Italian former boy band tops US classical sales
mainEven in these Trumpian times it comes as a shock to see where US music is heading.
The top-selling classical album last week on Nielsen Soundscan – the most accurate industry measure – sold just over 4,000 copies, which is more than any other new release all year.
That’s the good news.
The release is a tribute album to the Three Tenors.
The singers are Il Volo, an Italian pop trio – Gianluca Ginoble, Piero Barone and Ignazio Boschetto – which competes at San Remo and the Eurovision Song Contest.
They are as classical as Trump.
But Sony have persuaded Placido Domingo to conduct them, so that makes them classical, right?
And Domingo clearly has no idea what damage he’s doing to the exhilarating memory of the original Three Tenors.
Here’s a clip:
This is their usual stuff.
But Sony have persuaded Placido Domingo to conduct them, so that makes them classical, right?
Not really, if one takes into consideration Domingo’s [redacted] conducting.
Well, Domingo is doing immesurable harm to opera by insisting in prolonging his career by singing baritone parts with his withering tenor voice. It is wrong on musical grounds and it sounds horrible, all with due respect and admiration for the career that once was, but certainly is no more. But I guess the man still sells, which is even worse.
Would you please clarify the sales stats? Did this album sell 4000 units in its first week alone? And is that more than any new classical release has sold in its respective first week, or are you comparing to cumulative YTD sales for new classical releases?
Come on, don’t you think it’s going a bit overboard to compare three guys singing crossover classico-pop to a goddamn fascist wannabe dictator sexual predator?!
And thanks to this album a number of young people will fall in love with opera, become opera singers (win Operalia and other opera competitions), attend opera and make sure that the future of opera is secure – this is a bad thing? Some people are showing their age unlike Domingo who manages to relate to young and old.
May you clarify the source of the data about the sales? (link)
Thank you!
Mari
Btw I think this Album is amazing.
The original Three Tenors repertoire was not “classical” at all, in fact they were blamed for singing songs from musicals as well as american pop standards and neapolitan songs. They were the first to start the pop opera genre. Il Volo sits beautifully in this description: pop opera artists. Keep your bitter remarks for those who can’t sing….
I prefer the ‘usual stuff’ clip. (And I would prefer it if Bocelli sang all pop songs — has the right voice for that but seems to think he has to be an ‘opera singer’ – when his real magic is in popular songs, esp duets.) Say, let’s enjoy stuff, OK?
Il Volo is the best thing that has ever happened to “pop”opera. It had brought this beautiful music to young people all over the world!