September 24, 1998

Posted September 24, 1998

Today is the launch date for the Website pages [obsolete] I've built to promote Joni's new album on Reprise Records, Taming The Tiger. The site contains lyrics, paintings, photos, sound samples, fan reviews, credits, a contest, and more.

To answer a few questions I've been asked regarding TTT-

There will be no special package version of the album. This is regrettable, I believe, especially since Joni & her art director Robbie Cavolina won a Grammy for Best Packaging on Joni's last new studio album, Turbulent Indigo in 1994. The regular TTT package is quite beautiful though, and special in it's own right. It's stuffed with page after page of reproductions of Joni's paintings, all the lyrics (of course), and one terrific photo of one of her three cats stretching after napping on a very lovely and expensive-looking chest of drawers set beneath a skylight in Joni's home.

As to the single "The Crazy Cries Of Love," there will be no commercial release and certainly no video unless the song gets good radio airplay. I've been hearing reports that it's starting to get played around the country and in Canada but be sure to call your local radio stations and request that they play the song. And the album!

In the past, I've discussed how the Billboard album charts work, and the fact that SoundScan is a system they use to count CD sales and compute an album's position on the charts. These days, the position an album reaches in it's first week is almost always the highest position the album ever reaches- it's historical peak position. It is during that first crucial week that an artist's most dedicated fans are expected to run out to the store and buy it.

Ordinarily, for sales of Joni's albums, I would recommend and approve of buying from small mom and pop CD stores but unfortunately, these methods of purchasing TTT won't help Joni secure a high debut on the all-important Billboard charts.

What you need to do on Taming The Tiger's release day is to physically go to a large CD store that is a participant in the SoundScan method and purchase the album. If you don't buy TTT on it's first day in the stores, then you should purchase a copy during the first five or six days after its release, if you want to be counted in the album's first week sales numbers. Go to Tower, Virgin or another large chain store in your area. I'll be at my local Tower on September 29th, buying copies for myself and my friends- in both cassette and CD format, of course. Thanks, Joni-philes!