Good God. Just watched that clip of Lay Me Down from Manchester. Not to gush too much but his control is just becoming phenomenal, *really* phenomenal. Not only is he hitting each note bang on with precision he's really telling the story of the song through little tonal shifts, touches of legato, subtle push and pulls on the timing, going from velvet smooth to introducing a bit of tonal grit etc. His falsetto's gotten really strong too. And he's managing to do all of that without ever overdoing it either and going into some showboating Jessie J style vocal run even though he's more than capable. I always felt he was one of the most instinctively musical singers they've ever had on the XF yet he continues to improve in all aspects and... it blows my mind a little bit.

The band is clearly a great addition too. There's an energy that they bring and his performance skills and ease on stage keep getting better too. It no longer feels like his confidence is lagging behind his vocal prowess now.

Lovely interview with Sam too. (Aside: she's looking good!). It did make me laugh that he was checking out his own guns at the start of that video though...

So, you liked it then?

I thought it was a little bit of fabulous too. He could do that on any stage, anywhere, any time and smash it with that performance.

Ha. I thought it was ok

Seriously though, people bang on about Sam Smith being an amazing vocalist and yeah, he's got an amazing range, but in terms of everything else Nicky is giving him a hell of a run for his money and may well surpass him IMO

Y'see, that's the thing. Sam Smith's falsetto grates on me. This is the reason why I can't stand Money On My Mind - the vocals in the chorus just irritate me.

Whereas Nicky's falsetto is so much more smooth to listen to. That's why I still regard Nicky's version of A Thousand Years the best version I've ever heard. When I hear the Christina Perri version now, her vocals sound so laid-back it's as if she was too tired to record her vocals in the studio but did it anyways!!!

Wow, thanks for the replies Colette. Wasn't expecting these. lol

That's interesting to know. I reckon all of these singers who have been on The Voice/BGT in the last 18 months probably watched Nicky during his time on X Factor and been really impressed and inspired by Nicky. He just seems to be that type of person - well, to me he does anyways.


Ok, I stand corrected.

I can tell just from listening to him talking during interviews that he's a smart lad. I've also picked up on when he gets asked a question and he replies "i dunno", it's his way of saying "i'm not telling you that". lol


Aww, cheers for that Colette. That does mean a lot. xx

There is no discussion in this thread about Nicky's vocal qualities.
I think proper promotion should be added to his strategy.
This link (posted by TV3 Ireland) has been reported here yesterday and is more than 24hrs old.
It still has to do with 25 views at the moment I'm writing this.

Don't want to be a negative nancy here but I have a feeling they rushed the sound check when rehearsing for the show. I got the impression Nicky's ear piece wasn't working as he was slightly behind the backing track and relying on the sound from the studio speaker to sing the song. I've seen established artists live on TV singing live when their ear piece has stopped working mid performance (e.g.; Kylie, Heather Small and Will.I.Am for example), and it must put them off a little even though they try and continue.

Check out the live clips from his tour so far singing Love Again. It sounds so much better imo.

Totally in agreement. I got goosebumps the first time I watched it.

I've just remembered a certain Gary Barlow telling Nicky how he should 'stretch' his voice a bit more, as though he scarcely believed Nicky could do such a thing. Got that wrong didn't he

I felt a bit uneasy with the clip, but didn't know what it was.

What I wanted to point though is that the 350K followers of Nicky do little effort for googling for new music. He may have a public liking his hair or his blue eyes, nothing against, but for selling records he needs to get some people of all ages listening.

The low number of views is rather strange, but then again the crowd in Dublin knew every word of Love Again so they must have heard it somewhere. His own video has more than 28k views now, hardly viral I know but respectable. If he ever puts up more then I think views would increase all round.

What I find puzzling is how few clips are uploaded on to YouTube from the gigs, considering every second person is capturing it on their 'phone. Anyway, here is one that was uploaded, from Manchester

https://www.youtube.com/my_videos?o=U

'Fix You', giving Chris Martin a run for his money

That series is the series that convinced me Barlow is a f***ing idiot. Desperately trying to pimp up RC & Luke and papering over their glaring shortcomings while undermining one of the most potential-rich participants they'd ever had at every available turn. Either he has no integrity and was just following the directive of producers or he was too lost in his own greedy thoughts of tax loopholes and how best to secure a knighthood to generate coherent thoughts. Horrible, horrible, self-serving narcissist.

I think Nicky and the band are on The Riverside Show on stv tonight - one of the band has tweeted that they're on the way to the studios. It's on at 7.05pm and should be available online via STV Glasgow player.

Oops, quick update - it might not be tonight but tomorrow night for the stv show. Should be a nice bit of publicity for the tour

Ohh yes, that will be great promotion.

I can imagine the gigs in Glasgow and Aberdeen being sold out gigs. I've read a lot on Twitter saying "tickets available on the door" which means the gig hasn't sold out - but I do wonder how many tickets have been made available to buy for each gig. Do some venues hold more people than others?

On the plus side, at least none of the gigs were cancelled due to poor ticket sales. That's right, Nicky's UK & Ireland Tour 2015 is a bigger success than The Voice UK Tour (series 1 in 2012) which got scrapped due to poor ticket sales. Not a single gig went ahead.

I don't know what really happened with the Brighton and Southampton gigs.

At the end the tour management no doubt will make an evaluation.
For Dublin they had 4 supporting acts eventually to pay for, plus the band, plus travel and lodging, plus the rental and staff of the venue, with virtually no revenue from the drinks....
No doubt they will learn from it.

Three reflections I had:
- when attending gigs of Sheeran and Nutini and others, I generally see just one supporting act for 30-45 minutes, followed by 30 minutes for sales of food and drinks.
- even more important are sales revenues. I'm afraid to think they expected it all coming from the followers on twitter.
- in Dublin I didn't see publicity from sponsors. When I was younger and organized events myself, I always tried to get the major costs covered ahead by sponsors. So that with 0 attendance I still didn't make loss.

But it is up to them to make the P+L sheet and eventually learn from it.

[quote=spooling;79046227]I don't know what really happened with the Brighton and Southampton gigs.

..... precisely.

Personally, I'm full of admiration for the management, for daring to put on a nationwide tour. Fortune favours the brave and all that .....

I got "Kelly" in the mail this morning and, since Andrea as well as Nicky are with RCA, I compared the CD with ITAOAA.

Logos at the back of the jewel case:
ITAOAA: Syco Music RCA Sony Music
K: Sony Music, RCA, Syco Music

Copyright:
ITAOAA: 2014 Simco Ltd
K: 2015 Simco Ltd

"X Factor" Sticker on the case:
ITAOAA: The X Factor - Finalist 2013 - Includes Answerphone, Superman and Someone like you
The XF sticker is in XF colors
K: The X Factor - includes the single "Give a little love" and "I didn't know my own strenght".
The XF sticker is white on blue.

booklet:
ITAOAA: 8 pages, 3 with pic in B&W, 1 with pic in color
K: 12 pages, 1 with pic in B&W, 4 with pic in color (p.12 is blank, actually blue)

booklet (content):
ITAOAA: p 2, 4, 5 with credentials of the songs, p. 7 ThankYou
K: p. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 with text (lyrics) of the songs, p. 11 with ThankYou and brief credentials.

content:
ITAOAA: 11 songs, 8 covers, 3 originals
K: 10 songs, not sure about which are originals (How to find out for an Italian song?), as to an other forum: only 2 covers: "I didn't know my own strenght", "You pulled me through"

technically:
ITAOAA: Mixed at Metropolis Studios and Biffco Studios, 1 (Superman); Mixed at Metrophonic Studios: the other 10
K: Mixed at Metrophonic Studios

Prereleased songs:
ITAOAA: Answerphone (released in the very same week as the album) peaked at 73 ( 28 in Scotland)
K: Give a little love (released on July 10) not seen in the top 100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMsSwWFppH4

My own impression of "Kelly".
The single is the most catchy for me. The intro music made me think though that something of the 40ties was coming.
One likes or doesn't like the Italian streched vowels. The Americans thought the French accent of Maurice Chevalier was cute, allowing him to get hits with songs about his love for little girls.
Generally for me these songs are for public liking some background music, I don't see them appreciated that very much by a young public at a gig event.
After all, for most artists, most money is coming from gigs and tours. Recordings are though necessary for getting radio play and building up a star image.

...and yet despite only coming 3rd last year on X Factor, Andreas' album is barely scraping inside the midweek top 10.

Being from the most recent series, you'd think more people would be buying Kelly. Makes me wonder if Luke (3rd place) released his album would be sell better or worse considering he was on the show 18 months ago.

Again, this all comes down to airplay. I don't think Andreas has had much airplay at all - even just playing random album tracks. So how can RCA expect the album to sell when chances are most of his fans who voted for Andreas on the X Factor probably don't even realise he has an album out.

With Nicky, I hope when they do release the second album Nicky does signings in Glasgow, Aberdeen and perhaps Edinburgh too. I know it's all very Scotland biased but it no doubt helped sell ITAOAA when it was released, and then the Mothers Day effect kept the album afloat.

Also prime time TV performances would be a must. I'd get Nicky performing on all the big TV shows to promote his album. Blue Peter, The CBBC Chart Show, This Morning, Surprise Surprise, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and even that other show, think it's called X Factor? The more shows, the better. It's the reason why Emeli Sande and Ed Sheeran's album both sold over 1 million copies.

From 'The Riverside Show' tonight, 'I'm Not the Only One'. He also did one of the new ones, 'Look Easy', but I haven't seen a clip of it yet.

https://twitter.com/STVGlasgow/statu...16162906533888

In fine voice, as ever

And in fine voice here too, I don't think there's a wrong note. They're obviously mixing the set up a bit too; 'Dancing on my Own', from Liverpool. Lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzMaO3tNcPk

In the press:

Nicholas McDonald on Glasgow, his new album and why he wouldn't want Nick Grimshaw as his judge on X Factor
Jill Castle, Assistant Digital Editor / Wednesday 22 July 2015
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/entert...e_on_X_Factor/

...He said: "I wouldn't be happy if Nick Grimshaw was my judge. Louis knows what he's talking about, he's got more experience than any of them on that panel. I don't know if Nick Grimshaw can offer the same advice as Louis because he doesn't sing, he doesn't perform, he's never had any songs out, he's probably never been on stage and performed a song...
..."We've not named the album yet but we've got loads of good songs written so I'm really excited for it to come out. It's been such a long process and such a lot of effort has been put in but it's definitely going to be worth it when people hear the songs.
"It's totally different from the first album, there's definitely going to be more upbeat and straight pop stuff.
"I know what my fans like so it's going to be a bit of a change but I feel that I'm grown up and my fans are too and they want more mature music so I think they will respect the direction that I'm taking."
...I'm really friendly with Niall's older brother Gregg so he's coming on the tour with me as a tour manager and security...
... McDonald will play Glasgow's O2 ABC on Wednesday, July 29 and promises fans an evening they will not forget.
He said: "It's going to be a lot of high energy, good fun and excitement. I'm really excited because we've got a live band. It's crazy to get an opportunity like this to sing, never mind people wanting to come out and see you.
"Glasgow's the last date of the tour so it should be really good fun. No matter where I go in Glasgow or what kind of show I do people are always up for it and they appreciate you more. It's just different compared to any other show.

Loved that.

Such maturity in those vocals, excellent control. The band sound awesome too, almost as if they were miming to a pre-recorded backing track.

Ahh, Look Easy will be the other new song that was performed at the Dublin gig that spooling attended.

Andrea's "Kelly" ended 14th for this week:
http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/albums-chart/
Nicky's ITAOAA peaked 6th in its first week.

Aren't we turning the world upside down?

In the nineties and before:
Artists got singles released, got a position on hit parades, got singles sold.
When after a time they had had some top singles, these were bundled in a LP, later CD.
This created a second stream of revenues.

Nowadays albums are released with new songs, nobody has heard of, without much radio play (if any)...
A few thousand may eventually sell to a couple of collectors of souvenirs of events, TV series, local artists...
In that perspective it is clever of SyCo (using one of the Sony labels eventually) to get a cheap album out shortly after the series, before dumping the artists.

Why not returning to the old recipe:
Start with singles:
some will not do and smooth out in a couple of days,
some will do, get radio play, get sold, become visible in hit lists, get more radio play and float for a while in resonance "airplay -> hit list -> more radio play -> higher in hit list -->.."
Once one has 4 to 6 singles with decent sales, one can add some minor B-side type junk for getting a CD filled.

Why the hell starting with albums filled with stuff nobody has ever heard (except for a few 100 who remember from gigs or some who eventually got excited about a clip they discovered on YouTube)

Why not starting with singles? I mean stand-alone singles, not tracks of an album released separately virtually at the same time as the album. A beginning good artist has to accept that just one out of 5 to 10 of his new singles gets eventually into the cycle of resonance "airplay <--> topper in sales".