New CD - The Greatest

[Michele Monro]

Needless to say that EMI in their wisdom have stopped the television adverts just short of Easter. As long as we are in the charts we would have been visible in the big chain supermarkets and with Easter in less than two weeks we would have had a tremendous boost - but now without the PR we will probably drop out of the charts by Monday - even if we are lucky enough to sustain the position for another week we will be absent from the shelves the week beginning 29 March - the actual week leading up to Easter Day.

That is why I am continually griping at the company - everything is done half-heartedly. They did exactly the same with 'From Matt with Love' in February 2007 - we had two weeks of advertising, got to No 7 in the charts and then they pulled the plug. I wouldn't mind but that first week of adverts were on channels I've never heard of - talk about not giving the disc a fighting chance.

But of course they never take the blame themselves and will not look at the reasons for the album's failure to do as well as 'The Ultimate MM". Don't forget this was scheduled to come out for Valentine's Day, right in the middle of a virulent PR campaign by myself on radio and BBC Television. Because they suddenly moved the date of release to two weeks later, we were having plugs for a product not even out - it was a totally wasted exercise and their excuse was that they didn't want to compete against other Valentine's products - interestingly there were none in the 'middle of the road' category - what it boiled down to was that the television advertising was far more expensive in the lead up to 14 February then Mother's Day. When I asked when they were starting their campaign for Mother's Day, they said they wouldn't know till the week before because they were going to grab the cheapest ad spots!!!!!!!! Now unfortunately they will probably use these figures as a reason not to run with special projects in the next year or two.

[Marian]

I totally agree Michele, the tv advertising was half-hearted and practically negligible to say the least.
Even though you were kind enough to let us know when the ads were being shown I managed not to see one broadcast, even recording some programmes just to check the adverts!
As you say, the whole of the first week seemed a complete waste as they were scheduled for such obscure channels.
It was not much better in the second week, mainly being shown only once during Emmerdale in different parts of the country.
Surely it would be better to target a few of the most popular programmes country wide, even if they were less in number.
The advert itself was excellent, such a shame it wasn't made available to more people.
Hopefully The Greatest will maintain or improve it's well deserved place in the charts on its own merits, and of course your wonderful radio broadcasts.

[Sandra]

How we agree too.It had dropped to No.50 in Tesco yesterday and in HMV it was only in the browser with a sign saying Chart behind it,but not on their wall display with the rest of their top 40.
A very poor show on EMI's behalf.

[john]

I suppose I could say I was one of the lucky ones having seen the advert twice, but I agree, it would have been so much better had they been shown on the major channels. I believe it was shown on the Yesterday channel a couple of times, I have never even watched this channel. Plus it would have been so much better had it being advertised up until Easter, the cd would be so much better than any old Easter Egg.

[Josh]

Well I finally picked up my copy today from Sainsbury's, great choice of tracks that sound just, well, great lol. I really got it just so I could finally own This is the Life as I alread owned the majority. The linear notes are really nice another job well done by Michele (doesn't Matt always get great linear notes ) Overall a really great pacakge, that's one of the best introductions to Matt's music on the market. I'd recomend this disc, the very best of or 2005's the collection, to anyone wanting to start exploring the incredible music of Matt Monro.

[paul jh]

Thanks for the review, Josh. You really need to get those four Capitol albums on 2 CDs though. I know you like to hear the original albums.

The Greatest sold 11,528 last week. So it will soon top 20,000 in sales. EMI is making money on this. And they'll sell more when the price drops and HMV can put it on their 2 for £10 sales.

[Rmoore]

Yes but has it sold enough to make them want to do any of the 'Non Hits' sets like the New York Sessions and The Rarer Monro - Even Hoagy Carmichael?

We will have to see.

[maureen & harry]

Yes Richard, it would be such a shame if the New York Sessions etc are not released and no doubt a lot of other unreleased material might not be made available.

We see from the newspaper that EMI are really struggling and are in talks to mortgage its back catalogue recordings to raise £400 million and talk of another Private Equity Group being in talks with Warner Music to launch a break up bid for them.

Sadly, it is hard to believe that this well known established business has fallen on such hard times.

Maureen & Harry

[Gray]

The Greatest was still showing at #23 in Morrisons today.

[Marian]

Unfortunately it has dropped out of the top 40 in the album charts today though.

[paul jh]

The Greatest is down to #46 on the official chart.

Simply Red, John Barrowman, Dean Martin, and Leona Lewis all suffered much bigger falls this week.

[Marian]

..and MICHAEL BUBLE came in at # 40 with Call Me Irresponsible..

[Marian]

# 49 on Sainsbury's list today.

[maureen & harry]

We were in our local HMV today and the cd is now at number 51 and they are still charging £11.99 and also at our Tesco Store it is number 53 and is still under £10.

Maureen & Harry

[David M]

EMI may be pleased with the sales if the amazon sales rankings are any guide. The Greatest is currently the 24th bestselling EMI release and The Complete Singles is 35th.