There was a weird period there where America was actually forced to steal its pop culture ideas from the rest of the world, what with Millionaire and Big Brother and Survivor and all. Now that we’ve closed the reality show gap, however, we can go back to imposing our entertainment on the rest of the world. To wit: a Russian version of High School Musical. MORE »
Posts Tagged ‘high school musical’
Importing Terror: Now There Is A Russian “HSM”
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Idolator Chats With Matthew Gerrard And Robbie Nevil About Getting In The “High School Musical” Game
Writing teen-oriented pop is a fairly specialized talent. Writing for a musical is an even more rarified art. Combining the two—and introducing the musical-theater art form to an entire generation that previously had little use for the stuff—is some kind of pop triple-lutz, a strange sort of accomplishment.
Two songwriters behind Disney’s High School Musical series, Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil, acknowledge the strangeness, or at least uncanniness, of their feat. I recorded a conversation with them a few weeks ago, about a month after the third chapter in the series—its cinematic debut, after two high-rated made-for-TV movies—debuted atop the box office list with the highest-ever debut gross for a musical. The two writer-performers sounded both gratified and mildly dumbfounded by their good fortune, even as it represents to them the culmination of a couple of decades of happy toil in the pop-music trenches. MORE »
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From Britney To Disney (And Beyond): Idolator Plunges Into The World Of Teenpop
Ten years ago this month–Nov. 3, 1998, to be exact–Jive Records released Britney Spears’ debut single “Baby One More Time” (b/w “Autumn Goodbye”) in CD and 12-inch vinyl configurations. Metal Mike Saunders–the most entertaining teen-pop critic of this decade if not human history, not to mention a Certified Public Accountant, not to mention the former singer of L.A.’s greatest early ‘80s punk band the Angry Samoans–had already purchased his copy of the song on promo cassingle two months earlier.
The album came out in January 1999, and by March (as is clear in this 5,000-word Village Voice diary, edited by yours truly), Metal Mike was predicting a multiplatinum long-haul career consisting of 20% music, 50% TV, “and—God help us all—30% s-e-x.” (“The game is over. Set, point, and match… the CD’ll go 3-4 million easy.”) And though nobody could then have anticipated what Britney would turn into (basically, a one-woman circus, as the title of her sixth album, due a week from today, makes explicit), Mike’s predictive math wasn’t all that far off; honestly, Nate Silver would be proud. When MTV aired its final edition of TRL earlier this month, “Baby One More Time” was named the show’s most influential video ever. (Of especially weird note are Saunders’ observations about Britney’s hardcore Protestant upbringing, “I’m better than you are and you’re boring me” facial smirks, and successful Saturday Night Live debut, all of which eerily anticipate Sarah Palin.) MORE »
High School Musical 3, the movie, pulled in $42… MORE »
the last word
“High School Musical” Reaches That Awkward Age
Our look at the closing lines of the biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to Disney’s soundtrack for the heartthrob-studded High School Musical 3, which lands in stores today: MORE »
100 and single
Do iTunes Sales Show “High School Musical” Fans Breaking Free Of The Franchise?
In the doldrums of January 2006, several weeks after the annual flurry of post-Christmas music-buying, the iTunes Store was livened up by the sudden appearance on its best-sellers list of a bunch of new hit songs.
It’s not unheard of for the industry to drop new songs in the dead of winter by non-blockbuster, developing acts—but these songs were credited to a bunch of kids who’d never had a hit, or even a shred of major-label promotion.
Within a month, eight songs by this gang of toothsome newcomers with names like “Ashley Tisdale” and “Zac Efron” were on the Hot 100, the largest number of simultaneous charting songs from a single album ever. And that album, the soundtrack to the Disney Channel made-for-TV flick High School Musical, went on to become 2006’s top-selling disc.
The feat was almost precisely duplicated 18 months later, when the flick’s much-hyped sequel premiered. The High School Musical 2 soundtrack spawned seven simultaneous Hot 100 hits and was 2007’s best-selling album until a Josh Groban Christmas CD topped it in the last weeks of December.
In both cases, iTunes sales of single tracks served as early indicators: of the soundtrack albums’ blockbuster futures, and the movies’ repeatability and Zeitgeist-defining success. With High School Musical 3 nine days away from its premiere—in movie theaters this time—and the soundtrack album less than a week out, what are the early iTunes indicators telling us?
Call me an old sourpuss, but they’re telling me that, as a musical force at least, this franchise might be spent. MORE »
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High School Musical 3: Will It Allow Disney To Get Back In The Music Game?
In two weeks, the soundtrack to Disney’s High School Musical 3 will land in stores, the final album in the trilogy of records that helped make adults who didn’t have children realize that the Mouse was still a force to be reckoned with in terms of delivering squeaky-clean pop music to the next generation. But will 3 give a boost to the album chart similar to those bestowed upon it by its two predecessors, which sold four million and 3.3 million copies, respectively? MORE »
“High School Musical 3″: A Friendly Warning Of Its Impending Arrival
When I heard that one of the songs on the soundtrack for High School Musical 3, which is bypassing the Disney Channel for a theatrical release this fall, was going to be called “I Want It All,” I was hoping it would be an updated version of the song by the electro-twee act Bis, with maybe a… MORE »
upcoming releases
High School Musical 3 is bypassing the Disney Channel and going to theaters this October. The film’s plot is centered around “Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) facing the prospect of being separated from one another as they head off in different directions to college,” and… MORE »
upcoming releases
High School Musical 3 is bypassing the Disney Channel and going to theaters this October. The film’s plot is centered around “Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) facing the prospect of being separated from one another as they head off in different directions to college,” and… MORE »
