Season 12 finalists Noma Khumalo and Thami Shobede
With the Idols 12 finale coming up this Sunday (27 November), we thought it would be a perfect time to find out who the best selling South African Idols winners are.
We called up our buds in the music industry to get the goss and this is what we've discovered:
The best sellers
South Africa's first Idol Heinz Winckler and Season 6 winner Elvis Blue are the two best selling winners of the series.
Heinz is the best seller at Sony Music, who were the official recording label for the show from Seasons 1 to 5 and Elvis is the biggest seller at Universal Music, who replaced Sony from Seasons 6 to 11.
Here's a rundown of the winners to shake your memory:
Season 1: Heinz Winckler
Season 2: Anke Pietrangeli
Season 3: Karen Nortje
Season 4: Jody Abrahams
Season 5: Jason Hartman and Sasha-Lee Davids
Season 6: Elvis Blue
Season 7: David van Vuuren
Season 8: Khaya Mthethwa
Season 9: Musa Sukwene
Season 10: Vincent Bones
Season 11: Karabo Mogane
Reading the numbers on Heinz
According to Sony Music, Heinz has sold over 172,000 units with the label since the release of his winner's album in 2002.
He's released a total of eight albums since then, starting with four albums with Sony between 2002 and 2006. In 2007 he went overseas to perform in the touring production of Rent so he didn't renew his contract with them.
He returned to South Africa in 2009 and signed a deal with Select Musiek for three Afrikaans albums, which he released between 2009 and 2014. During this time, Select Musiek joined up with Sony - as the label's Afrikaans music division - which means that Heinz ultimately released seven albums with Sony.
TVSA spoke to Heinz who confirmed the numbers and told us that he left Select Musiek/Sony after his third Afrikaans album to pursue his independence. In August this year he released his first independent album The Roar, which was partly funded through crowd funding.
It's a Christian album which he recorded in Nashville and the tracks on it belong to him. This is why he left Sony because he wanted the independence of owning his tracks.
Reading the numbers on Elvis
Universal Music wasn't able to give us the number of total units that Elvis has sold overall - it's against their policy -
but they were able to give us the skinny on how his albums have performed when it comes to their gold/platinum status, which gives insight into the numbers.
Elvis has released five solo albums since his win in 2006 and two of them have gone platinum and two have gone gold. His winner's album Elvis Blue sold 50,000 units and went platinum, and his second album The Journey went gold.
He released two Afrikaans albums after these: Afrikaans (in 2013) and Êrens in die Middel Van Nêrens (2015) - one of these went gold and the other platinum.
He released his fifth album Optics in June this year and it's on the way to gold.
Flash fact!
Gold and platinum sales struck by piracy
Piracy has had such an impact on how albums are classified that the required numbers for gold and platinum have been reduced by RISA in the past two years.
Right now, artists need to sell 15,000 copies to reach gold and 30,000 copies for platinum - for albums released after 1 December 2015.
Before this date, artists needed to sell 20,000 copies for gold and 40,000 copies for platinum.
Elvis maths
Four of Elvis's albums were released before 1 December 2015 so this is an estimate of his album sales to date:
Album title: Elvis Blue
Release year: 2010
Status: Platinum
Units: 50,000
Album title: Journey
Release year: 2012
Status: Gold
Units: 20,000
Album titles: Afrikaans and Êrens in die Middel Van Nêrens
Release year: 2013 and 2015
Status: Gold and platinum
Units: 60,000
With his latest album on the way to gold, you can safely say that he's sold over 130,000 units.
The big drop in album sales between Elvis and current winners
These numbers raise the crucial question of what's going on now? Why have more recent winners disappeared as quickly as they arrived?? This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent with the winners of the latest seasons.
It's been a year since Karabo Mogane won Season 11 yet his winner's album hasn't reached gold yet.
Why is this happening??
You could jump to the conclusion that viewers have grown weary of the show after so many seasons and aren't interested in the winners anymore but the TV ratings strongly suggest otherwise.
Idols made the Top 3 on Mzansi Magic in the
October ratings, attracting over a million viewers for its most popular episode so there's no issue with viewership.
Here's why...
TVSA caught up with Universal Music's Head of A&R Kevin Grenfell to pick his brain on reasons. We chatted to him shortly after The Voice finale in June this year, before the split between Universal and Idols.
Gallo Music has replaced Universal as Idols' official record label this season so they have their work cut out for them.
If Elvis Blue has sold so many albums, why hasn't the same happened for other Idols, especially the most recent ones? These are answers that Kevin shared with us:
Timing
The show airs so late in the year that there's no time to properly promote the winner once they've won because everything shuts down for the festive. This impacts on their recording of their album too.
Last year the Idols finale was also at the end of November and the recording of Karabo's album was crammed into 11 days, which Kevin believes isn't fair on any of the parties involved. And we agree.
The album had to be rushed and was released just before Christmas, after most people had already done their festive shopping.
The promotion of the album suffered because everyone was on holiday already - the media are on a go-slow and everyone is distracted. According to Kevin, Universal do all their ordering for Christmas in August already which makes it very difficult to get the winner's albums into stores.
Kevin: What we’ve noticed over the past years with Vincent, Musa and Karabo is that the show was finishing and it didn’t feel like there was physically time to get an album out.
It was a phenomenal achievement to record Karabo's album in 11 days but we have to ask ourselves the question: if we had given ourselves five or six weeks, could we have done a better quality album?
When Elvis won his season, the show ended at the start of November, he released his album a month after winning and it reached gold status within 28 days.
Christmas comes and goes and then...
...everyone's already focusing on the auditions for the next season of Idols. If the winner's album was too late to make a huge splash before Christmas, then it's very easy for them to be forgotten in the new year.
The same situation arises if the record label waits and releases the winner's album in the new year instead.
Kevin: You get to the end of January and people are getting into the swing of things and by the time we get around to getting an album out you’re looking at March/April. By the time you get there, auditions are already happening for the new season.
The show really hasn’t been on the side of the artists - the show is what it is and it’s an amazing platform but the time frame to allow an artist to work on a quality album seems to have got less and less.
Ultimately it's clear that the timing of show is a huge factor in the current state of affairs.
Limited radio airplay
The time of year also impacts in terms of how much airplay the winner gets at the beginning of the year, particularly in relation to the influential Metro FM and their annual awards.
Because their awards happen at the start of the year, the station focuses on the nominees which means that the Idols winners don't get a lot of airplay.
Work ethic and tours
According to Kevin, Elvis Blue is a workaholic who puts massive amounts of energy into touring, which has kept him relevant over time and present in people's minds.
Kevin: "He’s probably the hardest working artist that I’ve ever come across. If he’s got three shows in 48 hours he will literally drive from the Northern Cape to wherever from wherever. If he has to drive through the night he’ll do it. He’ll set up, do a gig, drive somewhere else - he literally does what needs to be done.
His sales show it and his touring schedule shows it. His current touring schedule… he’s averaging between five and six shows a week - it’s unheard of.
The genre of the winner's songs
With Elvis it was very clear what type of artist he was. The genre of music that he sang on the show was very similar to the albums that he released afterwards but the same hasn't happened with recent winners. For some of them, the genre of their albums have straddled between being contemporary pop and and adult contemporary urban and they've ended up in the middle of nowhere.
Too much focus on other singers on the live shows
Kevin didn't mention this but it's one our big gripes. The professional guest performers on the live shows shouldn't be there! They're taking attention away from the Idols when they need every bit of spotlight they can get.
The show should be using the time to help audiences grow even closer to them through additional interviews with them, catch-ups with their family and friends and other intimate inserts. The time should be spent on
them instead of other singers who upstage them.
Decline in retailers
Another factor that's added to the situation is that retailers have declined substantially over the past few years.
Kevin: "When Elvis came out there were a lot more retailers to deal with. We had Look n’ Listen and chain stores like CNA and there were a lot of smaller, independent stores. Sadly most of those have gone. Now all there is is basically Musica and iTunes."
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And so, as we move on to our 12th winner we ask: what will his or her story be?
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Please note: These numbers don't include the album sales of winners who've moved to other record labels after their win.