TV stars don’t always make it as singers
MUSIC: Nashville, Empire set sights on achieving crossover success
As everyone knows after 15 years of reality television, it’s incredibly difficult for people on singing competitions to make the jump to actual stardom. So in the age of musical dramas like ABC’s country soap Nashville and Fox’s hip-hop epic Empire, it raises the question: is it any easier for singers on a scripted series?
It’s a complicated issue for both programs as they promote original music in these real-life competitive genres, a different ball game than something like Glee that specialized in cover songs. Nashville and Empire boast an impressive roster of producers, songwriters and artists to create their music, all backed by powerful record labels. This is essential, as networks bank on these shows to make money through music sales. Yet as it turns out, it’s still not always easy to break out of the TV bubble.
“Our focus is definitely to have songs that fit the show, but we’d love if they could airlift outside the show to radio,” said Shawn Holiday, Columbia Records senior vice president of A&R who works with Empire.
Though the Season 1 soundtrack hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart last year, executives are still looking for ways to expand the reach.
“The challenge with that is these aren’t radio artists — they’re TV stars. They come with the stigma of ‘How many TV stars really make it (as singers)?’ ”
To combat this, Empire — which shattered ratings records in its first season — is making a concerted effort to pair up its actors with established radio hitmakers. Last year, the duet strategy paid off when Jussie Smollett (who plays R&B singer Jamal Lyon), sang with Estelle on Conquerer, one of the show’s bestselling songs on iTunes. That’s why this season, viewers saw Jamal team up with the inescapable Pitbull for the club anthem No Doubt About It. The song got a slickly produced music video and was released to radio in early September, a month before Jamal sang it in an episode.
No Doubt About It sits at No. 36 on the Billboard rhythmic national airplay chart. The goal, Holiday said, is for the music industry to take Smollett more seriously as an artist; he recently signed a separate record deal with Columbia. Producers hope to do the same with stars Bryshere Yazz Gray (Hakeem Lyon), and Serayah (Hakeem’s ex-girlfriend Tiana Brown). To wit, Timbaland (Empire’s music producer), collaborated with Yazz on the third episode’s track Bout 2 Blow, added to urban radio charts last month with a boost from iHeartMedia’s On the Verge program.
On Nashville, executives have an even bigger challenge thanks to the tight clique of country radio and the enormously difficult process of wrestling a song up the charts. As a result, the show’s marketing effort is geared toward single and album sales on digital platforms, as the series — in its fourth season — releases multiple soundtracks.
“Radio is difficult,” said Dawn Soler, senior vice president of music at ABC Television. “The landscape of the way music is ingested has changed so much, and each week you can just go to iTunes and access these songs … people can pick what they want.”
In Season 1, Hayden Panettiere (country-pop diva Juliette Barnes), made a slight radio impact with her character’s single Telescope, as did duo Lennon & Maisy (real-life sisters who play Maddie and Daphne Conrad) with their cover of the Lumineers hit Hey Ho. Though the songs didn’t last long on country stations, the show had success in other avenues: Duets by Sam Palladio and Clare Bowen (star-crossed lovers Gunnar Scott and Scarlett O’Connor), showed up on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including Fade Into You and If I Didn’t Know Better. Last year, Bowen’s solo Black Roses peaked at No. 12 on the digital country songs list.
Nashville music supervisor Frankie Pine says the songs are elevated by the audience seeing them on television, so radio isn’t ultimately the ideal delivery system.
“What makes (one of ), our songs a hit is because of the visual impact that it has with the audience.”
She’s in charge of sifting through hundreds of submissions from Nashville songwriters — many of whom follow the storylines quite closely — and looking for tunes that would fit perfectly in certain scenes.
“I’m always looking for new (songwriter), names. If I can discover someone new each season, it makes me happy.”