Andrea Bocelli gets locked down by major
NewsThe Italian tenor has signed a deal with Universal Music that should lock him into UMG the rest of his life and perhaps some way beyond.
Bocelli has sold 90 million albums and five billion streams.
Universal’s chairman Sir Lucian Grainge, said: ‘For over two decades, I have had the privilege to work closely with Andrea. To expand and extend our long-term partnership with Andrea—an artist in the truest sense who is nothing less than a cultural icon—is a thrilling moment for me and for our teams around the world. We look forward to putting the global organization to work on Andrea’s behalf, ensuring his new-music and brilliant catalogue are enjoyed by his millions of fans and discovered by millions more.’
Bocelli said: ‘It is an exciting novelty, but also the confirmation of our solid and well-established collaborative relationship over the years. Fully joining the artist stable of the largest record company in the world is the culmination of a dream, but it is also a bit like returning home, because in UMG I have always found that family dimension that is ideal, even in the artistic field, to give the best of oneself… This agreement represents a great honour for me, for Veronica, and perhaps even a little for all of Italy, which through my songs I will continue to celebrate with the world. With gratitude, I celebrate this new adventure, full of ideas, new projects and of course music.’
…tenor……
Don’t be so petty. While the term may have originated in the classical world, it is widely used to refer to a male vocal range. In that sense, which is applied to many, many popular singers, Bocelli is accurately described.
…sings in the cracks crooner…
He’s found a way to corner the late middle age female market, who then drag their husbands kicking and screaming to his concerts.
just like Tom Jones n Engelbert Humperdinck.
Yes, but far worse! Last time I heard him was on the telly whilst watching one of the last Royal weddings, and past it. Time to retire and enjoy his money – or give some away to worthy causes.
Both more talented (Tom Jones FAR more talented) than the fraudulent Bocelli who still poses as a professional opera singer. The other two have never claimed to be anything other than what they are.
I’ve been to your Met. Frankly, I’d rather go to the Bocelli concert. With the electronic mixing, at least he doesn’t have to sing at the top of his lungs to be heard out in an over-sized, acoustically dead hall.
Over-sized, perhaps. Acoustically dead, not!
Beru sexist and ageist remark
A true indictment of our cultural deformation in this time that this totally untalented and overpromoted hack even has a career, let alone a lucrative one.
What are you talking about? Bocelli is not a classical tenor, and his target audience is not the one you find in a “normal” theater or the die hard classical music lover. He sings pops and evergreens for a broad public. Period.
Who is saying that he is? Are only classical singer entitled to make deals with record companies?
I hate this sort of meanness. Bocelli ha a perfectly pleasant voice, and delivers his popular work agreeably — a fact acknowledged and encouraged by serious classical artists as well as by the masses who attend his concerts and buy his records.
Nobody who doesn’t care for his work has to listen to it.
I have no issues with Bocelli delivering his popular work and being grossly overpaid for it if the market can bear it. However, his feeble attempts at singing opera and pretending to be an operatic tenor and the public perception of him being an opera singer I personally find problematic.
He has regularly been promoted to the “mass public” as an opera singer and even made several full-length opera recordings (now mostly if not entirely out of print) that otherwise feature genuine artists such as Frittoli, Terfel etc. Thereby seeking to promote him as in their league
Yet Opera Now magazine purports he’s a “legendary tenor” in their tenor special magazine used to incentivise purchase of a subscription. One main reason I will never return to that rag!
TODAY Bocelli is a tenor!! 30 and more years ago nobody would even pay attention, except maybe at train stations.
TODAY some one like Bocelli can sell billions of records!!
A testament to XXI century!
30 years ago it was Corelli who paid attention, to the point that he gave Bocelli private lessons after hearing him in a master class. Around the same time, Pavarotti was encouraging him, and duetted with him often enough to really launch his international profile.
I am not a particular fan, but he crosses my ken from time to time and I find his popular songs, including Con Te Partiro, which I like, generally agreeable. I have also heard some hymns, also fine. I tend to part company with him when he heads for the operatic canon, where he overreached the limitations of a perfectly pleasant singing voice.
The nastiness toward him reeks of the same toward Katherine Jenkins. Anyone with an agreeable voice who dares to use it to sing an aria is consigned to eternal damnation. I really wish some of these purists would lighten up. No, Bocelli is no Kaufman, let alone Pavarotti, but it does not seem to me he tramps in that territory much these days (it is years since I read of him doing anything operatic).
But dismissing a singer who clearly gives so many a lot of pleasure seems to me to be piling on. Leave them to their amusements. They are not out shooting MPs — as I write this I am listening to reports on Sir David Amess, and think there is a need for perspective.
Thirty years ago Netrebko would not be a major star and her current husband would not get glowing reviews for singing Calaf at the Met. Bob Dylan was a prophet in 1964. The Times They are a-Changin’.
Bocelli is very talented and knows how to produce a show that will draw thousands to hear him.
I recently played in an orchestra backing him and it is quite a production. He’s bringing classical music to the masses and knows how to “stay in his lane” with a mix of arias and pop tunes as well as a great supporting cast and multi-media backdrops.
Glad that there are verifiable stars like him in our business.