Worst Singles of 2006 - An aside

So the band to feature most prominantly in my list of worst singles so far has been the Kooks. And it's nice to see that after I've pointed out just how cynically manufacted they are, a leaked industry e-mail confirms this. Credit to Ian Mitchell for finding this for me:

----- Original Message -----
From: XXXX@[UK Record Label]
To: XXXX@[UK Record Label]

Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2006 4:12 PM
Subject: The Kooks

We finally got the IFPI [International Federation of the Phonographic Industry] certification through—it's all signed off and there's a bit of green tinted plastic you can show the boys when they next stop by here. Of course over one million European sales is good, very good, but I think we have to understand that these sales are nearly all domestic. The album has been on the UK chart almost 40 weeks now but looking at the data available the album has only got to 107 in France and only to 32 in New Zealand. If we are to make this act a workable long term investment I think we have to make international recognition our first priority, then focus on domestic consiladation then and set up the second album as an international breakthrough. It is my firmly held belief that this band have a strong enough brand appeal to our keynote demographics to put them on the A list of priorities for 2007.

----- Original Message -----
From: XXXX@[UK Record Label]To: XXXX@[UK Record Label]

Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2006 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: The Kooks

That's great. I agree that this lot are really shaping up nicely. I was, I must admit, a little worried before radio got hold of Naive and the album took off. Having a third single peak at 12, with the kind of push we were giving them was disheartening to say the least. Getting them to agree its single release was a nightmare Luke [Pritchard lead singer of The Kooks] was very precious about it but I had to lay down the law with him, I told him that if they didn't have a radio hit they'd be going the way of BRMC [Black Rebel Motorcycle Club US group who parted company with Virgin records in 2004]. That shut him up.His point that the production made it sound like Athlete before they sounded like Coldplay made me laugh. We made it pretty hot in the mastering so it sounded great on the radio. I agree international success is a priority and now with Inside being out there in the US market place, we can build their profile and maybe come second album time get a 'Chasing Cars' out of them. I think we are going to have to miss the indie appeal in the US and go straight for the 'OC.' In the UK the leather jackets and scruffy hair does half the work, I mean the cred of The Libertines and the all around appeal of Busted is an obvious no brainer domestic but in the US both of those bands did shit.One plus point: internationally I reckon no one is going to give a toss about them going to stage school or whether one of them shagged Katie Melua. We had to do a little damage control after that Amstell [Simon Amstell, UK Television Personality] prick took the piss on Popworld. I mean no one gives a fuck if spotty [Weekly UK Music Publication] readers think they don't write their own songs but it's important we keep a bit of serious artist credibility round them. That aspirational indie vibe is pretty important when reeling the 25 - 35's in. I gave him [Pritchard] a bit of a hand with that piece in [Monthly UK Music Publication] about Bob Dylan. Anyway nothing to get too hung up about it's just we don't want people damaging the magic of the group, I mean we have done very well, so far all the press have been pretty much onside. I did have a bit of trouble with [UK Newspaper] but we got a decent enough review from them to put a quote on the TV spots. Thanks for your continued support!

----- Original Message -----
From: XXXX@[UK Record Label]To: XXXX@[UK Record Label]

Sent: Friday, November 24, 2006 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: The Kooks

Someone should get in touch with [Music Industry Figure] at Sony and stop him from letting that pillock from Kasabian calling The Kooks girls music or whatever it was he said. Anyway I saw the TV spot last night, it's now running as part of [UK music retailers]'s Christmas campaign. That black white photography works a treat and those press quotes are all great. I know Ooh La didn't do as well as we hoped but with a decent push I think we'll get a third or even fourth wind out of this one! I had another listen to the album on the way home yesterday there's some catchy songs on there aren't there? That Jackie Big Tits song is a laugh, we wouldn't have been able to get away with something like that 10 years ago with all that PC nonsense. I don't think we need to be quite so defensive on the PR front, the only people likely to give them a bad review are people like [Major Webzine] and the kind of geeks who read that crap don't even buy records anyway.Good luck keep up the good work.


It's almost as if record labels lie to us to get our hard earned money... But then that couldn't be true, could it