Dammit Zammit: The Weekly Publisher's Warble, August 22

22 August 2011

by Adam Zammit

What do Katy Perry and Gotye have in common? Not much really, though I haven’t seen Gotye’s arse in hot pants yet. Actually, it was a good news week for both artists when it came to big firsts in number one action.

Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream matched Michael Jackson’s Bad record in achieving five #1 singles off the one album - an incredible achievement given that her effort is only the second time EVER this has ever happened. The fact that it took 24 years between Jackson’s and Perry’s records show how bloody hard it is to write half an album’s worth of hits at any time, regardless of changing trends in radio airplay and mar- ket conditions. In stark contrast are the overall sales figures of the two records. Bad sold in excess of 30 million copies where as Perry has only just managed to just creep over five million, despite an equal level of saturation airplay.

Interestingly, Bad and Teenage Dream rank also equally on the Paedophiles’ register of records to exercise to, with the singles, Teenage Dream, The Way You Make Me Feel, Bad and I Just CAN’T Stop Loving You in high rotation (I’m joking Miranda Devine!!) So, in the same week that Katy Perry was facing down the Man in the Mirror in the US charts, Gotye’s first single off his new record Making Mirrors crept into the number one spot in Australia... “ooooohhhhh, amazing coincidence,” I don’t hear you say.

Wally De Backer’s first #1 is a remarkable achievement for an artist who has been releasing music since 2001 from his two projects (Gotye and pop-rock band The Basics), and yet has failed to produce any Top 40 singles at all. This is despite massive Triple J, alt radio and street press support, and an ARIA award under his belt. Last month’s number 11 placing on the Triple J Hottest 100 Australian Albums of Time for his last record Like Drawing Blood further emphasised the sweet and solid place Gotye holds in the hearts of Australian music lovers.

So if the meat-and-potatoes recipe of how to break a band didn’t push one single of Gotye’s into the chart for ten years, what did it this time?

Some say it's the alluring nudity of Kimbra’s torso, others kick the Twitter can into the argument and say that Ashton Kutcher’s tweeting love for the track (along with Lily Allen) was the key to its success; others simply put it down to commercial radio airplay, but with Fox only adding the song last week and 2Day and B105 only this week, that isn’t the whole story.

Either way, it is the first number one single for an Australian artist in eight months (Guy Sebastian’s Who’s That Girl) and given the two, let’s just say it was 2006 when an independent release from an Australian artist last hit the top spot (Youth Group’s Forever Young).

So no doubt a big fat crackin’ number ONE must please him enormously and irritate the shit out of every other artist manager fed up with the rolling success of Danny Rogers following Temper Trap’s explosion, and co-manager John Watson’s ongoing (and annoying) knack for success.

So smiles all round at camp Gotye. And for a guy who was born Wouter De Backer, this is an incredible, against the odds success story for any new parents out there thinking up ridiculous names for their unborn. Well done Wally!

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