MR

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 997293.ece



From The Times
January 22, 2010

Strange times in my living room. As I write, my seven-year-old daughter is wandering round the house, getting ready for school and absent-mindedly singing: “Just a city boy born and raised in south Detroit/ He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere . . .” She’s singing Don’t Stop Believin’ by the American band Journey. A song that reached No 9 in the US charts when it was released in 1981; a band of soft-rock merchants who couldn’t get arrested in Britain back then.

Strange times in the charts too. Forget the oddness of this week’s album rankings — Florence and the Machine’s Lungs, released 28 weeks ago, is No 1 — and even the magnificent craziness of Rage Against the Machine taking the Christmas No 1. Thirty years on, Don’t Stop Believin’ is a Top Ten hit in Britain — twice over.

Right now, the Journey original is at No 6. One step higher is the cover version by the cast of Glee, E4’s hit new musical dramedy series. This anthemic ballad’s bizarre afterlife doesn’t end there. It had a zeitgeist moment late last year, courtesy of a performance of the song by the X Factor winner Joe McElderry during one of the heats. Two years before that, Don’t Stop Believin’ was played over the closing scene of the final episode of The Sopranos.

Steve Perry, Journey’s former lead singer and the song’s co-writer, gave approval for the latter use reluctantly. “I was concerned,” he said. “I was not excited about [the possibility of] the Soprano family being whacked to Don’t Stop Believin’.”

I shared Perry’s proprietary unease: as an adolescent, I was one of the few Brits who bought the original version of Don’t Stop Believin’. I still have the free patch that was stuck to the centre of the 7in single. I weathered years of ridicule for my love of Journey. Even if you were a heavy-metal fan, as was mandatory in the provinces in the Eighties, loving these MOR poodles from California made you a pariah among the AC/DC and Saxon-loving longhairs. But by God I persevered. And now, at last, vindication is mine.

Bob Hermon is smiling this week too. Working for the CBS record label as a plugger in the early Eighties, and now running his own music promotions company, it was his job to secure British radio airplay for Journey. “It was tough,” he remembers. “That genre of AOR [adult-oriented rock] was huge in the US but meant nothing here. We were just coming out of the power-pop era and going into New Romantic — Journey just didn’t connect.”

Brilliantly, Hermon is now plugging Don’t Stop Believin’ all over again. “People are really waking up to the song,” he notes with evident satisfaction.

Glee is the brainchild of the creator of Nip/Tuck, Ryan Murphy, and centres on a bunch of geek and misfit pupils who form a musical troupe. It’s been a huge hit in America since its premiere there last spring. Discussing it on his Radio 1 Breakfast Show this week, Chris Moyles said that he didn’t get it. No surprise there. One of his team did, though — they dubbed the whip-smart teen(ish) show High School Cynical.

But what’s revolutionary about Glee is how it uses music. Each episode features the cast singing well-known songs; two of these performances are then released as download singles. Episode three, shown here on Monday, featured covers of Mercy by Duffy and Color Me Badd’s I Wanna Sex You Up. Following that broadcast, the album Glee: The Music: Volume 1 went to No 1 on the UK Amazon and iTunes preorder charts. In the US the show was responsible for four million downloads by the end of last year. But Don’t Stop Believin’ has been the biggest single beneficiary. It is now the most downloaded “catalogue” song in iTunes history.

“Everybody knows that that song was used on [The Sopranos],” Murphy said last year, “but to me it transcends anything. It’s always been an anthem ... I liked the idea of 16-year-old kids interpreting that song.”

Rob Stringer is the British chairman of the Columbia/Epic label group in America, and the man who signed the deal to release the songs from Glee. He thinks that Don’t Stop Believin’ is a “forever song” because “its message is a positive one. It could almost be a catchphrase: don’t stop believing . . .” And for a new generation, “the Glee arrangement of the song is very clever: it’s choral, and it has a female voice on it. And in the UK, we have the added advantage that it was never exposed properly . . .”

Only if you had cloth ears in the early Eighties. For true Journey believers like Hermon and me, it never went away. We never stopped believin’.

Don’t Stop Believin’ is available now to download. Glee: The Music: Volume 1 will be released to download and on CD on Feb 15 on Epic Records

This week on the UK charts, the classic version of DSB drops to #7 and the Glee version climbs to #3. I think the Television show cover is eroding support away from the original as the Glee soundtrack is being marketed heavily for it's upcoming release on Feb. 15 in England.

This week ends with the classic version of DSB dropping to #8 while the Glee version moves up one spot to #2 on the UK charts.

Apparently you can buy Journey's greatest hits at Tesco for just £8.99

Steve Perry was told of this promotion by Tesco and the tv commercial they are airing which has footage of him when he was young, skinny, wearing leapord skin shirts, and still singing live. His only response was to hold his piggy bank in the air and say "Every Little Helps"

Gunbot wrote:This week ends with the classic version of DSB dropping to #8 while the Glee version moves up one spot to #2 on the UK charts.

It's all those 10 year old girls buying the Glee version.

The original version of Journey's DSB drops out of the top ten while the Glee version drops one spot to #5. Glee's fusion of Beyonce's Halo and the Katrina and the Waves song Walking On Sunshine debuts at #9, while the cast's mashup of Bon Jovi's It's My Life with the Usher track Confessions Part II comes in #14. Looks like classic rock tracks are all the rage in England (as long as Glee cast is the one singing them). The Glee soundtrack has now had 10 releases make it in top 75 on the UK Charts ( Their rendition of Somebody To Love sits at #33 this week).

Kudos to all of the guys on this song, but the main architect and the guy that came up with the idea, opening keys and chorus, Jon Cain, has to get the most accolades. And what incredible contributions by Perry and Schon also. What a tune.

On this weeks UK charts, DSB drops to 18 and The Greatest Hits Album slips to 15. With the Glee Soundtrack revitalizing older music, look for original REO, Queen or Bon Jovi songs to fill the void as Journey mania peters off a bit.

Sorry if posted already....

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/the ... 42629.html

The Irish Times - Friday, February 12, 2010

Hearin' is believin': the Journey single that keeps on givin'

Image

REVOLVER: You wouldn’t be able to pick Neal Schon, Steve Perry and Steve Smith out of a line-up. But then, the only line-up those three would be in these days is a Forbes magazine special on the most royalty cheques ever picked up for a single song. Back in 1981, when the Journey men wrote Don’t Stop Believin’ , they were thrilled with its top 10 placing in the singles charts, but unaware they had just written a musical phenomenon.

In this download era, on each of the many occasions that their power ballad has featured in a film or been played at a major sports event, it’s climbed back up the charts. It’s now in the top 10 of most singles charts in the world. It just goes on and on and on and on.

If you presented Don’t Stop Believin’ at a songwriting class, you’d be laughed out of it. It has one of the strangest song structures ever, with the chorus not making an appearance until more than three-quarters of the way in.

Lyrically, it’s a poetically strained: Steve Perry sets up a narrative thread at the beginning – a small town girl and a city boy both taking a midnight train, but we never find out what happens to them. Instead, there are a series of exhortations to “don’t stop believing” and to “hold on to that feeling”. These kinds of banal aphorisms, so loved by politicians and TV personalities, mean nothing but sound positive and upbeat.

The song was always there as a minor rock classic over the years, but went straight to the front of the queue when it was used at the end of the final episode of The Sopranos three years ago. For series creator David Chase, acquiring rights to the song was a real struggle.

“There was a lot of ‘conversation’ about my song choice,” he says. “When I said Don’t Stop Believin’ , people were going ‘What? Oh my god!’. I said just give it a listen, and little by little, people started coming around.”

Chase picked the song because it unfolds a bit like the final episode of The Sopranos : a gradual build up of tension with no real resolution. The line that goes “The movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on” was crucial to Chase because it was his answer to all the speculation of how he would end the series.

Steve Perry, Journey’s singer, was initially reluctant to give permission for the song to be used. He felt that it had built up a certain status over its previous 25 years or so and if it was used at such a dramatic stage of a prominent TV series, it would be inextricably linked to The Sopranos and not to Journey. “I was concerned,” acknowledges Perry. “I was not excited about the possibility of the Soprano family being whacked to Don’t Stop Believin’ .”

The band had no such hesitation when Simon Cowell approached them last year and asked them if he could use Don’t Stop Believin’ as the X Factor winner’s debut single (a song that reliably sells by the millions). It was a flat “No”.

“Simon had contacted our management,” says guitarist Neal Schon. “He wanted to redo the song with a different arrangement. We listened to it. We declined.”

Cowell’s master plan was ruined, he had to scrape around for a different song for Joe McElderry, and all he could come up with was the pedestrian Miley Cyrus song The Climb. However, Journey had no problems with the version of the song used on the US TV series Glee – they loved it and readily agreed.

By rights, though, this song should never had made its way out of the studio. On paper its structure is confused and fragmented: it opens with a piano riff, moves to the first verse, there’s a guitar arpeggio, a second verse, a pre-chorus, a guitar solo, a third verse, a repeat of the pre-chorus, another guitar solo, and then – at three minutes and 20 seconds – the actual chorus arrives.

Yet it worked magnificently. And it continues to do so. Don’t Stop Believin’ just goes on and on and on and on.

iTunes Most Downloaded Songs of All Time
By Live4ever
Posted on 15 Feb 2010 at 12:32pm
http://www.live4ever.uk.com/2010/02/itu ... all-times/


iTunes has released a list of the top 25 tunes downloaded through their store. An interesting fact about the bands listed is that Journey have the only song not released within the last five years, as “Don’t Stop Believin’”—the band’s 1981 anthem that has been used in ads for political campaigns and the infamous final The Sopranos episode on HBO—comes in at #21. The only other 2 bands representing the Rock genre, in the list dominated by R&B, Hip Hop and Pop, are Cold Play and Kings of Leon.

Meanwhile, the iTunes Store is offering a $10,000 gift card to whoever downloads the 10 billionth song.

iTunes’ 25 Most-Downloaded Songs Of All Time:

1. “I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas
2. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga
3. “Boom Boom Pow,” Black Eyed Peas
4. “I’m Yours,” Jason Mraz
5. “Viva la Vida,” Coldplay
6. “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga & Colby O’Donis
7. “Low,” Flo Rida (featuring T-Pain)
8. “Love Story,” Taylor Swift
9. “Bleeding Love,” Leona Lewis
10. “TiK ToK,” Ke$ha
11. “Disturbia,” Rihanna
12. “So What,” Pink
13. “I Kissed a Girl,” Katy Perry
14. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Beyoncé
15. “Hot N Cold,” Katy Perry
16. “Stronger,” Kanye West
17. “Live Your Life,” T.I. (featuring Rihanna)
18. “Hey There Delilah,” Plain White T’s
19. “Right Round,” Flo Rida
20. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus
21. “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Journey
22. “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga
23. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon
24. “Fireflies,” Owl City
25. “How to Save a Life,” the Fray

Both the Glee version and the original took a tumble this week with the latter dropping all the way down to #27.
On the album charts, Journey's Greatest hits maintains its position in the top twenty at #18. Well, the song had to die off eventually. There was really nothing out there to keep pushing it with, even Neal's latest interviews didn't really focus on the song. It was still nice while it lasted.

DSB drops to 31 and the Greatest Hits sinks to 24 this week on the UK music charts.

Old rockers have a Gleeful comeback
By Charlotte Heathcote
Sunday March 28,2010

YOUR average pop song has a short-lived shelf life. With a bit of luck, a successful band’s new single will land in the top 10 in the week of release and, if it’s a real winner, it might linger for a few weeks in the upper reaches of the charts.

Thereafter it’s likely to be replaced by the next big tune with a Velcro hook, becoming a nostalgic memory for all but the most dedicated fans.

So why are two versions of power ballad Don’t Stop Believin’, one by Journey, who wrote it, and another by the cast of E4 high school comedy Glee, sitting in the UK top 30 almost 30 years after the track’s initial release? Why has the track been certified gold in the United States, where it’s been downloaded 600,000 times?

“We’ve made more money in the past two years than we ever made in our entire lives,” marvels Jonathan Cain, Journey’s keyboard player and co-writer of the song with singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon,. The band were formed in 1973 in California by former members of Latin rock band Santana. They were always far more successful in their homeland than over here, where Don’t Stop Believin’ became their only officialsingle release to chart, at No6 in 1981.

Even at home, the song stalled at No8. However, despite this relatively inauspicious start, Don’t Stop Believin’ has proved deathless over the decades. It’s a heartfelt, hands-in-the-air, rousing song with lyrics that speak of yearning and optimism: “Just a smalltown girl/Livin’ in a lonely world”

So Journey’s journey is far from over. After a decade-long hiatus, they reformed in the mid-Nineties, eventually replacing their singer Steve Perry with Arnel Pineda. Wisely, the band never sold off their publishing rights, and though Cain says their catalogue has experienced “up and down periods”, he admits the whole band could have retired on their royalties as much as a decade ago. Still, they have no intention of doing anything of the sort.

via Express.co.uk – Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | Music :: Old rockers have a Gleeful comeback.

Jana wrote:Old rockers have a Gleeful comeback
By Charlotte Heathcote
Sunday March 28,2010

YOUR average pop song has a short-lived shelf life. With a bit of luck, a successful band’s new single will land in the top 10 in the week of release and, if it’s a real winner, it might linger for a few weeks in the upper reaches of the charts.

Thereafter it’s likely to be replaced by the next big tune with a Velcro hook, becoming a nostalgic memory for all but the most dedicated fans.

So why are two versions of power ballad Don’t Stop Believin’, one by Journey, who wrote it, and another by the cast of E4 high school comedy Glee, sitting in the UK top 30 almost 30 years after the track’s initial release? Why has the track been certified gold in the United States, where it’s been downloaded 600,000 times?

“We’ve made more money in the past two years than we ever made in our entire lives,” marvels Jonathan Cain, Journey’s keyboard player and co-writer of the song with singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon,. The band were formed in 1973 in California by former members of Latin rock band Santana. They were always far more successful in their homeland than over here, where Don’t Stop Believin’ became their only officialsingle release to chart, at No6 in 1981.

Even at home, the song stalled at No8. However, despite this relatively inauspicious start, Don’t Stop Believin’ has proved deathless over the decades. It’s a heartfelt, hands-in-the-air, rousing song with lyrics that speak of yearning and optimism: “Just a smalltown girl/Livin’ in a lonely world”

So Journey’s journey is far from over. After a decade-long hiatus, they reformed in the mid-Nineties, eventually replacing their singer Steve Perry with Arnel Pineda. Wisely, the band never sold off their publishing rights, and though Cain says their catalogue has experienced “up and down periods”, he admits the whole band could have retired on their royalties as much as a decade ago. Still, they have no intention of doing anything of the sort.

via Express.co.uk – Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | Music :: Old rockers have a Gleeful comeback.

It is obvious that Jon's talking about the lucrative royalty payments that he, Schon and Perry are making, not just from this particular song but from tunes included through out their entire back catalog which has had a resurgence lately. Shrek, Bed Time Stories, Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs and the Sopranos (box set) DVD and Box Office sales have been great. Monsters VS Aliens sales went through the stratosphere when it came out on DVD, and not just in the U.S. Add in the Glee soundtrack busting up the charts here and in the UK, along with the Greatest Hits CD back on the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, it's easy to see that the three primary songwriters of Journey are making a killing in the royalty game. All the money they didn't make by not allowing the music to be over exposed in K-tel type compilation packages over the years is now returning to them tenfold.
I think Perry has done more interviews over the last 18 months than he had in the previous 10 years combined. For a guy who hasn't done anything musically in over a decade, that's amazing. With the band members busy doing other things, Perry has become their unofficial spokes person concerning all thing DSB over the last few years. Good to see Cain getting a word in once in awhile.
Man, when they put on their writing hats as one team, that trio of guys created magic together and now come the rewards.

By the way, Classic Journey version of DSB at #21 and Glee version at #24 on the UK Top 40 for this week.

This week's British chart has Classic DSB at #32, The Glee version at #29. Also, Journey's Greatest Hits free falls to #54 on the UK album chart.

Gunbot wrote:This week's British chart has Classic DSB at #32, The Glee version at #29. Also, Journey's Greatest Hits free falls to #54 on the UK album chart.

uummm, isn't that pretty damn good?

Gunbot wrote:It is obvious that Jon's talking about the lucrative royalty payments that he, Schon and Perry are making, not just from this particular song but from tunes included through out their entire back catalog which has had a resurgence lately.

Don't forget that they're getting an absolutely insane $7 per Revelation unit moved and it's moved over a million worldwide. And Andrew has confirmed as much.

Saint John wrote:

Gunbot wrote:It is obvious that Jon's talking about the lucrative royalty payments that he, Schon and Perry are making, not just from this particular song but from tunes included through out their entire back catalog which has had a resurgence lately.

Don't forget that they're getting an absolutely insane $7 per Revelation unit moved and it's moved over a million worldwide. And Andrew has confirmed as much.

A million discs or a million packages? Or is it two million discs now, making it a double platinum seller?

Saint John wrote:

Gunbot wrote:It is obvious that Jon's talking about the lucrative royalty payments that he, Schon and Perry are making, not just from this particular song but from tunes included through out their entire back catalog which has had a resurgence lately.

Don't forget that they're getting an absolutely insane $7 per Revelation unit moved and it's moved over a million worldwide. And Andrew has confirmed as much.

Of course. Which brings up the point why Perry hasn't seized this opportunity and released something yet. Without a Wal-Mart deal, SP would have to move at least half a million copies of a new album to equal the payout he gets from Journey's package and Manila DVD. As I said before, why embarrass himself with new material. Look at Neal, the guy was interviewed every week last month about DSB and STILL couldn't fill a local fire hall with some of his solo dates. All these guys should just forget about the solo stuff for now. Just license out the music and collect the rewards. It's not like these guys totally blew the money they've made over the years, but every little built helps.

Money isn't really an issue for the big three. It's more about where do they want to go from here. Living on yesterday's triumphs seems good enough for Perry. He can use Journey as a barometer on how well new music is going to be received. If their new album goes platinum, I say he takes a chance. If it doesn't go over well, Perry stays in the darkness and lets the past define his legacy.

steveo777 wrote:

Saint John wrote:

Gunbot wrote:It is obvious that Jon's talking about the lucrative royalty payments that he, Schon and Perry are making, not just from this particular song but from tunes included through out their entire back catalog which has had a resurgence lately.

Don't forget that they're getting an absolutely insane $7 per Revelation unit moved and it's moved over a million worldwide. And Andrew has confirmed as much.

A million discs or a million packages? Or is it two million discs now, making it a double platinum seller?

Worldwide sales don't count for RIAA certifications, just North America. That said, I'm sure it's already double platinum. They must just want to release that news officially right before their next release.

Gunbot wrote:Look at Neal, the guy was interviewed every week last month about DSB and STILL couldn't fill a local fire hall with some of his solo dates.

Perry would pretty much have the same attendance sans Journey songs.

Saint John wrote:

Gunbot wrote:Look at Neal, the guy was interviewed every week last month about DSB and STILL couldn't fill a local fire hall with some of his solo dates.

Perry would pretty much have the same attendance sans Journey songs.

Perry might have the same attendance WITH Journey songs.
I get that the sensationalism of him coming out of his cave might carry the first few shows but seriously, if he starts singing Journey tunes three steps down without the band around him, those crowds will thin out real quick. Perry needs a partner to make a meaningful tour happen. Kenny Loggins, Daryl Hall, whomever. By himself, I think he runs out of steam fast.

If he is with Journey, the three steps down can be glossed over, its classic Journey and the media will eat it up. By himself though, I don't think so.

Falling fast this week. Classic DSB at #39, Glee version at#40. Journey's Greatest Hits sliding all the way down to #80 on the album chart.
One of the talk shows was actually started using the Glee version for exit music. I guess that is the rendition young people are identifying with more easily, at least in the UK.

Probably the last update for this thread. Both versions of DSB (Classic/Glee) have fallen out of the UK Top 40. Journey's Greatest Hits has also left the Top 100 on the UK album charts.

This song will ultimately be the most downloaded song ever. It's just a matter of time. The other songs have peaked, are stagnant and will not continue the sustained pace that DSB will. Congrats to all involved.

I was at my son's high school senior assembly last night. They have a slide show, and part of that is a 'last will and testament', in which they bequeath things (parking space, school spirit, # on the football team) to underclassmen. Sometimes it's simply a message to someone.

One girl gave this message to a friend... "Don't Stop Believing because life is a Journey"

The Glee versions of DSB, Faithfully and AWYWI/LTS all jump into the UK Top 50 singles chart this week.

#32 - AWYWI/LTS
#33 - DSB
#48 - Faithfully

That's got to be a triple nutter right there. An album featuring music you wrote three decades ago is number one on the charts, you've got three Top 50 hits in the UK, a market you never even tried to attract and VH1 is playing videos featuring your music to a whole new generation of fans.
And all you had to do was sign a licensing agreement. No studio time, no touring, no long flights. Pure Gravy.

DSB (the classic version) continues it stay on the singles chart for it's 90th week, up four spots to #46.

And in other news, In the unusually busy hallways of Columbia Records UK, company execs were heard to be singing the ole' Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell standard, "Ain't nothing like the real thing..".

Maybe because there isn't really any great music coming out anymore. Maybe they'll be re-re-re-releasing Fats Domino again pretty soon.

SOFT-rock merchants???