Why did P. McCartney last 19 years longer on UK top 40 vs USA

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by johnny moondog 909, Jul 16, 2017.

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  1. intv7

    intv7 Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston, MA, USA
    In the '80s and 90s, in order to have success in the US Top 40, you had to have a big presence on MTV. Paul's success in America in the 1980s had less to do with him being Paul McCartney of The Beatles than it did with his ability to get his face on MTV.

    In the first half of the decade, you had a guy who was barely 40 years old, recording and making videos with Michael Jackson. On the heels of that, he made a movie, at a time when the MTV crowd was all about movie soundtracks. And from there he went on to do the theme song to another big-budget Hollywood film that had an accompanying video. He was getting video play.

    By the time Press came around, it seemed like he was already losing the US. The people buying records were younger, and suddenly here's this video featuring a guy with graying hair, with no Michael Jackson, no movie soundtrack, taking a ride on the subway. No huge surprise that the video didn't get shown all that much here. The album was considered to be something of a failure, and none of those singles made much of a dent.

    Flowers In The Dirt performed better, as a direct result of both Macca's decision to tour the US for the first time since 1976, and the wave of '60s nostalgia that was going on at the time. Not coincidental that Paul dusted off the Hofner for the "My Brave Face" video and the '89-'90 tour. George Harrison having something of a career resurgence didn't hurt either -- and I think that was also thanks in no small part to the '60s culture being revisited later in the decade (and a long period of relative silence).

    Forty-somethings from the '60s still had something of a fighting chance of getting seen on MTV during the '80s. The Grateful Dead had a huge hit, The Monkees was being shown regularly, and they were still showing Closet Classics (clips of old Beat Club performances and such). That ship had long since sailed by the time Off The Ground happened. Grunge and the wave of new bands came along and wiped out almost everything that MTV had featured in the previous decade. McCartney shifted from being a hip guy from the previous generation, to being -- an oldies act. It happens. The US doesn't usually let artists have careers with hits that span decades and decades. It's surprising that he had Top 40 success as long as he did -- even being a Beatle.
     
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  2. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    It's worth noting that he has bounced back on the US album charts, after a slump from Pipes of Peace (#15 isn't exactly bad, but it was a dud by his standards at that time) through Off the Ground - i.e., a couple of years ahead of the curve on when his singles stopped being consistent hits. Most of his albums since then have hit the top ten.
     
  3. skyjelly

    skyjelly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lisbon, Maine
    Are people not counting "FourFiveSeconds" from 2015? Top 10 in the US and UK.
     
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  4. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    The switch in the USA from Capitol to Columbia and back had some factor in Paul McCartney's chart success here. Capitol the third time didn't quite market him the same way he did the first time, and Columbia did before.
     
  5. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    And make no mistake, the guy has had and continues to have a great career, despite not getting radio/video play in the last few decades. He had to reinvent himself as a super touring act heading into the 90s. The mileage and success one can garner as an entertainer/artist is varied and sometimes can only get you so far, but he's ridden circles for longer than I've been alive. Let's not pity the guy too much.
     
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  6. intv7

    intv7 Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston, MA, USA
    Yeah, I've heard old Paulie's doing alright.
     
  7. McCartney seems to have greater viability in smaller markets, possibly those of the Commonwealth, where he still may be part of everyday news as a celebrity, not so much in the US, which has a much larger turnover/dynamic of stars, celebrities, etc.,
     
  8. johnny moondog 909

    johnny moondog 909 Beatles-Lennon & Classic rock fan Thread Starter

    I've enjoyed reading all these responses, most of the comments as to why Mccartney lasted longer on the UK charts, the various answers aren't in conflict. So taken in tandem, they paint a pretty good explanation.

    I want to go back & point out one song however "Hope of Deliverance" from 1993.

    This tune according to Wikipedia at least, sold 500,000 copies in Germany alone, hit #18 in the UK. & was a top 5 smash in Australia & other significant markets.

    I've gotta believe the record must've sold a million or close to it worldwide. So in some cases at least, it's not a matter of sneaking into he top 40 for a week & dropping like a stone.

    Hope of D was a big worldwide hit by any standard, & barely made a dime in the USA. Obviously the 1-2 weeks & out, accounts for a lot of these songs but not all of them.

    One last thought, a hit is a hit, is a hit. #26 for a week is still a hit.
     
  9. Elliottmarx

    Elliottmarx Always in the mood for Burt Bacharach

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I just returned from Germany where I heard Hope of Deliverance on the radio. I will say that the formats of European stations are broader than ours in the US - stations seem to go for overall feel more than era or race. So I don't completely agree with the idea that things simply chart because eager fans bought up a lot of copies the first week - well that's how they chart, but I think some of these more recent songs have entered the cannon. There's more of a willingness to trust and embrace older artists and sadly, I believe that the converse is true - Americans overly value the labors of the young and are distrustful of age.
     
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  10. jgkojak

    jgkojak Mull of Kansas

    Location:
    Lawrence, KS
    A few less technical issues:

    1) As a home country hero, he was more celebrated at the time in the UK, where he continued to have hits (Cliff Richard, who never really caught on in the US, had a similar experience)

    2) European charts were less influenced by MTV and by corporate/narrow-formatted radio programmers.

    3) European/UK record-buyers were more eclectic in their tastes.

    4) UK is a smaller market, so the number of sales needed for the fans to make an automatic chart impact is lower - so a "This One" single bought only by fans is good for the #80s in the U.S. and #18 in the U.K.

    And a more technical issue:

    5) Paul did not manage the post mid-80s U.S. radio formats and release schedules well.

    For example, "Spies Like Us" (I like it as a Paul fan but come on, its not a great song) in late 1985, I believe sucked up all the radio good will whatever the next Paul releases would generate. Had Spies not been released and instead "Press" in Sept. 1986 was Paul's next new release, I believe Press would have generated enough buzz and interest to break the Top 10 (as Spies did).

    Likewise, both Spies and Press occupied that difficult middle ground between rock and Adult Contemporary pop. Paul's last several non-superstar-duet hits in the US (No More Lonely Nights, a genuinely great ballad), Take It Away (a made for AC/MOR pop record, and again one of Paul's best), could easily be played on both Adult Contemporary stations and pop stations. Those two songs also happen to be amazingly produced/written/crafted pop gems - but note that even putting out his BEST stuff, Paul could manage #10 with Take It Away and #6 with No More Lonely Nights.

    Spies Like Us is too heavy/hard to receive much if any AC airplay. And its too pop for classic rock radio. Press, likewise, was not an easy fit for AC stations at the time (to its credit, its got an edgier sound and production) and no rock station was going to play it (unlike, say, Tom Petty or George Harrison, who got support from both rock and pop radio for their hits of the time). By the time the well-positioned sound-wise singles from Flowers in the Dirt came out, pop, MTV and radio had moved on.

    Fast Forward to 2007. The general practice at the time was to create buzz then release a single to generate maximum sales to land a high Billboard debut. Instead, Paul released Memory Almost Full and waited two weeks (or more) to release the single, pretty much killing it in the #60s on the chart - had Paul released Dance Tonight in advance of the record, enough downloads and physical sales would have likely generated a deserved Top 40 placement for the song. (I know the idea is to move albums and make money from them - but I think it may have been just as important to Paul to have that hit). Likewise, I think Dance Tonight, if it got some T40 rotation, could have been a surprise grower and give Paul a surprise final Top 10 in the U.S.

    Hope of Deliverance is the best example, kind of a 1990s Mull of Kintyre- when I first heard it in 1993, I loved it but thought "no way this is charting high". Yet it hit Top 5 or #1 all over the world. This is just a plain lack of imagination on the part of U.S. radio programmers.

    A final note on MTV - for the most part, I don't like Paul's videos.

    His early efforts - Coming Up (groundbreaking), Take It Away (fun), Pipes of Peace (groundbreaking), and even the movie-clip heavy No More Lonely Nights and Spies Like Us (with Akroyd and Chase for star power) were great.

    But after that:
    Press, mugging in the subway station, was average at a time when Peter Gabriel was doing Sledgehammer and Phill Collins was producing mini-epic after mini-epic.

    My Brave Face was borderline racist and seemed to remind people the wrong way Paul was a Beatle. This One was better, but the song didn't get enough attention.

    Hope of Deliverance is a goofy forest sing-along. And the less said about Young Boy and The World Tonight the better.

    So whatever assistance Paul may have received from heavy MTV play 1986-1997 was lost on the poor videos.

    Witness George Harrison's funny Got My Mind Set on You and When We Was Fab, the latter especially not what you would expect MTV to play, as a way to generate a hit out of a good video.

    Had Paul taken the budget for Broad Street and used it to produce 5 killer music videos for his next project (Press) he would have been better off.
     
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  11. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    This! :edthumbs:

    I don't know exactly what the deal is with the charts currently - how streaming and downloads factor in nowadays, but definitely in the previous century, the US singles chart was based on a weird formula that combined airplay and sales, while the UK chart was based completely on sales. No airplay at all was required to chart in the UK - just sales. In the US (until 1998 or 99) a physical single needed to exist for a song to be eligible for the singles chart - even if it didn't sell much.

    Anyway before I knew all this I was amazed to find out how many Top 10 singles that Iron Maiden had in the UK (including a #1 single) throughout their career. I figured they couldn't possibly be getting much airplay - so :confused:

    Its all down to sales - spurred on by all the hardcore/completist fans buying the physical single in the first week (or two) for the exclusive non-album b-sides.

    Later on in the 90s multi-formatting singles became a marketing tool to spur sales (and higher chart placements). Some bands resisted this on principle (feeling it was ripping off fans) - for a while but many caved to the reality (that of effectively disqualifying themselves from the chart because they weren't selling (usually) 3 versions of a single (all with one or two exclusive B-sides each) to (mostly) their hardcore fans. I know the Wildhearts resisted for a while - and even had fans protesting at their concerts once they did start multiformatting, but really it came down to multiformat just like everyone else was doing - or don't and risk never achieving a chart position again. Personally I never minded their multiformatting because they were so prolific they actually had enough original songs to justify it, unlike most artists who fill their CD-Singles with remixes, live tracks and covers.

    But I digress...
     
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  12. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    Well considering Paul is third billed on the single and only plays acoustic guitar and doesn't sing at all on this Rihanna/Kanye duet - and given the fact that a very large segment of fans of Rihanna and/or Kanye didn't/don't even know who Paul McCartney is - never mind the idea that he was the reason they liked/bought the single (though I'm sure the single got a *very* slight bump in sales due to hardcore McCartney/Beatles fanatics buying it just to have it in their collection - whether most of them ever listened to it much however....)

    ...anyway...no, I'm not counting it...
     
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  13. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Very Ram On with hokey lyrics.
    Popular line dancing ditty.
    Deserved US radio action,
    ditto FIne LIne.
     
  14. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Is it true that McCartney still plays 'Hope Of Deliverance' at certain European dates in recognition of it's success there?
     
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  15. johnny moondog 909

    johnny moondog 909 Beatles-Lennon & Classic rock fan Thread Starter

    I don't know, but I think so. The only time I've seen him live was 2-3 years before he recorded it. But I seem to remember reading that. The song was huge on half the planet, who knew !!!

    Almost like a Mull of Kyntyre situation, where it sells millions, but most Americans have never heard of it.

    Hope of D wasn't as big as Mull of K, maybe someone can post world wide sales of Hope, it's gotta be over 1 million or more.
     
  16. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    I looked it up and it's true he's played it 10 times post 1993 (not always in Europe either), it was last played in Paris last year:

    Paul McCartney Tour Statistics | setlist.fm

    Fans in Florida got a rare treat in 2013 when he played it in the US for the first time since 1993 at his show there that year.
     
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  17. johnny moondog 909

    johnny moondog 909 Beatles-Lennon & Classic rock fan Thread Starter

    It seems like there is great video of nearly every McCartney hit & cool album track, with his current band...

    With a few notable exceptions like Uncle Albert. There's a couple he only did with the previous band with R Macintosh & those guys .

    But yeah I remember now seeing a clip on YouTube within the last couple years. I thought it was kind of a lame song when it came out. But I love it now, kind of reminds me of a 90s version of I don't know Besame Mucho or Till There Was You or And I Love Her, that bossa nova feel. Beatle boots & flamenco guitars !!!!
     
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  18. intv7

    intv7 Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston, MA, USA
    I really disliked "Hope of Deliverance" when it came out. I didn't buy Off The Ground at the time because of the single -- and I had been totally on board with McCartney through All The Best/Flowers In The Dirt/Tripping The Live Fantastic. I was 19 or so, and the song sounded like adult contemporary cheese. I've learned to enjoy it for what it is over time, but if every copy of the song disappeared from existence tomorrow, I honestly wouldn't miss it one bit.

    Another point I wanted to make is that it seemed as if Paul was absent from the public eye in the states for much of the late '80s. After Press To Play left no lasting impression, the next release was a hits collection -- which in the US did NOT, for reasons I'm still trying to figure out, include the new UK single ("Once Upon A Long Ago"). Again, the tune is probably a bit too adult contemporary for the market, but its non-appearance here meant that it felt like Paul was fading away from the public's view.

    As I mentioned upthread, it kind of felt like the burst of interest with Flowers In The Dirt had more to do with the novelty of him touring for the first time in forever, than anything else. The singles from that album aren't really remembered by the general public today, only by fans. You don't hear "My Brave Face" on classic rock radio. There was a couple of years break between the live album and the next studio release, and it seemed like in 1993, the trajectory of public disinterest just continued as it had been going before the minor interruption that was the '89-'90 tour.
     
  19. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    I understand he does sing on it. Those high pitch interjections. And his involvement was pretty high profile in the US as the trio performed it at the Grammys when it was brand new.
     
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  20. skyjelly

    skyjelly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lisbon, Maine
    He co-wrote and performed on it, so I count it. I bet Paul counts it, too! :) In fact, I bet half the reason he worked with Kanye and Rihanna was to practically guarantee himself a hit in the 2010's and raise his profile in the youth market. I'm not being critical of him, if that's the case. Why wouldn't he want to be relevant in today's music scene, and not simply ride off into the sunset as a 'nostalgia act" or a "living legend"?
     
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  21. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    A fookin' knight of the realm he is...
     
  22. jwb1231970

    jwb1231970 Ordinary Guy

    Location:
    USA
    You are spot on, I have always thought the same things about Paul in that time period.
    For me the Paul McCartney we all know and love e ended in 1987 with All The Best. What happened a couple of years later is Paul mark ll.
     
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  23. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    There WAS change in how the 'charts' in the US worked, after 1990....
    I don't know all the details, but, something about SoundScan being a more accurate teller of what gets bought, and what gets played, without the 'bribing' of the big labels, and certain 'crime-factions'....
    so..... there's that!
     
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  24. jgkojak

    jgkojak Mull of Kansas

    Location:
    Lawrence, KS
    There is also what I call his "baseline" - where does Paul chart with a basic/reasonable effort.
    I'm not sure it does count - I believe Joel Whitburn revised his formula recently for how he counts "hits" attributed to certain artists due to the rap/hip hop process of mentioning everyone who does anything on a record in the credits - so "Get Back" does not count as a Billy Preston hit despite his mention... same for "Four Five Seconds" re Paul.
     
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  25. jgkojak

    jgkojak Mull of Kansas

    Location:
    Lawrence, KS
    Billboard basically lost the plot for much of the 90s - SoundScan made it possible for artists to manipulate the singles chart by delaying release of a physical single until the song's peak - meaning a lot of songs debuted high or at #1 - some artists chose not to release singles, so some popular songs never charted. As a long-time chart follower, I gave up by the mid-90s and generally consider the pre soundscan era of the Hot 100 (1958-1992) to be a seperate entity from the post-soundscan and certainly the digital download era. Like comparing a chart from 1937 to a chart in 1975. The way people listened to and purchased music was so different its difficult to compare.

    Ironically, I think the last couple of years now that digital downloads/youtube and streaming plays have been tinkered into the formula, the charts are back to being a truer reflection of what is out going on. I think if Paul released Dance Tonight this year, it probably would be a Top 20 hit.
     
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