"The Oprah Effect": Winfrey the "Holy Grail" for Album Sales

As album sales continue to slide, the music industry keeps searching for ways to make record releases big events. There have been partnerships with big retailers (like Walmart's exclusive on AC/DC's Black Ice), major live events (like Jay-Z's blitz before The Blueprint 3 dropped), and special fan contests (like the artwork scavenger hunt Pearl Jam hosted for Backspacer). But there's one sure-fire way to guarantee an album's success: get Oprah Winfrey's stamp of approval.

Michael Buble's Crazy Love recently topped the charts after the Canadian crooner appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, leading Variety to examine the so-called "Oprah Effect." "Oprah is the one thing everyone wants," Reprise Records president Diarmuid Quinn told Variety. "If you get that call back from her production people, my God, it's the Holy Grail."

Oprah's Book Club has long been credited for catapulting under-the-radar reads to the top of bestseller lists, and the daytime queen's power of promotion has had no problems crossing over into music. Recent Oprah success stories include Whitney Houston's I Look to You and Barbra Streisand's Love is the Answer, which surprised many by beating out new albums by Paramore and Mariah Carey to top the charts. Variety suggests Oprah saved Journey, too. A year after the band's Revelation was released, they appeared on Winfrey's October 5th episode. The next week, sales of Revelation jumped 681 percent.

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the Oprah's King Midas touch is Josh Groban. In October 2007, the singer's Christmas album Noel debuted quietly on the Billboard Top 200, but after appearing as one of "Oprah's Favorite Things" seven weeks after its release, sales of Noel exploded, and the record topped the charts in early December after being featured on the Winfrey Show. Noel spent five consecutive weeks atop the charts, a record for a Christmas album, experiencing a sales increase each of those five weeks following the Oprah show. By year's end, Noel ended up with just over 3.5 million in sales, making it the best-selling album of 2007. Thanks, Oprah!

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• On the Charts: Knocking Josh Groban Out of the Top Spot Proves Harder Than Finding a Nintendo Wii
• On the Charts: Groban Overtakes Keys Thanks to Oprah and Jesus

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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