Someone has posted a clip of So Easy on to YouTube from a gig yesterday, and it stands up quite well I think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko5QyxkVrKM

I was only half listening at first and thought it was a 1D cover. Pure pop, but for an eighteen year old what would be more appropriate?

Watching that it was actually a great performance and made me like the song a bit more.

I just wish people would spell his name properly. I never search for "Nicolas" so end up missing clips on YouTube.

Here are some more.

Love Departed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgtH-4bMEV4

What Do You Mean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6kp7YKkrNM

Drag Me Down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OXoT-Dq5zc

I think his backing track for What Do You Mean? needs a better dance beat behind it to really get it going.

According to Jack's Snapchat, Forever Young is out on Friday. I'm up at stupid o'clock for an early flight and that little snippet of news has fairly brightened my day. Wish it all the luck in the world and hope it does well

Will be interesting to see how well the single does. I'm wondering whether they will have some extra remixes available. It would help sell the song better.

I wonder if this will do well in Scotland - their sales could actually help the song do well in the UK charts (as the UK chart incorporates sales from Scotland too).

I don't find it in the midweek charts:
http://www.officialcharts.com/charts...-chart-update/
or am I overlooking something?

I don'y think hardly anyone is buying the song.

Usually iTunes gives an indicator as to how popular the song is selling by its pop bars - the more dark bars, the more it's selling.

Forever Young doesn't have a single dark bar which suggests it's hardly selling anything. That said, even I'm not bothering with the song. They've still not put the music video on YouTube either which doesn't make any sense - they sell the single just as much as radio airplay.

A nice treat from a gig earlier this month, with a rather good Uptown Funk as part of the set. Nicky is on from about 40 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d23LpF4rD_E

The music video for Forever Young is on YouTube too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRpixTInC5U

Thanks for the link.
To my surprise YouTube cannot be seen everywhere. Last week I was in Turkmenistan and the websites of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc. were not accessible, But Digital Spy was.
Momentarely I'm in the Murmansk area in Russia. Except for the snow blizzard things are fine: YouTube works perfectly well over here.
Is there still some activity around Nicky on the Russian Facebook type site??

No, there hasn't been any updates since back in March when they posted a clip of Nicky performing I'm Not The Only One.

Even his most recent cover of Drag Me Down from his YouTube channel hasn't been posted either.

Here's a little something I found tonight.

http://www.clyde1.com/djs/breakfast/...-driving-test/

Some new clips.

Published on Nov 21, 2015 by Paul McHugh
Nicky McDonald singing at the Buchanhaven Hearts Club Peterhead Nov 21st 2015
Nicholas McDonald 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxi-85bO01Y
Nicholas McDonald 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jxmTA6i0Z8
Nicholas McDonald 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKGupPdeRA0
Nicholas McDonald 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH2o3GjXaRU
Nicholas McDonald 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWS3tIDJmo

Published on Nov 21, 2015 by Paul McHugh
Nicky McDonald being sung to at the Buchanhaven Hearts Club Peterhead Nov 21st 2015
Happy Birthday Nicholas McDonald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc4PlIGEb5Q

a new clip on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXjHNABPlDE
Nicholas McDonald Drag Me Down
Published on Nov 27, 2015 by Jen Grant

It looks to be recorded at the same place as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHSlatt1hMc
Nicholas McDonald what do you mean
Aberdeen
Published on Sep 27, 2015 by Jen Grant

an other by Jen Grant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbjqEB2hKfw
Nicholas McDonald Rothes Hall
Published on May 28, 2015 by Jen Grant

Charity single with participation of Nicky:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/lo...s-hoey-6910715
Wishaw charity king Les Hoey and celebrity pals hope to be a Christmas hit
Nicky McDonald, Michelle McManus, Tom Urie and Kathleen McDermott loaned their voices to ‘This Christmas’ , which was written by local singer- songwriter Billy Warren.

Forever Young has over 100k views on YouTube now, which is good going for a single with no promo imo. A nice, steady début for the pair of them working together

Nicky commenting from about 0:22 till 0:28 on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsHurRcNNk
Beatson Cancer Charity Ball 2015 - Celebrities
Published on Dec 3, 2015 by Beatson Cancer Charity

Former X Factor star Nicholas McDonald excited as he gets ready to release new album
Updated 13:45, 7 Dec 2015 By Beverley Lyons
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/enterta...olas-6969179?1

"...Two years after the competition, he said: “I’ve been busy recording my album and have a mix of dance and pop on it. I’ve still got some more tracks to do but it will be out soon hopefully.”...."

Off-topic but eventually a reference point for Nicky's next album to come, for as far as "being an XF celebrity" supports sales.
Obviously this approach does not take into account the value of the songs and performer.

Mid-week result halfway the first week for the fairly well promoted album "Love Sax..." by Fleur East: ranked 7th
after Coldplay, Adele, Elvis, Bieber, Jess Glynne, Little Mix.
http://www.officialcharts.com/charts...-chart-update/

Compare: other releases in the period shortly after the XF2014 shows:

10 - NE Ben Haenow, Ben Haenow - 1 - 18,130
29 - 10 Ben Haenow, Ben Haenow - 2 - 25,873
30 - 29 Ben Haenow, Ben Haenow - 3 - ~36k
Ben Haenow's album is ranked 49th in this midweek list.

14 - NE Andrea Faustini, Kelly - 1 - 3,753
40 - 14 Andrea Faustini, Kelly - 2 - ~5k

(data stolen from postings by JB92 in a DS XF forum)

Nicholas McDonald helps Air Space celebrate first birthday as it launches Yorkhill charity partnership
by: Cheri Burns, Assistant Content Editor (Live) / Monday 7 December 2015
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/1...y_partnership/

..... and Nicky turns columnist, for The Scottish Sun

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scot...new-Voice.html

He doesn't seem too impressed with this year's effort from XF, and I can't say I disagree with him as it's been hideous for the most part.

He also says that the album is now due out in the summer next year. Never a dull moment with our boy is there? I wonder what 'summer' means in Nickyland

Winning isn't everything! Every X Factor runner-up ranked
http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-...ners-up-ranked

quote:
So before one of this year's crop takes the 2015 crown, let's line-up all 11 previous second-place finalists and see who has been most successful.
11. Nicholas McDonald
Coming second to Sam Bailey in 2013, Nicholas McDonald fired out the traps with a debut album, In The Arms Of An Angel, that peaked at No6 on the UK charts. One of its original songs, Answerphone, made it as far as No73. He's now working on his second album, which he promises will mark him out as a more serious artist - so the general impression is that the best is yet to come from the Scottish teen.
end quote.

Abstraction made from the position in their ranking, the comment is OK I think.

I think Nicky could put more covers on YouTube.
See what others got for their cover of Hello:
Conor Maynard got 8,934,849 views at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDWuqrJAyGw
Leroy Sanchez got 17,537,133 views at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZ9kjCrGJw

Let's just wait until Nicky adds a new cover on YouTube.

Ironic that Conor Maynard can get over 8 million views on YouTube (it's probably the same 100k just watching the video repeatedly ) yet when it comes to buying/streaming his last two singles, both failed to go top 40.

What I think was very clever by these 2 guys is that they had a decent cover within a week after the release of the original song.
So they had the benefit of being found in a period many people were searching for "Hello". I think Hello is still in the top 10 worldwide.

Oct 18: 30s clip at XF UK
Oct 23: release UK
Oct 22: YouTube vevo by AdeleVEVO (760,179,667 views)
Oct 26: clip by Sanchez
18,026,796 views now, 438,691 thumbs up, 5,954 down
Oct 27: clip by Maynard
9,268,517 views now, 207,838 thumbs up, 2,426 down

As for Nicky's covers:

Mar 22 I'm not the only one
44,321 views, 1,510 thumbs up, 9 down
original released by Sam Smith on August 31, 2014

Oct 18 Drag me down
3,811 views, 221 thumbs up, 1 down
original released by 1D on July 31

I don't think people are searching for "discovering" these songs anymore.
This just from a marketing point of view, without judging about the quality of the covers.

The video of last night live stream performance on facebook is at:
https://www.facebook.com/50541660614...4979276520988/