Charice....A Case Study for Alizee.

[Jake04]

We've had several discussions here about how to best promote Alizee here in America. Perhaps, we could use this girl's rise to the US - mainly through Youtube videos uploaded by her fans - as a case study.

An excerpt from Wikepedia:

"Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco (born May 10, 1992), better known as Charice, is a Filipina singer and actress who rose to popularity through YouTube. Dubbed by Oprah Winfrey as the Most Talented Girl in the World, she is the first Asian artist in history to land in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart. She is also now part of the hit TV series Glee where she plays an exchange student named Sunshine Corazon.

In 2005, Pempengco joined Little Big Star, a talent show in the Philippines loosely patterned after American Idol. Eliminated after her first performance, she was later called back as a wildcard contender and eventually became a finalist. Although she was a consistent top scorer in the final rounds, she only finished in third place based on text voting.

Pempengco made minor appearances on local television shows and commercials, but essentially had fallen off the radar after her stint at Little Big Star. It was not until 2007 that she gained worldwide recognition after an avid supporter started posting a series of her performance videos on YouTube under the username FalseVoice. These videos received millions of hits making Pempengco an internet phenomenon."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charice_Pempengco

She is by no means sexy nor beautiful. She looks average at best. However, blessed with a great voice, a little luck and with her fans' persistence, they managed to get her noticed by the American public, particularly Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey. Her fans, (My friend included - who tried to convert me to Charice, while I tried to convert her to Alizee ), worked tirelessly promoting her by uploading videos after videos of her on Youtube.
They raced among each other who could upload her latest video the earliest. They even tried to outdo one another by uploading videos of her with better audio and video qualities. Now, just like the fans of Alizee in Mexico, their efforts paid off.

My friend told me that they were extremely happy and satisfied with their efforts. And while I'm happy for them as well, I also envied them. Because, now, not only can they can listen to their beloved artist, they can also watch her perform on TV.

I know we have some smarty pants here who would say that America is complicated, that we're not receptive to foreign singers, that Alizee does not care, blah, blah, blah! Well, let's not forget Shakira (Columbia), Selena (Mexico - RIP), Bob Marley (Jamaica -RIP) and countless others from Europe who were embraced by us. I'm sure it's safe to say that America would be receptive to anybody with TALENTS! And we know that our Alizee has talents!

I guess the lessons here are:

- Have faith in what you do. (Charice at first didn't work with her fans because she herself had no idea that it would work)
- Be enthusiastic (It only took one fan at the beginning to start all of this)
- Be optimistic (Her fans could have easily given up on her when she fell off the radar)
- Be persistent (Forget about the smarty pants!)

Most important of all:

- Be patient (It took them years to accomplish this)

We don't have to promote Alizee as a young Lolita or through her JEAM era songs (although it wouldn't hurt ) I think it'll be better if we promote her using her new songs in English so Americans would be more receptive to her. Let them discover themselves the "old" Alizee. Like I said, Charice is neither "hot" nor "cute." She made it because of her singing abilities.

At the end, whether we can duplicate their success or not, for me, it's worth the effort. I guess it's just my way of THANKING HER for all the happiness that she gave us through her music.

Other singers discovered through Youtube:

Arnel Pineda, also from the Philippines whose voice is very similar to Steve Perry, is now the lead singer of the band Journey. He was an established singer in Asia and had his own band before he joined Journey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnel_Pineda

And, perhaps the most famous of them all (at least for now) - Justin Bieber who was also discovered through Youtube.

Keep in mind. There are a lot of people trolling the internet whose main job is to "discover" artist from around the world.

[lefty12357]

Jake, you make a lot of good points. I’d like to add the following. A lot of people through luck, being in the right place at the right time, or other means, have gotten their 15 minutes of fame in front of the world. Some of these people simply were different or had an appeal that captured the imagination of the public, at least for that 15 minutes. The ones that keep going usually have talent and skills to carry them through. They may also have some good marketing working on their behalf.

Charice is an incredible vocal talent. But she put in a lot of hours of practice and training, as well as many hours competing in singing contests. In Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he discusses some very interesting ideas about how people become so successful. He has something he calls the 10,000 hour rule which basically states that a person needs to put in around 10,000 hours of practice and/or experience at something in order to become an expert at it. Charice was probably well on her way to achieving that 10,000 hours by the time she was 15. I think this is the main lesson to learn from the Charice Case Study. Like you said, “be patient (It took them years to accomplish this)”. Yes, it did take years. Years filled with practice, experience and hard work.

Now consider Alizée. She got her 15 minutes of fame which hooked her up with MF/LB at the age of 15. She may have had a lot of hours under her belt as a dancer, but she was just getting into singing. She was fortunate that her first single was a huge hit and she was able to continue her career for 3 or 4 more years. Mylene had her practice everyday to prepare for her concert tour in 2003-2004. But after a career of 10 years, how many hours has Alizée actually sung or worked on singing? Almost all her TV performances were lip-synced because that’s the way it’s done in her country. Then there was her long break. I just think Alizée has not put in nearly as many hours perfecting her craft as many of her extremely successful peers have.

I think one of the most important things Mylene did for Alizée was to provide a practice regimen. I’m not sure that Alizée has that now. I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes days or even weeks at a time without a real singing workout. Alizée has the raw talent, but I believe she is still somewhat in the development stage as an artist. I only wish she would intensify her efforts. Having said that, I’ve always liked the sound of her voice and I’ve always liked her music. But I think she can take it to another level if she wants to. And the important point here is that it is up to Alizée, and no one else. It’s obviously her choice.

We can talk about clothing and hair styles, dancing, marketing and promotion, choice of music and arrangements, fan promotion and fan relations. These are all important. But in my opinion, the underlying fact of vocal practice and experience may be the most important over the long term. Of all the musicians and singers I've known over the years, the better ones are almost always the ones who simply play and practice more.

For those who haven’t seen it, here is Charice at the age of 15 on Oprah. Sorry for the poor quality.

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[sumi1]

I think one of the most important things Mylene did for Alizée was to provide a practice regimen. I’m not sure that Alizée has that now. I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes days or even weeks at a time without a real singing workout. Alizée has the raw talent, but I believe she is still somewhat in the development stage as an artist.

But in my opinion, the underlying fact of vocal practice and experience may be the most important over the long term. Of all the musicians and singers I've known over the years, the better ones are almost always the ones who simply play and practice more.

Very true Lefty. Completely agree with you.

[BlackAnthem]

I'll be honest, I stopped reading at OPRAH. We would need someone famous (ex. Oprah, Ellen, etc.) to give her this recognition. So you get Ellen on that and well talk.

[Azhiri]

Originally Posted by Jake04

We don't have to promote Alizee as a young Lolita or through her JEAM era songs (although it wouldn't hurt ) I think it'll be better if we promote her using her new songs in English so Americans would be more receptive to her. Let them discover themselves the "old" Alizee.

This whole post is one huge really good point, but I think emphasis should be put on this right here. AAm's promotional efforts have been amazing and impressive, and you should all be commended for what you've done to spread her music and talent, but so far I've noticed that mostly her MF/LB-era music is used. Now I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth or jump to conclusions, but honestly I think the use of her older music is a bad idea. Yes, it's true that America is generally more likely to do a double-take of Lolita Lili than her current image, but right now Alizee is trying to introduce a different side of herself and if I were her, I'd be frustrated that everyone preferred the manufactured image over the one I (meaning she of course) had created.

It might not be easy to get America's attention with UEdS's dark, artistic thing going on, but I think Alizee would probably appreciate it if we promoted more of that.

[lefty12357]

Originally Posted by Azhiri

This whole post is one huge really good point, but I think emphasis should be put on this right here. AAm's promotional efforts have been amazing and impressive, and you should all be commended for what you've done to spread her music and talent, but so far I've noticed that mostly her MF/LB-era music is used. Now I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth or jump to conclusions, but honestly I think the use of her older music is a bad idea. Yes, it's true that America is generally more likely to do a double-take of Lolita Lili than her current image, but right now Alizee is trying to introduce a different side of herself and if I were her, I'd be frustrated that everyone preferred the manufactured image over the one I (meaning she of course) had created.

It might not be easy to get America's attention with UEdS's dark, artistic thing going on, but I think Alizee would probably appreciate it if we promoted more of that.

I completely agree. I appreciate everyone's efforts at promoting Alizée as well, but win or lose, I would use her newer material. I think it is what she would want.

[Jake04]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

Charice is an incredible vocal talent. But she put in a lot of hours of practice and training, as well as many hours competing in singing contests. In Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he discusses some very interesting ideas about how people become so successful. He has something he calls the 10,000 hour rule which basically states that a person needs to put in around 10,000 hours of practice and/or experience at something in order to become an expert at it. Charice was probably well on her way to achieving that 10,000 hours by the time she was 15. I think this is the main lesson to learn from the Charice Case Study. Like you said, “be patient (It took them years to accomplish this)”. Yes, it did take years. Years filled with practice, experience and hard work.

I think Alizee has already met that. Let's just say she put in an average of 3 hours a day practicing (Which I think is a very conservative number though given her time off of three years, is just about right) multiply that by her number of years singing, let's just say 10 years for ease of computation; that would be 3 hrs. x 3650 days (days in 10 years) = 10,950 hours!

A quick search on Youtube reveals that Charice has now more videos than Alizee (I know, I know. Not all of those videos were actually of Charice. But, the same thing applies to Alizee). Even by refining your search to their full names shows the same result. That kind of give you an idea of how hard her dedicated fans have worked throughout these years.

On the side note: I just heard the birthday song that you made for Alizee last year. You have a great voice yourself! I thought you managed to invite "Eric Clapton" to sing that for you!

Originally Posted by BlackAnthem

I'll be honest, I stopped reading at OPRAH. We would need someone famous (ex. Oprah, Ellen, etc.) to give her this recognition. So you get Ellen on that and well talk.

You're exactly the type of people I'm talking about who neither have the optimism, passion, faith and the drive to make things happen. Just keep watching on the sideline.

Originally Posted by Azhiri

This whole post is one huge really good point, but I think emphasis should be put on this right here. AAm's promotional efforts have been amazing and impressive, and you should all be commended for what you've done to spread her music and talent, but so far I've noticed that mostly her MF/LB-era music is used. Now I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth or jump to conclusions, but honestly I think the use of her older music is a bad idea. Yes, it's true that America is generally more likely to do a double-take of Lolita Lili than her current image, but right now Alizee is trying to introduce a different side of herself and if I were her, I'd be frustrated that everyone preferred the manufactured image over the one I (meaning she of course) had created.

It might not be easy to get America's attention with UEdS's dark, artistic thing going on, but I think Alizee would probably appreciate it if we promoted more of that.

Agree. I think her cover of La Isla Bonita would be the best since it's popular as well it was sung in English. Charice just did a lot of covers herself prior to her discovery. Mostly Whitney Houston songs.

[lefty12357]

Jake, I think your points are well taken, however I respectfully disagree with your math on the one point. Alizée even said that she did 2 hours a day (under Mylene) of exercise, dancing and singing in preparation for her En Concert tour. I think 3 hours a day, every day for 10 years is overestimated by quite a bit. When Psych came out, she seemed unprepared to sing live. I think she prepared better for the UEdS release party. It will be interesting to see what she'll do next. I think everyone is waiting, and hoping.

And thank you for your comments on the birthday song. But I'd also like to point out that a number of members here contributed their voices to the chorus. I think they showed a lot of courage and dedication. Their participation really made it special.

[MYGOGT]

Good posts here. As much as I would love to see her perform here in the US I often wonder if she herself does not want to be noticed here. I mean she could visit here without being hassled by fans and media.
That said I will still promote her and AAm. The cd's I give out have songs from each album along with two English versions.

[MarkL]

No I think its more of the fact that not many people would go see her in concert. Making the trip, transporting all the gear and everything setting up the concert, she would definitly lose money because I can't see large amounts of people going. Yes of course there would be some, but not enough to break even.

She needs to get into one of these like free events where she can help to raise her popularity in the US and then from there she can consider coming here to preform.

I think its just because the market isnt open to her at this point is why she does not come here or preform here