From the Times Newspaper


Leona Lewis has followed in the footsteps of Kim Wilde, Sheena Easton and Petula Clark
Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
The television talent show winner Leona Lewis is poised to become the first British woman to top the US pop chart for more than 20 years.

Not since Kim Wilde, who scored a transatlantic hit with her version of You Keep Me Hangin’ On, has a British woman provided the song that all America is humming.

The rise of Lewis, a former receptionist in Hackney, East London, has changed all that, earning her membership of an exclusive club that Amy Winehouse and Dame Shirley Bassey have yet to join.

Industry sources say that Bleeding Love, Lewis’s first US single, has halted the charge of Madonna and bumped the R&B singer Usher off the top of the Billboard Hot 100, after a surge in download sales. An endorsement by Oprah Winfrey on nationwide television sent Lewis, 22, soaring to the top. The Hot 100 will be unveiled in New York today.

Topping the US charts is no guarantee of longevity, however. Wilde did not trouble the US compilers after her 1987 success and pursued a career in gardening. Her predecessor, Sheena Easton, was briefly reinvented by Prince as a sex symbol after her pomp in the early Eighties, but transferred her talents to stage musicals.

American radio and the MTV network have become hostile to British rock and pop, preferring “nu-metal”, rap and glamorous homegrown R&B stars such as Beyoncé.

Most of Lewis’s new download-buying American fans do not know that she shot to fame as the winner of ITV1’s X Factor in 2006, or even that she is British. Bleeding Love was the biggest-selling British single last year.

Simon Cowell, Lewis’s manager, took her to the US and negotiated a £5 million album contract with the music mogul Clive Davis, who signed Whitney Houston. She was sent to record with top US producers and a slick video designed for MTV was filmed for Bleeding Love.

Lewis soon began appearing in US entertainment “ones to watch” lists. Her breakthrough came this month with television appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Winfrey’s nationwide chatshow.

After earning a standing ovation with her Oprah performance, the host told Lewis: “You’re the real-deal girl. Talk about a star is born.” Download and mobile phone track sales soared.

A strong lineup of British female singers is now hoping to emulate Lewis. There is a buzz over the Welsh singer Duffy, and Adele and Kate Nash are also hoping to make inroads. Winehouse has sold 1.5 million copies of her Back To Black album in the US, but has not topped the singles chart despite her Grammy awards.

She did very well on her Oprah appearnace. Even though the music was playback (which we normally don't always associate with being a "good" thing) the great thing that came out of it is that you could actually hear HER the over the slick studio production that usually buries a singers authentic range on record. She followed through with perfect timing and committment to every note, and her mastery of dynamics is SICK

...that still doesn't mean I think her album isn't typical pop drivel beneath her ability, though ...

But being that Whitney is in the state she's in, Celine decided to do Vegas and have babies, and Mariah is STILL playing around with all these weird ass colors in her voice that basically only translate to being a shade above a whisper when she performs live , it looks like it's time to pass the torch for this genre of singers to a new lass and breathe new life into it...and it looks like Lewis is being poised for the role perfectly.

I can't think of a more boring song to do it. Now, if Duffy topped the Billboard Hot 100, I'd cheer for that.

American music has been sort of hostile to British acts since the hair metal days and especially since grunge. You could literally count the number of successful British acts to hit the US charts on one hand during the 1990's, although a lot of Canadian acts were successful. It wasn't until Coldplay came out in the early part of this decade that British acts have been trickling back onto the charts.

As for the ladies from across the pond, the reason that acts like Leona Lewis and Natasha Bedingfield are huge is because musically their sound is a lot like their American counterparts (Whitney, Mariah, Beyonce, Fergie, Kelly Clarkson, etc.). Amy Winehouse had a really good throwback sound, but her drug issues have probably turned off a lot of potential listeners, and Lily Allen sort of got steamrolled by Amy Winehouse. Kate Nash has this weird confessional sound that tends to ramble all over the place, which makes it hard for her to be played on American radio.

The funny part is, I've been playing You Keep Me Hanging On like crazy for the past few days and hearing that it peaked in 1987 in the US when it already peaked in 1986 in the UK and thought of Leona when she became big in North America, and these Europeans were saying we're late...I guess history does repeat itself.

Of course, payolla didn't work in the lady belows case.

MsLegs said:

Yeah you got to have talent..trust me it does not matter how much money you have you can't get a girl from east london to no 1 in the US charts...just buy money or sleeping around with her boss (sorry prince)!

[Edited 3/27/08 12:13pm]

MsLegs said:

Hey I respect your view but it's wrong sorry, and you have no Case to Open or Close, you just don't get this one..money does not get you pushed around where Leona comes from that's a fact...her voice does the talking in this case!

NOT


[img]


[Edited 3/27/08 12:12pm]

LondonStyle said:

What they really mean is, America turned its back on music that was not controlled by corporate America. Just look at the US charts. Its not about music anymore.

Thats why the US won't move to sales based only charts. The record companies want to control the charts, and the easiest way to do that is to bribe or purchase the the radio or music channels.

I have alot more respect for artists who don't pimp themselves to the US media giants.