During the next few months, the Disney labels are making a play for grown-ups. With releases that include Demi Lovato’s fourth album, an EP from Plain White T’s and a Selena Gomez single that coincides with her 21st birthday, Hollywood Records is aiming to broaden the demographics for artists who first caught on with youngsters.
Lovato, whose “Heart Attack” is No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, has an expanded awareness thanks to her role as a judge on Fox’s “The X Factor,” and Gomez has branched beyond family-friendly films with the tarted-up “Spring Breakers.” Plain White T’s are going the reality-relationship route with “Ready for Love,” an unscripted NBC show that premiered April 9 after “The Voice” and was watched by 3.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
Plain White T’s guitarist and occasional lead singer Tim Lopez is one of three bachelors on the show hoping to find romance. The program is also the launch pad for a new Plain White T’s four-song EP that includes their new single, “Should’ve Gone to Bed.” Originally scheduled for an April 23 release, the EP was moved up to April 9 after NBC gave “Ready for Love” the plum post-“Voice” slot.
Following a performance of “Hey There Delilah” on the premiere, the band’s hits–“Rhythm of Love,” “1, 2, 3, 4”–and other older songs appear throughout the series. The single and a second new track, “The Giving Tree,” will also be used in the show.
Disney Music Group VP of licensing Dominic Griffin and Plain White T’s publisher Warner/Chappell seized on this opportunity by striking a below-market rate for the program. Generally speaking, reality shows have minimal music budgets–usually for a score–and their shelf lives tend to be limited to a single run.
“It would be weird to have the Plain White T’s on a show but none of their music,” Griffin says, noting that the publisher started pitching the new songs to NBC’s marketing department for use in promos about two weeks before the premiere. “The marketing guy inside of me is always saying, ‘Use the new songs,’ but one, we didn’t have all the finished music [during filming], and two, I’ll take exposure on the catalog. It seemed like the perfect catalog for the show.”
Jason Ehrlich, an executive producer on “Ready for Love,” says the intention was to use music extensively from the start. The show enlisted Secret Road Music Services to deliver independent artists–Amy Stroup’s “Hold Onto Hope Love” is the show’s theme song–but the Plain White T’s music became part of the storytelling and score.
A crucial element in the use of TV or film to break artists is obviously the opportunity it offers to present a personality.
In the cases of Lovato, who’ll return to “The X Factor” for a second run in the fall, and Gomez, who has wrapped shooting on a comedy and an action thriller, the challenge is getting audiences to accept them as young adults. With Plain White T’s, there’s still a need to put a face to the band and “Ready for Love” presented a rare opportunity for the group to set up its next full-length, which is expected in late summer.
“It’s more difficult today than, say, 20 years ago to change your image from album to album,” Walt Disney Music Group president Ken Bunt says. “It’s more difficult to reinvent yourself because there’s so much information available, so it has to be authentic. People sniff out inauthenticity.”