Friday, May 18, 2007

Elliott Yamin: The Return to AI

What did I say last year, something like "Mark my words, Elliott will be big". A look at my archives for April 2006 shows that I had blogged about Elliott Yamin 3 times in a row. So no, I didn't like the guy. I loved him!

To make a long story shot, Elliott finished at #3, and I along with a lot of Yaminions from all over grieved for some time (yeah we were bat-shit crazy, as noted by fellow Yaminion Progressive), and then agonized about Elliott not getting a record deal etcetera etcetera.

A year later and voila! Elliott got the best deal possible out of all the AI contestants from his season - he went independent and struck a unique partnership deal with publisher Sony/ATV, which allows him to share copyright ownership of his material. Under this deal, they share 50-50 profit - not bad for an industry that is notorious for giving artists only 6-10%. Elliott's album was released in March 20 under a virtual label, Hickory Records. The Croshal Group was in charge of advertising and promotions.

Elliott Yamin (the album title) debuted in Billboard at #3. It has made, to date, the highest new artist debut on an independent label in Soundscan history. I could bombard you with a lot more figures and statistics, but I won't. Just trust me when I say that he's selling a whole lot more than anyone would have thought during his AI days.

Elliott performed his first official single, Wait For You on American Idol last night. And he made us all proud. See, what did I tell you?

No comments: