'HOW COOL is Glee? It's funny shit. Reminds me of school. Wicked that they did Rehab. Sounds the nuts. Thanks Glee." Even Amy Winehouse has been moved to tweet about the hit US TV series Glee. The programme – which is set in a high-school and includes musical performances of contemporary hits – has been the best thing to happen to the beleaguered music industry since the arrival of iTunes, writes BRIAN BOYD
Winehouse’s
Rehab
– her own version and the
Glee
cover of the song – shot back into the charts after it was featured on the show. Sales are still growing.
With the programme now showing on a number of channels this side of the Atlantic, including TV3, the Irish charts are duly reflecting the much-talked-about " GleeEffect". Last week's singles charts saw five Gleecast songs in the top 50, while the first album release from the show, Glee The Music: Volume 1, has just entered the top 30 and is expected to rise to the number-one slot the next few weeks.
The people behind the show report that they now spend most of their day fielding calls from famous musicians desperate for the Gleecast to cover one of their songs in a forthcoming episode. Rhianna offered her Take A Bowsingle to the producers at a reduced licensing rate; Billy Joel has been offering opinions on which songs of his could be used, while Madonna granted the show the rights to her entire back catalogue. As a result, an upcoming episode will feature just Madonna songs.
The show has been running for a few months longer in the US than it has been here, and the Billboard charts are now dominated by Gleecast recordings. There were 25 Gleeentries on the Billboard singles chart in 2009, with the programme's biggest hit coming with their cover of Journey's Don't Stop Believin' .
Both the Gleeversion of the song and the Journey original can currently be found in the top-10 singles charts around the world. And Rihanna was rewarded handsomely for offering Take A Bowat a bargain price – her version of the song had a 189 per cent sales increase after it was used in the show.
The idea behind the show was to connect up the old-fashioned GleeClub (after-school a capella singing groups which are still a prominent feature of US schools) and the contemporary appetite for song and performance as evidenced by the cultural dominance of such TV shows as The X Factorand American Idol.
Set in an Ohio high school, Gleedraws directly on the personal experiences of the show's creator, Ryan Murphy, who was a prominent member of his own school's Glee Club. He wanted the show to reflect how he found a sense a place and purpose in his school's singing group.
"There's so much on the air right now about people with guns or sci-fi or lawyers running around," Murphy said. "This is a different genre; there's nothing like it on the air at the networks or on cable. Everything's so dark in the world right now – that's why American Idolworks; it's pure escapism."
To avoid any unhelpful comparisons with High School Musicalphenomenon, Murphy structured the show so that it would appeal as much to adults as to children. The premise is boilerplate simple: a teacher at the school is determined is to restore the Glee Club to its former glory, but finds himself in conflict with the school's football team. The drama plays off the stereotypes of sports players being cool and athletic and cheerleaders being top of the female high school tree, while Gleesingers are geeky and unappealing.
The singing group on the show is a rainbow coalition of misfits who are frequently scorned and bullied by the school’s jocks and cheerleaders. Combining the very worst type of clichéd personality traits with dark humour and camp touches, the show is a frothy romp with a social “message”. And whenever the going gets a bit rough, all the cast have to do is to burst into song.
By successfully playing with the evergreen teen notions of alienation, identity and escape through music, the show manipulates emotion at every turn and an underdog narrative provides dramatic movement.
What's revolutionary about Glee, though, is its use of media integration. The songs featured in any given episode of the programme become available later that same night on iTunes – it's like buying the artist's CD in the lobby on the way out of the gig. This form of synchronisation means you'll be seeing a Gleestranglehold on the Irish charts in the coming weeks. Already, radio stations are adding the new Gleecast song to their schedules – without knowing in advance what that song is.
This sales masterplan was set up by the Fox Network (which broadcasts the show). Once it had the pilot ready last year, Fox shipped it around record companies looking for a label which could release and promote the songs featured in each episode on a quick turnaround basis. Sony Music put in the best bid, and it’s no coincidence that the majority of the songs used so far are by Sony artists.
For Ryan Murphy, the song selection is all important. “Each episode has a theme at its core,” he says. “After the script is written, I will choose the songs that help to move the story along. There has to be a balance between show tunes and chart hits – something for everybody in each episode.”
Murphy says that it would normally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay the licensing rights to use a big hit in a prime time show, but musicians (or rather their publishing companies) are now offering the songs for free – knowing that the sales bounce will more than compensate them.
The GleeEffect doesn't end with the music charts. When Sony came on board, it signed the Gleecast (all previously unknown actors) to "360-degree" deals. This means that Sony will co-ordinate and share in the profits from Gleetours, merchandising sales, endorsements, mobile ringtones and possible solo albums from cast members.
The first Gleelive tour will hit US venues this summer, and you really can't rule out the cast rolling up at Dublin's 02 for a series of shows before the end of the year.
It's perhaps no coincidence that when news of the live tour leaked out, there was also an announcement by the Fox Network that Gleewould be holding auditions for three new roles to be introduced into the second season of the show. Such is the interest in these auditions that a multi-part television show about the process will be screened before the second series begins.
This spin-off programme will only add to the value of the Gleebrand. It is still not clear if the audition TV shows will be opened up to a public vote (à la X-Factor), but Murphy has said "anybody and everybody now has a chance to be on a show about talented underdogs. We want to be the first interactive comedy on TV."
It is not inconceivable that, if the live shows do as well as expected, then the current cast will stay on the road and be gradually replaced by a new bunch of actors in the TV programme.
With a presence not just on the singles and albums charts but soon also on the lucrative live touring circuit – as well as huge television viewing figures – Gleehas the potential to "multi-platform" its way across the entire entertainment sector. As Amy says, it sounds "the nuts".
Glee: the anti-Christian argument
Not just one of the most watched programmes on TV but also one of the most talked about, Gleeis now facing its first blast of negative publicity.
US media watchdog group the Parents Television Council has taken issue with the show, claiming that it is “sexually charged” and is unsafe for teenage viewing. The council found that one particular episode (Showmance) featured “a veiled reference to fellatio, a speech denouncing abstinence, simulated sex during a musical dance number, and premature ejaculation”.
Over at Time Magazinein an article headlined "The Gospel Of Glee – Is It Anti-Christian?", journalist Nancy Gibbs reported how she had heard a church minister describe the show as "anti-Christian". "It is easy to see his point if you look at the specifics," wrote Gibbs. "In his view, Gleeportrays Christians as phonies and hypocrites. He observed that the only self-identified Christian is the shiny blond Quinn, cheerleading president of the celibacy club, who is pregnant by one classmate but pretending the father is another.
“Meanwhile, the Glee Club director, Mr Schuester, is unhappily married to a perky little spider, which makes the adultery subplot involving him look positively charitable.
“The students lie, they cheat, they steal, they lust, they lace the bake-sale cupcakes with pot in order to give the student body a severe case of the munchies.
“Nearly all the Ten Commandments get violated at one point or another, while the audience is invited to laugh at people’s pain and folly and humiliation.”
Gibbs goes on to give the opposing point of view of the show, but it is perhaps the show’s collision of contemporary “edginess” with wholesome American values which gives it such a wide-ranging appeal.
It’s High School Musical with sex, drugs and (a capella) rock’n’roll.
