[Argos]

Originally Posted by mulder

She can do as many or as few gigs as she wants to. What you want is irrelevant.

The result is not irrelevant. A stuttering project may not work anywhere. Matter of opinion of course!(until time tells...)

Originally Posted by mulder

Writing songs is easy, writing good songs is more difficult.

If a team is talented they can write a good song in a reasonable amount of time. That's the very purpose of a music project. Well, you can prove me wrong anytime. For at least two years the team knows that tatu is over and that they have to create something for the Katina project. Time enough for two or three songs with hit potential. My hope is still that they didn't reveal their best ones, but honestly, I don't see a reason for that.

Originally Posted by mulder

I hope you never go into band management, as you don't seem to have grasped the way things are done. Remember the idea is to make money...

Thanks for the advice! I'll try to keep away. Anyway, in full approval of your profound knowledge of the music business I dare to bet that this will soon bring your project to the end of the line. I can't remember a manager trying to make money with his project before he has a solid package, with a clear profile, some good songs and a well developed unique sound. You can tell me that you can build a house from the roof down to the basement, but I won't believe until I have seen it.

About the tatu songs in her concerts: There is (in principle) nothing to say against Lena using them in her concert. The tricky point is the choice and the amount. She can use any of the third album, it's practically not released outside Russia and therefore can even be treated as if the songs were written for Lena. To some degree the same goes for the second album, if she leaves the hit song(s) alone. Hardly anybody outside the tatu community will recognize that it's not genuinely Katina. The songs of the first album ARE known and exactly that can cause trouble. The tatu songs she performs are all considerably "better" than her own new songs (you may of course see the quality of the new songs different, but that's my own impression, and not only mine), even the best ones simply can't compete, they go under. Professional people, who know the origin of the songs, will immediately recognize this and come to the conclusion that the entire project is based on tatu's creative work alone, and you won't get support from them, which is the last thing you want to achieve (seen from the viewpoint of an incompetent never will be band manager).

Seeing that the gigs had much to do with tatu fan service, I would nevertheless choose less songs from the tatu past and at least partly avoid the top hits because of too much competition for my own new songs. I think somewhat smaller gigs or some covers of other artists' work are no bad alternatives.

Originally Posted by mulder

I don't really want to get into tedious arguments about this, it's just that I think everyone should give Lena a chance to establish herself before condemning her as useless, when she hasn't even released her first solo album.

We have to see Katina different from a typical band in it's embryo stage. A local group soon has it's 200 fans going to their concerts and giving their support, they have local media behind them and they can mostly get some friend of the local music business. Good chances for development. Even with some big mistakes they can build their project over time and at some time may become successful.

With a foreign project, where the main figure doesn't live at the point, where they start and develop the business, it's different. The option of slowly developing the project is way too expensive and your time in the foreign country is limited. I see no other way than have the right package complete and launch with a good amount of noise. Veni - vidi - vici, if everything goes well. Not knowing the huge American scene I can't remember an artist working outside the USA, English being not his first language, and working slowly to the top or at least to some point of common recognition. I can't imagine this can ever work outside your home country.

My biggest concern is the image. I will never understand why they dropped the idea from the beginning, this unusual style from the start of her own website, I guess everybody loved it. It's something different and it feeds your imagination. You can develop (almost) anything on top of that, you are not limited as it was with the tatu image. But we got Lena clothed as boring as possible, with blue gloves (oh my God, what a great idea - making strange hand moves with blue gloves - a genius who made this up!). Of course there are some acts who can live with the image of the girl next door, but unfortunately next door is more than 10.000 miles away, and therefore not a credible image.

Add to this weak image and style a girl with anything but a firm voice, no self-assuredness nor individuality in appearance, no new song with hit potential, a sound which doesn't stand out (so that people immediately identify and see apart from other groups), no message (in songs, appearances, media releases, interviews etc...) whatsoever, the highlights being the oldest hits from the former group, nothing what defines a clear and assertive Lena Katina profile, which can be sold, and you are satisfied with the development over two years of working on the project? In my old-fashioned dilettante view of showbiz I don't see a pivot for an international career with prospect, not without considerable changes.

I want to see a successful Lena Katina (at least to a reasonable degree) and not a project which stumbles from fiasco to fiasco, as the tatu project did since 2007. It's no fun to see a project you follow with interest and sympathy either be ignored or ridiculed everytime someone writes an article.