Horiwood's Blog

DAVID GEFFEN + THE POPE = $ MAKING OPPORTUNITY IN POP[E] “MUSIC”

David Geffen, that guy who you see eating at Dan Tanner’s in West Hollywood, and whose exec peeps have to dress like him in matching suit jackets, wants a share of the Catholic Church’s lucrative worldwide audience markets.

1 billion Catholics follow The Pope as the leader of their church. In fact the Catholic Church has as many followers as Indians from India and the Chinese in China. This means that The Pope leads 1/6th of the world’s population. The  dude has a huge audience.

Now, David Geffen has signed Pope Benedict XVI to release an album featuring prayers and litanies  in five languages. That’s some serious pimping for any pop star to accomplish, let alone a head priest.

The record is called, Alma Mater from Geffen Records. According to the little men in the matching David Geffen suit jackets, the pope has an “incredible voice.” That’s a bonus, as he is no Hugh Jackman in the looks department! Phewsh!

Alma Mater has 8 music tracks, with the remaining tracks being prayers. The Pope sings on one song. Although Geffen’s peeps are trying to say their interest is all about the brilliance of an original work of unusual music, you can’t help but think their eyeballs that would rather see $ signs rather than any sense of a God in the music, are making all of these fluffy statements with a charitable face, just for audience market dollars.

The PR spin that Geffen Records are releasing is that the album’s proceeds will enable underprivileged kids to get music education. Which means that … more choir boys are on their way! With Geffen’s involvement… you just know they are!

Oh, and that’s of course the profits for ‘music education’ only AFTER the hefty ‘producing fees and costs’ have been deducted from album sales that will be heavily be promoted within the Catholic Church’s networks.

Props to The Pope for being so ‘musically talented’ and entrepreneurial. Props to Geffen for following the money trail. One must give credit where credit is due, and I am sure it will be an interesting album. That’s all I can say about this venture, until we hear the new album which gets dropped on November 30th… of course, in time for Christmas sales. Ka-Ching!

All we need is Apple joining the party to sell this album on iTunes as well. iPope has arrived ya’ll. It certainly extends the genre of pop music to Pop[e] music!!! Very clever!

Pope Benedict XVI is already kind of very hip hop/ rock star mogul-ish… he has his own helicopter at his disposal, travels in limos a lot, makes live appearances to thousands… just like a pop star … ha ha! At least the talent is ready and prepared for his album to drop BIG!

I am surprised that Simon Cowell hasn’t tried to Susan Boyle him and try to sign The Pope to manage his music career and worldwide appeal, yet!!! I guess the Pope doesn’t need Cowell saying he had a melt down at his worldwide appeal, like Simon did with Susan Boyle. But, this is perfect for Simon Cowell’s brand and style of talent management too.

One question must be asked today, regardless of all of the ‘jokes in jest’ above… that question being:

Is the pope the new Michael Jackson of the album sales world? He looks set to be. Time will tell.