Sunday 9 December 2007

Touch Me Like That - The Aftermath

A terrifying glimpse into Dannii's future!

No one lives the lifestyle of $ucce$$ quite like Dannii! Despite being the universally worshipped Queen Of Clubs and household name in the UK due to her role on X Factor, Dannii's latest single bombs out at #48 this week, becoming the lowest charting single of her entire career. Even a craptastic stinker like "Loves On Every Corner" managed a #44 peak way back in 1992! That leaves the burning question of what went wrong and, more importantly, where to from here for our beloved icon?

So why did "Touch Me Like That" go down like a lead balloon with British buying public? Several reasons come to mind but the most obvious starting point is the song's quality. Obviously, if Dannii's dance anthem was complete rubbish, it would hardly be surprising if no one bought it. I loved "Touch Me Like That" from the first listen and I still think it's a killer track. In fact, the initial response to "Touch Me Like That" was overwhelmingly positive, receiving praise from both fans and critics alike. In my opinion, the main reasons for Dannii's lack of $ucce$$ are:

1. Releasing "Touch Me Like That" to radio and clubs three months prior to its physical release, resulting in rampant file-sharing by impatient "fans" (who then couldn't be bothered to legally download the song) and dwindling momentum.

2. Poor promotion. I'm sure AATW thought they could rely on Dannii's X Factor profile but the average music fan had no idea that Dannii even had a new single on the market. "Touch Me Like That" was hardly mentioned on X Factor, let alone performed on the show and Dannii did no other promotion apart from an interview on "Loose Women". Where was the obligatory show at GAY, the usual TV performances and interviews? I'm aware that Dannii couldn't promote the song on rival networks but there are always radio interviews and personal appearances.

TMLT's chart placing gives new meaning to Dannii's 1991 hit

3. Bad timing. The person who chose to release "Touch Me Like That" in the same week as Kylie's "X" album needs to be fired. Kylie fans have long turned to Dannii for a Minogue fix while Kylie is between albums, so the simultaneous release was most unfortunate. Even without evil Kylie plotting to steal Dannii's thunder, I would question releasing a club single in the lead up to Christmas when sales are traditionally at their strongest.

4. Marketing woes. Releasing one CD single instead of the usual two was a big mistake and I maintain that casual buyers were scared shitless by the hideous single cover. A couple of B-sides would have also been nice instead of the awful remixes.

Conclusion

Let's be honest. "Touch Me Like That" was a desperate attempt to cash in on Dannii's X Factor fame. And that's fine with me. Dannii would have been insane not to try to capitalise on her new high profile. Sadly, the entire project was a poorly managed and cynical rush job. The great shame is that one of Dannii's finest singles is relegated to the bargain bin of pop history.

Enough doom and gloom. What does the future now hold for Dannii - the pop star? "Touch Me Like That" is scheduled for release in Australia in January and I'm sure it can perform well if Dannii comes over to promote it. As far as the UK is concerned, I think Dannii should re-evaluate her relationship with AATW. Dannii will always be the Queen Of Clubs but I firmly believe she needs to embrace a more commercial pop sound to return to her glory days of chart $ucce$$. It will take more than one spectacular flop to hold this amazing diva down!

Not ready for the scrap heap yet!

11 comments:

Parker said...

Poor Dannii, she should hire you to guide her because you are so right in the reasons for Dannii to flop with her new single.
She has to wait for the whole "X - The Fan Release" to fade and try again.

Mike said...

Oh thank you! My first advice to Dannii would be to move to Spain where she has huge top 10 hits with massive sales of at least 25 copies. Dannii is too fierce for the UK!

Robpop said...

Mike, I love this write up. I don't think AATW have a lot to do with the songs ultimate failure. They've done very well with Cascada this week....

The reviews were good and i think the fans were behind this release (the same cant be said for Perfection) so what went wrong?

Dannii needs to take stock. And realise that she must adapt her sense of pop if she is ever to have a hit again.

Many go on about DanceKylie vs PopKylie or RnBMadge vs Oldfrapp but the same cannot be said for good old dannii. Shes outdated herself. Shes never changed. She needs (heres that dreaded word...) a reinvention!

Look at Robyn. Each album is distinctly pop yet absolutely different. While many will attack Kylie and Madonna, their albums are rarely attempts to continue where the previous L.P finished. They take that risk...sometimes it fails and sometimes it doesnt. What it does ensure-is a growing, loyal and steady fanbase. I'm not saying that Dannii has to go all Fergie on us. Or release a folk album....

She just has to rethink and remap her next album. How about a psycho-delica album in the same vein as her classic track SunRise?

Mike said...

Hey Rob!!

I actually think AATW did a really bad job and I don't like slagging them because I love the trashy music they release. Cascada is a completely different story, coming off a massive album and a string of huge hits.

I think Dannii needs to reinvent herself with a more commercial pop sound. Neon Nights was club orientated pop - since joining AATW the pop has gone missing. I love what she's doing but the average record buyer is obviously not as enamoured!

Anonymous said...

The only constant factor in Dannii's 15 year string of FLOPS is Dannii.

The Cascada single, currently at #16 on downloads alone, comes off the back of a three-month old promo that has exclusive mixes not on the CD as well as all the mixes available on the maxi, and has been on various AATW club compilation albums - and is of the current #12 album. And the same was true for all thier other singles (three of which had already received a release in the US & Germany as well as promo releases in the UK again with more mixes) - and EWT the album was released in the UK months after it was released in the US, JP, GE - and was widely available as a cheap import months before its UK release. Still sold well over 400K...

Not to mention that Cascada actually did several club gigs, a small scale club tour and then an arena tour to promote their album. Something Dannii hasn't...

The same promo CD / illegal downloading argument cannot be used as an excuse simply because their are countless cases of it being disproved by $ucce$$ful singles and album - Cascada, Nelly Furtado, Gorillaz, Kylie, Madonna... all had $ucce$$ful singles and albums that were leaked onto the internet weeks, even months before release and had promos everywhere - even Leona's album and single were leaked and widely available on ebay and filesharing sites like MM before release...

And while the Droids are a bunch of thieving scroungers who would rather send out mass PM's begging for illegal copies of Dannii releases than get off their arses and buy them legally, the fact remains is that even with the high profile of the X-Factor, noone wants a Dannii Minogue single - and I can guarantee that at least 10% of her target audience (clubgoers and the like) might have actually bought it if they had known it was out - but the lazy cow couldn't be arsed promoting it.

And on that note, Dannii did have some $ucce$$ today - I finally bought the Girl & Neon Nights reissues.

Jamie said...

To be quite honest I think Dannii's done well not to shamelessly ply her wares on TV. I personally would have loved to see her whip out a copy of her single on the X-Factor.

She could have even had the boys singing songs from her back-catalogue whilst trying to flog her hits on the show!

PS. Still waiting for my add on msn mike :-(

Mike said...

Oh Jamie - I'm sorry! I haven't been on MSN in months. I promise to add you next time I'm on - I'm looking forward to having chats about pop legends like Hazell Dean and Princess Stephanie!

Jay - you make me laugh. I think in a round about way you actually agree with me. Basically, Dannii needs to get out and promote her material and AATW needs to offer a better package! I know that everyone's music gets leaked these days. The difference between Kylie, Madonna, Leona etc is that Dannii has a much smaller fanbase and hence a much greater impact on her sales when her "fans" can't be bothered to actually buy her material!

At least Dannii can celebrate two further sales of her re-releases.

Anonymous said...

So we can officially blame the Droids for Dannii's FLOPPAGE?!? Where is my pitchfork and my proxy ip....

Mike said...

I blame the droids for EVERYTHING!!

Anonymous said...

She definitely needed better promotion. There was practically none at all.

I'm not impressed. TMLT is an awesome track.

It should've been released in early October, when it first started coming out on the download scene. Pahh.

And I bought Dannii: Unleashed, and was disappointed to find that half the tracks I was looking forward to are on the freaking Club Disco album, which is download only. And I wanted Xanadu. Pahh!

Hules said...

Poor Danni.

I agree with some of what is said on here, comments and blog.

Ultimately Touch Me Like That sounds like it could have been released five years ago.

Compared to what's flying now, it sounds tinny and doesn't have an edge; bland, formulaic.