www.musicweek.com

22.06.12 MusicWeek 17

SANDÉ’S TIME ‘INCREDIBLE’ TRANSFORMATION

EVEN WITHOUT A US hit single yet Emeli Sandé is already impressing America’s songwriting royalty with Diane Warren having personally asked to write with her. Stargate co-manager Tim

Blacksmith, whose Stellar Songs co-venture with EMI Music Publishing publishes Sandé, reveals Warren phoned him after hearing the Our Version Of Events cut Clown. “It’s amazing. I want to work

with her,” Blacksmith was told by Warren who rarely collaborates with anyone, preferring to write on her own. “They did a song together and it

turned out fantastic,” says Blacksmith who reckons the transformation Sandé is undertaking has been “incredible”.

chart debut last week, entering the Billboard 200 at 28, while another UK singer-songwriter, Ed Sheeran, was expected to make an even bigger impact on the chart being announced this week with a Top 10 entry and around 40,000 first-week sales anticipated for + as Music Week went to press. “He’s writing some amazing

“We always knew that side was

there but the artistry that she has now and the command she now has on the stage is so heartening. It makes you feel vindicated in supporting young songwriters from an early stage,” says Blacksmith whose Stellar Songs with EMI Publishing also publishes Labrinth. Sandé’s album made its US

Heart and their response was it would never work in America. That was not long ago. If you look at 90% of the US chart, it’s dance-based,” he says. Break Your Heart, which made a then record

52-place climb to the top of the Hot 100 in March 2010, became Smith’s US calling card and he has built on that with Set Fire To The Rain. “Part of it is being able to have the

ear of US executives and US artists and keep pushing the bar higher,” he says. Blacksmith remembers Smith as

one of the guys he would see when he and Stargate were still in Europe and had not yet set off on their American journey. Now the Break Your Heart co-writer and many others he and Stargate hung out with back then are helping to shape the world’s leading music territory. “I’m really happy to see Wayne Hector, Wayne

Wilkins, Steve Mac, Fraser T. These are all people I remember in the early days in English record

stuff as well,” says Blacksmith of the Sony/ATV writer whose Warner album was topping the iTunes US chart at the beginning of last week. “He’s really encapsulated that whole singer songwriter tradition that’s always been in England from Cat Stevens to Joan Armatrading and Kate Bush. It’s really great to see that resurgence again.”

production and songwriting and they’re still living that dream, they’re still working on songs,” he says. “Even Max Martin, the first time I met him in 1995 with Herbie Crichlow and they were doing some great stuff then and I remember RedOne (Lady Gaga, Pitbull etc) when he was in Sweden doing quite a few acts there. “The wealth of talent there is in

Europe has always been there. It just hasn’t really come to the forefront like it has now. They’re co-writing with some incredible people and

they’re having massive hits.” Not so long ago Blacksmith recalls,

Stargate were “poo pooed” by US label

executives as just being a couple of chancers from Norway, hardly a territory then known for producing international hits. Now they and others are not only succeeding in but ruling a US music scene, which has become more geographically cosmopolitan than ever before.

UK ACTS IN HOT 100

HOT 100’S BRITISH HITS W/E 23.06.12 POS ARTIST/ TITLE / LABEL 5

ONE DIRECTION What Makes You Beautiful Columbia

11 THE WANTED Glad You Came Mercury 13 ELLIE GOULDING Lights Cherrytree/Interscope 23 CALVIN HARRIS Feel So Close Ultra 33 ADELE Rumour Has It XL/Columbia 43 ADELE Set Fire To The Rain XL/Columbia 54 ONE DIRECTION One Thing Columbia 58 CALVIN HARRIS FEAT. NE-YO Let’s Go Ultra 75 ALEX CLARE Too Close Universal Republic 85 RITA ORA How We Do (Party) Roc Nation/Columbia 91 THE WANTED Chasing The Sun Mercury

Source: Billboard

EUROPE’S SONGWRITING INVASION of the US is being partly driven by a resurgent performance by British artists on Billboard’s main Hot 100 chart. In recent years UK acts have largely been pushed

LEFT

Dance influence: RedOne came to wider attention for his work with Lady Gaga

out of the countdown with at best just a handful of tracks by British artists registering at any one time. However, this year UK talent has been occupying around 10% of the chart every week with the tally last week standing at 11 of the Hot 100. Equally encouraging is that most of the British acts

present made their first-ever appearance on the Hot 100 in the past 12 months with only Adele falling outside of that, having first entered the chart in 2008 with Chasing Pavements. The new UK inflow includes two entries on the

current Hot 100 apiece from Calvin Harris (Feel So Close and Let’s Go), One Direction (What Makes You Beautiful and One Thing) and The Wanted (Glad You Came and Chasing The Sun), while enjoying their first-ever hits on the chart are Alex Clare, Ellie Goulding and Rita Ora whose How We Do (Party) progressed 90-85 last week ahead of a planned UK release in August.

benefits of collaborating from very early on and writing for other people. The great thing about publishing and songwriting is you learn as you go along and you keep getting better. We love the hits in the UK and Calvin did some collaborations with Kylie and other people early on. Now he is writing international worldwide smashes,” says Moot who suggests UK writers and producers have come a long way in perfecting their trade and art form. “It’s truly collaborative and you’ll find we’re

Swede dreams: Carl Falk, Savan Kotecha and Rami Yacoub who contributed to One Direction’s debut album

daytime US radio, which Syco’s Takhar suggests had a lot to do with Moroccan-born Swede RedOne’s work with his Sony/ATV colleague Lady Gaga. “His collaborations with Lady Gaga are

very much the sound of European dance music coupled with soaring pop melodies. It required an artist like her to embed it into mainstream radio to give radio programmers confidence in dance music,” he notes. “The wave of electronic music coming into

America is predominantly UK and European based,” adds EMI Music Publishing UK president Guy Moot. “There still aren’t that many people making straight-ahead electronic music in the US.” Besides Stargate, Moot’s roster also

includes Calvin Harris whose We Found Love for Rihanna spent 10 weeks heading the Hot 100 chart at the end of 2011 and beginning of this year. “Calvin Harris always understood the

in quite an international form of songwriting. It’s people working and learning with people from other countries. It could be Swedes, could be Europeans or people going with an American topliner,” he says. Falk, whose collaborators with colleague

Yacoub on the Nicki Minaj hit Starships included Warner/Chappell-signed Brit Wayne Hector, notes: “We work with people who have something we don’t. That’s really important for a collaboration. Wayne brought something extra to the whole song.” Stargate co-manager Tim Blacksmith says technology has opened collaborating wide

Stargate

out now. “I could get an idea from some guys in Holland and then it could be toplined by somebody in Sweden and [we think] the verses are maybe great, but we don’t like the chorus and then someone from America may come in and do the chorus and we love the chorus. Then we may decide we need an additional rap so maybe someone from England will do the rap or maybe someone from Canada or America. It’s extremely global. The way people make records now has completely changed,” he says.