

Here he is singing another one of his songs:

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Whitney Houston In Rehab: It’s Crack Again

It’s truly scary when Bobby Brown is coming off as the sane, responsible one….

This is really tragic.

Whitney could have been the biggest thing in show business.

Beautiful, an amazing singer, on her way to becoming a very good actress…

Then Crack…

And she’s turning out to be more Judy Garland than Barbra Streisand…

So sad to think of what might have been….

Singer Whitney Houston was using crack again when she went back to rehab, RadarOnline had learned, and her use of the highly-addictive drug terrified even ex-husband Bobby Brown!

A source close to R&B star Brown said he is so worried about his ex-wife that he fears “she might not pull through.”

“Whitney is doing crack again,” the source said about the 47-year-old Houston, the singer of top 1990s hits like I’ll Always Love You. “It’s the worst it’s ever been. Whitney went on tour again, and that’s when the relapse occurred.”

Brown, 42, has also told friends that Houston, 47, has increasingly isolated herself.

“Whitney’s shutting a lot of people out of her life,” the source said. “It is a dire situation.”

Bobby and Whitney were married for 14 years and were officially divorced in 2007. Both have a history of substance abuse. Their 18-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, was recently caught on camera snorting lines of cocaine.

via Whitney In Rehab: It’s Crack Again, And Even Bobby Brown’s Freaked Out! | Radar Online.

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Marg Helgenberger Calls ‘CSI’ Guest Star Justin Bieber ‘A Brat’

Is anyone surprised?

Helgenberger was asked if Bieber’s role was written just to raise sagging ratings, or because the singer is “truly a good actor.”

The 52-year-old actress rolled her eyes and said, “Justin Bieber wasn’t bad bad. But he’d never acted before … He’s better than you’d think.”

Helgenberger then said, “I shouldn’t be saying this, but he was kind of a brat.”

She seemed to backtrack a bit by saying, “I only had one small part (with Bieber) … he was very nice to me.”

But then Helgenberger gave her reason on why she had such a low opinion of the ‘Baby’ singer: “But he locked one of the producers in a closet and he put his fist through a cake that was on the cast’s table.”

via Marg Helgenberger Calls ‘CSI’ Guest Star Justin Bieber ‘A Brat’.

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Love Will Keep Us Together: Toni Tennille is 71 Today

I’m in shock…

Toni Tennille, who is still married to The Captain, was born May 8, 1940 in Montgomery, Alabama…

I can’t believe she’s 71 !!!

Here is a video of their big hit….

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Could John Krasinski Be the Next George Clooney?

George Clooney turned 50 last week, so they have to start pushing him off to the graveyard…

Sorry, but this is a little premature.

He’s one of the few genuine Stars still out there.

He looks better now than he did when he was younger, he’s smart, he’s an excellent Director and a damn fine Actor.

He is going to be around for a while…

That said, I like John Krasinski a lot, too.  He’s a standout in today’s bland world of interchangeable young actors.

I think he’s going to be around for a while also….

I agree with some later observations in the attached article:  He’s much more of a Jack Lemon/Tom Hanks type…

I’ve never seen his TV show, but I found him very endearing in “It’s Complicated”….

John Krasinski isn’t the lead character of “Something Borrowed”, but you wouldn’t know that from the recent barrage of TV ads, all of which lean heavily on his presence to sell a story with an eyebrow-raising plot: Ginnifer Goodwin’s character sleeps with the fiancé of her best friend, played by Kate Hudson, but you’re still supposed to root for her. Meanwhile, Krasinski is the platonic fourth lead who occasionally comments on the action, but it’s a testament to his natural likability — and, perhaps, his big-screen potential — that the studio is putting its marketing campaign on his shoulders. As he continues to topline The Office after the departure of Steve Carell, it may even be a sign that he could follow in the footsteps of another refugee from NBC Thursday nights who made it big in the movies: George Clooney. To find out, we spoke to industry insiders to answer the question: If John Krasinski were a stock, would you buy, sell, or hold?

via The Star Market: Could Movie Hopeful John Krasinski Be the Next George Clooney? — Vulture.

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Goodbye, Phoebe Snow– ‘Poetry Man’ singer, Dies at 60

The amazingly gifted singer Phoebe Snow passed away today.  She was very special.

My partner, Steve, and I were privileged to see her perform at “Birdland” in New York just a couple of years ago.  We sat at a ringside table not more than a few feet from her.  That will always be a great memory for us….

She was an amazing singer and an amazing person….

Here is an excerpt from her obituary and a CBS Profile.

I’ll also post a couple of video clips of her performing…

NEW YORK – It wasn’t long after the release of “Poetry Man,” the breezy, jazzy love song that would make Phoebe Snow a star, that the singer experienced another event that would dramatically alter her life.

In 1975, she gave birth to a daughter, Valerie Rose, who was found to be severely brain-damaged. Her husband split from her soon after the baby was born. And, at a time when many disabled children were sent to institutions, Snow decided to keep her daughter at home and care for the child herself.

The decision to be Valerie’s primary caretaker would lead her to abandon music for a while and enter into ill-fated business decisions in the quest to stay solvent enough to take care of Valerie.

Snow, who worked her way back into the music performing world in the 1980s and continued to perform in recent years, died on Tuesday from complications of a brain hemorrhage she suffered in January 2010, said Rick Miramontez, her longtime friend and public relations representative. She was 60.

Snow never regretted her decision to put aside music so she could focus on Valerie’s care. She was devastated when her daughter, who was not expected to live beyond her toddler years, died in 2007 at 31.

“She was my universe,” she told the website PopEntertainment.com that year. “She was the nucleus of everything. I used to wonder, am I missing something? No. I had such a sublime, transcendent experience with my child. She had fulfilled every profound love and intimacy and desire I could have ever dreamed of.”

After her stroke last year, Snow endured bouts of blood clots, pneumonia and congestive heart failure, said her manager, Sue Cameron.

“The loss of this unique and untouchable voice is incalculable,” Cameron said. “Phoebe was one of the brightest, funniest and most talented singer-songwriters of all time and, more importantly, a magnificent mother to her late brain-damaged daughter, Valerie, for 31 years. Phoebe felt that was her greatest accomplishment.”

Known as a folk guitarist who made forays into jazz and blues, Snow put her stamp on soul classics such as “Shakey Ground,” “Love Makes a Woman” and “Mercy, Mercy Mercy” on over a half dozen albums.

via Phoebe Snow, ‘Poetry Man’ singer, dies at 60 – Yahoo! News.

Here is a clip of a profile from CBS a couple of years ago:

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Happy Birthday, Ella Fitzgerald

What is it with so many great singers/performers having their birthdays so close together??

There must be something to astrology after all….

The late, great Ella Fitzgerald would have been 93 today.

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