Martin
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Post by Martin on Dec 5, 2009 12:55:22 GMT
I went into HMV Exeter yesterday and saw good stocks of the album. Strangely enough it wasn't in the "New Releases" section but I found it in the section entitled "Ideas for Christmas Gifts" and also in the Classical chart section, at No. 16. Faryl was No. 8.
Martin
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 5, 2009 14:48:26 GMT
Personally, I do not consider releasing a Christmas album at this point in her career to be any better an idea than her previous greatest hits release was. While I understand and largely agree with your analysis for why the album is underperforming, Dave, I simply dont believe the concept has very much going for it to begin with. I never really understood the logic behind the greatest hits release either. The album will only sell half as well as it might have.....which to me only means they took a very bad concept and made it worse... Hi Jon, I agree in part, although I think the Christmas album (unlike the Best Of) was quite a good idea as it had the potential to approach or even exceed the sales of Treasure in the UK, given Hayley's presence and high profile in the UK this time round. My criticism is simply that the record company failed to make the best of it, by a long way. There may not have been sufficient time or sufficient material for a new "standard" album to be produced in the time available from when the media and TV appearances were set up; a Christmas album was always going to be quicker to do and so may have been a reaction to events... but I speculate so I must stop. The record company just handled the release (dates) badly in my opinion - even the original date was a week too late I think and changing it just made things worse unless it was going into the supermarkets. I'd love to get whoever's responsible alone in a room for "a little chat" to reinforce that point... before sacking them. Dave
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Post by Jeff on Dec 6, 2009 15:12:06 GMT
Regarding whether "Winter Magic" is a classical album or not, it is interesting to read page 109 of Hayley's first book "The World at her feet" which states an album's repertoire must be at least 60% classical or classically based or "traditional" to be included in the classical chart. This is decided by the Official Charts Company (OCC). Looking at the tracklisting for WM, I'm not sure it is classical. 60% of 15 tracks is 9 and I can only find 8:
Carol of the bells Veni Veni Emmanuel Silent Night Little Drummer Boy (recorded by the Three Tenors and a hit for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in 1972. That should be traditional enough) Corpus Christi carol Coventry Carol The Christmas song (a hit for Nat King Cole in 1963) Sleigh Ride ? (But that may be stretching it a bit).
The other songs may be deemed too new. Hayley's compositions obviously are. Can we call "River" traditional ? The critical question is how old does a song have to be before it becomes "traditional?" If you don't count the bonus track as part of the main album, she might just get away with it. Let's hope the OCC are in a good mood the day they decide. Perhaps a fine bottle of sherry delivered to the chairman may help swing the vote. Faryl avoids this problem by having fewer modern songs and carols on her album and Camilla rather cleverly shoves all her Christmas stuff onto a bonus disc, leaving the main album for the serious classical songs she does so well.
If WM is disqualified from the classical chart, someone at Decca will have dropped an almighty clanger. If Classic FM don't play it, who will? Radio 2 ?
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 6, 2009 15:27:12 GMT
Hello Jeff, As I mentioned earlier, in such a marginal case, it will have been a matter of interpretation by the classical charts committee but it's not kept secret so Decca will have had the opportunity to change the tracklisting, if they wished, they did this to make Pure "classical". It depends on playing time by the way, not numbers of tracks, which is only a rough guide. The addition of the Ronan Keating duet would have made it more difficult - they changed it in the other direction! Normally I'd have said "yes, they'll have made sure it's classical" but there are new people at Decca this year following the merger with UCJ so anything's possible. We'll just have to wait and see. By the way, I think Classic FM decide what to play based on what they think is a classical track, not on which chart it appears in. Cheers, Dave
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Post by grant on Dec 6, 2009 18:12:39 GMT
Hi Dave and everyone
I haven't seen this mentioned before but I have twice now seen an advert for Classic Voices 2010 which actually features Hayley's "Winter Magic" right at the beginning. Hayley isn't included in any of the voice overs, but her name is 'writ large' early on in the ad.
At least this should alert some to the fact that there is an album cover of Hayley's on screen that they don't recognise which hopefully will lead to them making further enquiries.
Best wishes Grant
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Post by martindn on Dec 6, 2009 19:19:08 GMT
As |I said elsewhere "Sleigh Ride" was played on Classic FM the other day. If that is considered suitable for them, could it be our 9th track?
Martin
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 6, 2009 19:24:59 GMT
...Hayley may or may not be in the top 75 of the main chart, we shall have to wait and see. If it is in the top 75 I'll know on Sunday, if not it will be Monday... Hello everyone, Hayley is outside the top 75 today in the UK album chart. I will not know until tomorrow (Monday) if she is in the Top 100 or not, she may well be in it. Winter Magic did qualify for the classical chart, it is no. 9 and all the 8 albums above it were released in the last 5 weeks, 7 of them this week or last week. I think Hayley is top of the classical albums not stocked by the the supermarkets. The top 7 are in the main album chart's top 75, the exceptions being Camilla at no. 8 who has dropped out, and Hayley. None of the above is unexpected, not since we learned that supermarkets weren't stocking Winter Magic; nothing has changed. I'll post the chart in the main Charts board and thread later. Dave
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Post by nicola on Dec 6, 2009 20:02:16 GMT
Hello Dave, do you have the stats on Rhydian and Faryl, too? Thanks for that.
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Post by nicola on Dec 6, 2009 20:11:42 GMT
Someone on digital spy posted this:
ALBUMS
1 Susan Boyle 303,708 13 Cold stream Guards Band 50,295 18 Andrea Bocelli 41,238 25 Rhydian 29,784 40 Vera Lynn 16,214
I don't know why they left some chart positions out, I was curious about Faryl.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 6, 2009 20:16:33 GMT
Sorry Nicola, we can't allow such detailed information in the forum, the Official Charts Company don't like it (it's obviously leaked). Also, this is a Hayley thread. I'll have to cut it down to a selection of what's relevant to Hayley. Regarding Faryl, she is no. 56 in the main chart with (almost certainly) something less than 15,000 sales (because the no. 40 sold 16,214). I think that if Winter Magic had been in the supermarkets, Hayley would have beaten that position and sales figure - she has always sold at least that many in week 1 for a new studio album, even special editions... and even River of Dreams sold 12,000. The supermarkets it seems have messed up, as well as Decca. They replaced Hayley by Camilla and Faryl, both of whom sold less than Hayley would probably have sold. We should get the exact Faryl figure tomorrow from Music Week. Cheers, Dave
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Post by martindn on Dec 6, 2009 20:56:33 GMT
The supermarkets it seems have messed up, as well as Decca. They replaced Hayley by Camilla and Faryl, both of whom sold less than Hayley would probably have sold. We should get the exact Faryl figure tomorrow from Music Week. Cheers, Dave That is just so sickening. They got it wrong and once again Haylety suffers. What is it about her than makes them think they won't sell. I have bought 2 copies of Winter magic, and so far none of the others. I would rather have my second version, which only has one new track, than either of those other albums. OK, I'm a Hayley nut, but these guys are supposed to be professional, how can they get it so wrong. I wouldn't blame Hayley if she dumped Decca after her next album. Find someone else who can promote her properly. Martin
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Post by nicola on Dec 6, 2009 21:09:04 GMT
Okay Dave. But I found that post on the Rhydian forum, and then twice again on JA's forum. :/ I was merely interested where Hayley's competition got to.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 6, 2009 21:21:24 GMT
Hi Nicola, It's OK, there's no way you could have known. The OCC only carry out occasional sweeps of music sites & forums so they may get away with it for a while and anyway, what's a full list and what's a 'selection' is open to debate. But if we only post exact sales info and/or midweeks info for artists relevant to Hayley, there's less chance that anyone will ever bother us. Dave
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Post by Libby on Dec 7, 2009 0:42:44 GMT
I wouldn't blame Hayley if she dumped Decca after her next album. Find someone else who can promote her properly. I've been hoping for this for a while, but I doubt she will until her contract is up. Do you think she really will look for somebody else one it's up, though?
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Jillian
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Post by Jillian on Dec 7, 2009 6:59:01 GMT
Hi, I asked the people at Aus Pop and unfortunately, Hayley didn't make the top 100 albums in Australia this week -- not that I was expecting her to. The album that placed Number 100 sold 779 copies, so Hayley would be below that.
I'm not even sure if there's even that many copies in circulation. There's probably about 90 -100 JB - HI -Fi stores in Australia and if each of them stock an average of 3 cds, that's only about 300 CDs (perhaps 400 at the most) and then there's Borders (but I don't think all of them have it and there's only 25 in Australia). So I'm not even sure there'd be the 780 copies that it would take to break the top 100 even in existence.
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