Treat or trick?... what 45,250 mothers
will receive this Sunday
Music companies owe their success to the dark art of marketing - pitching their wares at the right group of people at the right time of year. Greatest hits albums come out at Christmas because they make no-goof presents, novelty singles in July because we buy them after hearing them on holiday, and croony MOR stuff in March, because that's when Mum's the word.
Mother's Day is one of the major release targets of the year - labels know they can put out an album by any old chisel-jawed balladeer in the fortnight before the day, and it'll find its way to Mum, a gift from her misguided progeny.
This week's album chart backs me up: the top 10 has entries from the tenors Vittorio Grigolo, Andrea Bocelli and Russell Watson, all of whom give it some operatic welly in a way designed to appeal to Mum and Mum alone.
Moreover, it appears that next week's best-selling album will be the debut by Journey South, a pair of torch-singing brutes discovered on The X-Factor. It has reportedly sold 175,000 copies already, and you can guarantee that almost all of them are destined to be opened over Sunday lunch at the Harvester.
All of which poses some questions. Why do people presume that their female parent will be overjoyed to receive a CD that they themselves would have to be paid to listen to? And why does the music business think that motherhood equals a taste for easy listening?
SonyBMG - to shame one culprit - is currently promoting a compilation called Magical Memories for Mum, which includes Johnny Mathis, Cliff Richard and Perry Como. Great, as long as those memories extend back to 1957. What about the 30-year-old mother who listens to Xfm and goes to gigs? Or the 50-year-old who may be no spring chicken, but hasn't yet reached the state of decrepitude where "recorded entertainment" is spelled C-L-I-F-F? For that matter, what about Madonna? Will the oak-thighed icon be unwrapping a Journey South CD ("With love from Lourdes and Rocco") this Sunday?
This is one of the only situations where you genuinely can't blame the parents. They're the ones on the receiving end. It's their well-meaning issue who - viewing Ma as conservative and dull - bought 45,250 copies of Russell Watson's Ultimate Collection, sending it to number two this week. Blame the kids. And next year, mums, demand the Godspeed! You Black Emperor album.
