Following the epic flop that has been Leona Lewis’ sophomore LP ‘Echo’ in the US, one of the album’s main collaborators, hitmaker Ryan Tedder, has given his 2 cents on why he feels the record has underperformed Stateside – poor promotion and…Lady GaGa. Speaking in an interview with Digital Spy, the producer (the creative force behind Lewis’ ‘Bleeding Love’ and ‘Happy’) said:
“In the US, unless you’re Justin Timberlake or Beyoncé, you cannot put out a song and not be in the country when it comes out.
Leona was gone for six weeks when ‘Happy’ came out because she was promoting the record in other countries – it wasn’t her fault; she couldn’t be two places in once.
I had radio stations telling me that they thought ‘Happy’ was the single biggest ballad they’d come across in ten years, but that if Leona didn’t come over here and promote it, it was going to fall.”
However, Tedder also admitted that the impact of Lady GaGa – who has notched up five US top ten hits in the last 12 months – might have adversely affected the single’s chances.
“On top of that, America’s consumed with Lady GaGa and dance music right now, so it’s not the best time for ballads anyway”, he said. “When everything on the radio is blasting out at 120 bpm, a song like ‘Happy’ almost sounds out-of-place.”
Though I commend Tedder for trying to help Leona save face, let’s be real…’Happy’ and ‘Echo’ were both sleeping pills on a disc. At the end of the day, with the amount of marketing push and budget put up for artists of Leona’s magnitude, if the album ended up tanking it’s usually the material that is at fault. I mean, folks knew it was out, yet didn’t buy it because they didn’t gravitate toward the sub-par single (which is always supposed to act as an advertisement of sorts for the actual album). For all Lady GaGa’s success, her case is still an anomaly, yet is a testament to the fact that ‘good’ music will find a way to get its shine, somehow, some way.
Still, on the one hand, the whole situation is actually quite unfortunate, as Leona has been blessed with a level of talent and skill the music industry has not seen since Whitney and Mariah hit the scene all those decades ago. However, in today’s uber competitive climate, it’s imperative that artists consistently serve up that good-good with the music, as we’re unfortunately at that stage where they are only as hot as their last hit.
Yet on the other hand, it’s slightly annoying; I can actually remember reading and watching interviews about Leona’s sophomore LP (many of which were given by her), talking about how she was experimenting with new sounds and how it’d be markedly different to her debut, only to hear the finished product and -save for a couple of tracks-having to endure ballad after dry ballad.
In any case, I’m sure Leona will be fine in the long run. Her team just need to switch things up. Ballads are understandably her mainstay, with good reason; however delivering half-decent ones would be a good starting point. Sigh…
