|
Written by Administrator
|
|
Wednesday, 28 March 2001 |
By JIM SLOTEK -- Toronto SunLou Pearlman is a classic U.S. success story, the simple son of a rich aviation family, who saw an opportunity and exploited it.
He is, in short, the guy who created The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC in a blimp hanger in Orlando, Fla., and watched his bright ideas generate more than $2 billion in sales.
Pearlman is a keynote speaker Friday at Canadian Music Week at the Harbour Castle.
"I just always wanted to be in the music business and the aviation business too," says Pearlman on the phone from Orlando. "When I was in a band in the late '70s, we called it Flyer."
It was a fateful booking in 1991 when a band called New Kids On The Block chartered a jet from his family's Queens, N.Y.-based firm. Curious how kids could afford a plane, he was told NKOTB grossed a billion dollars in records and merchandise.
Inspired, he set about becoming the man-who-created-boybands. He canvassed Smokey Robinson for tips about how the old Motown grooming system worked. He learned about harmony from his cousin Art Garfunkel.
The result was a production company, Transcontinental Records. "The idea was to create our own bootcamp, a finishing school with PR training, choreography, vocal lessons."
Sadly, the one blemish in this little Damon Runyon story is that when his boys hit platinum, lawyers got into the act. The Backstreet Boys sued over their contract, which saw him collecting as both producer and manager. And NSYNC sued for the right to switch record labels over Pearlman's objections.
"I was the only one believing in the project, so I stepped up to the plate and put my money where my mouth is," Pearlman says of his multi-million dollar investment. "Next thing you know problems happen. Why? 'Cause there's always that relative that's an attorney who takes a look at this thing and says 'Hey, he's getting paid from both ends! That's double dipping!' And I said, 'Why didn't you say that when I put up the money?'"
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Written by Administrator
|
|
Friday, 06 September 2002 |
We know the names of the stars that got teen-age girls screaming. Frank Sinatra could do it, and so could Elvis and the Beatles. And so can Lou Pearlman, it seems.
Pearlman, a 47-year-old native New Yorker, has the recipe for creating teen sensations that get kids to part with their pocket money. Who is this supermogul with his finger on the pulse of young America? 60 Minutes II Correspondent Vicki Mabrey reports that Pearlman gave us N SYNC, whose debut album sold 7 million copies, three times as many as Elvis Presley's first album.
He also is responsible for the Backstreet Boys, whose album - "Millenium" - sold more copies in its first week than any other album before it.
When the fans are going crazy, what's Pearlman doing? "Sitting back, taking it all in smiling because that's exactly what I like to see happen," he said.
"I'm there because I want to make everybody happy. I like to see the artists happy. I like to see the fans happy. You know, of course, there's a tinkle to the cash register, and everybody's getting some financial happiness," Pearlman added.
Actually it's more like a flood to the cash register. Pearlman has created these sensations, many of them from scratch, and he banks on the fact that these young fans, once infatuated, will spend millions of dollars on everything from compact discs and concert tickets, to T shirts and posters. And if their allowance money won't cover it, Pearlman calculates rightly that their parents will chip in.
A $30 T shirt here, a $15 disc there - these teenyboppers' buying power is estimated at more than $100 billion per year.
Pearlman is hoping to grab a chunk of that. An entrepreneur who backed into pop-mogul status just six years ago, he made his fortune in the aviation business. His path crossed with the music industry when he started outfitting luxury jets and leasing them to rock stars like Paul McCartney, Phil Collins and a boy band called New Kids on the Block.
"I was invited to a concert. And I saw New Kids performing," Pearlman explained. "And it wasn't hard for me to see the stage, because all the people they were like this big, so I sort of looked right over their heads. And I was able to see the stage; I saw everybody, and I was like amazed."
What amazed Pearlman was that the fans were buying every product the New Kids offered. Pearlman wanted a piece of that gold mine, so he set out to create his own teen idols. |
|
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 July 2007 )
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Written by Administrator
|
|
Friday, 05 March 1999 |
|
The following is an actual biography written by Lou Pearlman's company. You could say that Louis J. Pearlman (Lou Pearlman) has music in his blood. In addition to playing guitar for a band in his hometown of Flushing, Queens, New York, Louis Pearlman grew up musically inspired by his first cousin, Art Garfunkel. But when success in the music industry initially proved elusive, he turned his attention to another passion: his love for aviation. Armed with a strong vision, Lou Pearlman convinced Wall Street investors to help him start an air charter service. His vision came to fruition as Trans Continental Airlines was born. Oddly enough, it was Trans Continental Airlines that would eventually lead Lou Pearlman to his unbelievable success in the music industry. After chartering jets for such music industry giants as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Phil Collins, Lou Pearlman received a charter request from the musical group New Kids on the Block. Upon learning that these five young guys had amassed more than $100 million in record, tour and merchandise sales, Louis J. Pearlman decided it was time to re-enter the music industry from a different angle. With that decision, Trans Continental Records was created. Louis Pearlman 's first attempt, the Backstreet Boys, catapulted Trans ontinental Records into the spotlight of the world music scene, selling more than 65 million units worldwide and going gold and platinum in 45 different countries. Not long afterward, Trans Continental Records repeated that success with *NSYNC, which sold over 56 million units globally. In just a few short years, the Trans Continental Records roster grew to include many other hit sensations including LFO and O-Town, a band that Lou Pearlman created for the ABC/MTV hit series, "Making the Band." O-Town's debut single made recording history when it entered the Billboard single sales chart at number one. |
|
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 July 2007 )
|
|
Read more...
|
|
| << Start < Prev 11 12 13 Next > End >>
| | Results 49 - 51 of 51 |
|
