Though this is my first attempt at blogging (asides from my "members access only" blog at the Carrie Underwood website), this is far from my first experience at publishing something on the internet. Way back in 1998, a then little known singer from Marietta, Georgia named Jennifer Paige made a huge splash on the Top 40 charts with the infectious single, "Crush." I really felt like I was in the right place at the right time as "Crush" made it into the hands of my local top 40 station, KIIS FM a few weeks prior to the rest of the country. "Crush" quickly rose to #1 on the KIIS playlist and eventually reached #2 on the Radio & Records pop chart and #3 on Billboard's pop chart... As I followed Jennifer's progress on the charts, I soon noticed that she didn't have any sort of presence on the internet... I wondered how could someone so talented and with such a GREAT song could not have her own site on the www... Soon thereafter, I decided to take the bull by the horns and created the first Jennifer Paige website on the internet: "John's Jennifer Paige Page."
On my Jennifer Paige page, I tried to keep things as current as possible, often updating the site twice a day. I wasn't really looking to get anything out of it personally - I just was wanting to promote a singer who I really enjoyed listening to. Traffic on my site was slow at first, but as "Crush" went from being a local hit here in L.A. to a nationwide and then international smash, traffic began to grow by leaps and bounds... At one point I was receiving over 100 hits a day! I also soon began to get eMails from all over the world! Needless to say, I really enjoyed all of the positive feedback. What I didn't know is that Jennifer herself was enjoying the website and loving the fact I kept it so current. Thanks to her, I have to confess I became a quite proficient Googler. It wasn't long before people that knew her personally including her Mom and Joe Middler of her first band, Joe's Band, got in touch with me. Soon, her Mom was sending me personally autographed items and even promotional stuff! I even got to eventually meet Jennifer herself in September of 1999 as she performed at the Fairplex in Pomona... that was quite the memorable experience!
While "Crush" looked like it would make Jennifer Paige a household name, somehow it didn't... Her self-titled debut album did well enough to almost go GOLD, but her 2000 follow-up album, "Positively Somewhere," didn't sell well in spite of it having a lot of depth and great material. Most of us in the know will tell you that Hollywood Records, Jennifer's old record company, would be the one to blame for her not achieving the success we envisioned. To me, it just seemed like they never knew how to promote her. "Positively Somewhere" had a couple of REALLY great songs on it that could have done well here on the charts: "Stranded" and "Here With Me." Instead, Hollywood chose to release the much less melodic "These Days" as the first single - it barely managed to crack the top 50 here in the States. "These Days" would be the only song released here in the States as a single off of her second CD.
It's 2007, and finally the long awaited third studio album by Jennifer is in the works. It's called "Best Kept Secret," and it will be hitting the stores sometime this year. I hope that this album will be the one to make Jennifer a household name everywhere. She's a great person as well as a talented artist... for more info on her, you can go to the following:
Jennifer Paige on Wikipedia
Jennifer Paige's official website
Jennifer Paige's personal Myspace page
Jennifer Paige fansite in both English and Spanish
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One last thing for today - my brother-in-law's father, Charles, is going in for triple bypass heart surgery today. If you all could keep him in your thoughts and prayers it would be greatly appreciated.
1 comment:
you're right john,after i just heard stranded,i'm fall in love with a girl who sang that song,yeah she is soooo soo great and talented,i'm not knowing her at 1998,because that time i dont have cable tv :(,but believe me folks,she the among great singer and better then other (i meant like britney...ewww...)anyway jen have to begun promote her latest stuff,after all why not she come to asia and i think there's a lot of her fans waiting for her,anyway john always looking forward for this,i hope you will sing Stranded with me...huhu..until then..seeyaa
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