Disney youngsters making musical magic
When trying to quantify the heat surrounding the Disney Channel’s hit series “Hannah Montana” try this one on for size: The Walt Disney Records soundtrack to the show, starring Miley Cyrus as a high school student by day, pop star by night, has sold more than 1.9 million units since its release last November. It has also placed eight singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
Now Cyrus, the 14-year-old daughter of ’90s country star Billy Ray Cyrus, is scheduled to release a solo album in June via another Disney label — mainstream pop and rock specialist Hollywood Records.
But in the ultimate testimony to the hotness of the Hannah Montana character, Cyrus will get some help from her platinum-selling alter ego. The album, tentatively titled “Best of Both Worlds,” will feature a mix of Cyrus originals as well as tracks from season two of “Hannah Montana.” And in the piece de resistance, an accompanying tour is being discussed in which Cyrus will open for, that’s right, herself.
It’s strategies like “Best of Both Worlds” that exemplify how Cyrus is the new poster child for collaboration among Disney-owned businesses.
“You can’t dismiss the power and the strength of the synergy opportunities that this company can provide,” Disney Records senior VP/GM Robert Marick says.
Not after last year. The Mouse House enjoyed a banner run in 2006 by aggressively marketing its TV shows, films and related soundtracks to consumers who were tuning into Disney-owned TV Networks, watching Disney-owned movies, listening to Disney-controlled radio outlets and surfing Dinsey-operated Web sites. And its music division was one of the biggest beneficiaries of that strategy.
The Buena Vista Music Group — the umbrella group comprising Walt Disney Records, Hollywood and country label Lyric Street Records — claimed the two best-selling albums of 2006: the “High School Musical” soundtrack from Disney Records, which sold more than 3 million copies, and Rascal Flatts’ “Me and My Gang” from Lyric Street, which moved 2 million-plus units.
Beyond “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana” the company also scored soundtrack hits with “Cheetah Girls 2″ (Disney; more than 1.2 million units), the companion album to the movie about an R&B girl group; “Cars” (Disney; 749,000 units), the soundtrack to the animated Pixar film; and “Grey’s Anatomy, Volume 2″ (Hollywood; 274,000 units), which contains music from the top-rated ABC TV show. In all, Buena Vista-distributed soundtracks sold more than 8 million units last year.
A stress on synergy isn’t new for Buena Vista. The company has successfully worked the strategy since the days when
Hilary Duff starred in “Lizzie McGuire” on the Disney Channel in 2002.
But it’s stronger than ever, Disney executives say.
Disney Records alone almost tripled its current market share in the last year and posted its best market share in more than six years. The label’s current share surged from a 0.96% share in 2005 to 3.18% in 2006 — a mark that one-upped the peak of its Duff heyday in 2003, when it claimed a 2.2% share.
It also placed the label ahead of industry heavyweights Def Jam, Epic Records, RCA Records and J Records in terms of individual share in 2006.
Likewise, Lyric Street’s market share almost doubled, rising from 0.77% in 2005 to a 1.29% share.
The one exception was Hollywood, which dropped from a 1.26% share in 2005 to a 0.98%.
Now comes the hard part: repeating that success in the year ahead. The company wants to take formulas that worked in 2006 and reapply them in 2007. And not just with Cyrus.
A big test comes January 12, when Disney Channel premieres “Jump In!,” a made-for-TV musical about competitive double Dutch that some company insiders are positioning as the urban version of “High School Musical.”
The movie stars Corbin Bleu, a curly-haired 17-year-old singer/actor who had a supporting role in “High School Musical.” His career is being modeled after “High School Musical” breakout star Vanessa Hudgens, who released her own solo album through Hollywood last fall.
If “Jump In!,” whose soundtrack was released January 9 from Disney Records, connects in any way even remotely approximating the success of “High School Musical,” Bleu will be well-positioned to release his own planned solo pop-crossover album via Hollywood later this year.
The company is already banking that that will be the case. Bleu’s debut, “Another Side,” is scheduled to hit stores April 17. So far the bet seems like a good one. “Push It to the Limit,” the Bleu-fronted lead single from “Jump In!,” has sold 59,000 units in two weeks as an iTunes-exclusive prerelease EP and currently tops the retailer’s album chart.
Disney is using strategies similar to the ones employed with “High School Musical” to lay the groundwork for “Jump In!” The company is launching the movie in the same early-January window it used to debut “High School Musical” last year. Music from the movie has been available online at http://www.disneychannel.com weeks ahead of its premiere, the songs are in heavy rotation at Radio Disney, and the soundtrack is coming out just ahead of the movie’s release.
Whether any of these youngsters can connect with the mainstream in the way Duff did when she shed her “Lizzie McGuire” persona remains to be seen. Duff’s 2003 debut, “Metamorphosis,” sold almost 4 million units.
By contrast, Hudgens, the first of the new bunch out of the gates, is a work in progress. Her debut album, “V,” has sold 300,000 units since its release last September.
Hollywood is also building an audience around another Disney Channel-launched act, Aly & AJ. The girl duo has sold more than 700,000 copies of its debut album, “Into the Rush,” since August 2005. A follow-up is slated for later this year.
Reuters/Billboard
