MercyMe is set to perform their top 5 hit single "Shake" on NBC's The Today Show April 22.
The "Shake" music video has had nearly 2 million views on several video platforms. Fans of the band have been using the hashtag #MMShake to share their own videos and responses via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
MercyMe's New Release Is Welcomed to the Top 5
The unstoppable soundtrack to Disney's "Frozen" continues its run atop the Billboard 200 a 10th nonconsecutive week at No. 1. It sold 133,000 copies in the week ending April 13 down 11 percent.
The album’s cumulative sales also climb past the 2 million mark, as its additional 133,000 copies bring its to-date sum to 2.1 million.
"Frozen" is now one of just 11 albums to have spent at least 10 weeks at No. 1 since the chart started using SoundScan's point-of-sale data on May 25, 1991. Four of those 11 albums also happen to be soundtracks: “Frozen,” Whitney Houston's "The Bodyguard" (20 weeks at No. 1), "Titanic" (16 weeks) and "The Lion King" (10 weeks).
In addition, "Frozen" now ties "The Lion King" for the most weeks at No. 1 for an animated film soundtrack.
At No. 2 on the latest Billboard 200 is Pharrell's "G I R L," which rebounds seven slots with 29,000. During the week, Pharrell performed on ABC's "Good Morning America," was profiled on CBS' "Sunday Morning" and he performed on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" on April 5.
MercyMe earns the chart's highest debut, as the group's "Welcome to the New" arrives at No. 4 with 26,000. It's the third top 10 effort for the act — and third in a row — following "The Hurt & the Healer" (No. 7 in 2012) and "The Generous Mr. Lovewell" (No. 3 in 2010).
On the Christian Albums chart, the new album gives MercyMe its eighth No. 1.
The album’s cumulative sales also climb past the 2 million mark, as its additional 133,000 copies bring its to-date sum to 2.1 million.
"Frozen" is now one of just 11 albums to have spent at least 10 weeks at No. 1 since the chart started using SoundScan's point-of-sale data on May 25, 1991. Four of those 11 albums also happen to be soundtracks: “Frozen,” Whitney Houston's "The Bodyguard" (20 weeks at No. 1), "Titanic" (16 weeks) and "The Lion King" (10 weeks).
In addition, "Frozen" now ties "The Lion King" for the most weeks at No. 1 for an animated film soundtrack.
At No. 2 on the latest Billboard 200 is Pharrell's "G I R L," which rebounds seven slots with 29,000. During the week, Pharrell performed on ABC's "Good Morning America," was profiled on CBS' "Sunday Morning" and he performed on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" on April 5.
MercyMe earns the chart's highest debut, as the group's "Welcome to the New" arrives at No. 4 with 26,000. It's the third top 10 effort for the act — and third in a row — following "The Hurt & the Healer" (No. 7 in 2012) and "The Generous Mr. Lovewell" (No. 3 in 2010).
On the Christian Albums chart, the new album gives MercyMe its eighth No. 1.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Disney Is Tolerant of Many Things in Its Movies... Except Religion... 'Frozen' Songwriters Reveal
The husband and wife team behind the Oscar-winning Frozen said on Thursday that while Disney is open to bringing songwriters from diverse backgrounds, religion is the only thing that they have seen censored since they have worked there.
Speaking on NPR's Fresh Air show, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez told host Terry Gross that some of the preconceptions outside of the industry folks might have about Disney may not be exactly true.
"Disney is not this sanitized place that you might imagine it to be. I mean, they hired Ashman and Menken after they did "Little Shop of Horrors," which was sort of the Avenue Q of its day. It was very campy and very kind of...a little off-color and racy. And I don't think Disney has any problem with employing people who have done off-color stuff in the past," Lopez, who co-wrote the satirical Book of Mormon, said.
Anderson-Lopez noted, "It's funny. One of the only places you have to draw the line at Disney is with religious things, the word God."
"Yeah. You just can't," agreed her husband.
A confused Gross followed up with her guests, asking "You can't say the word 'God'?"
Lopez hesitated, "There was even a... well, you can say it in Disney, but you can't put it in the movie," which his wife affirmed.
While Lopez and Anderson-Lopez refused to elaborate about Disney's religiosity, they freely shared about their inspiration for 'Let It Go.'
"Basically when this song came to us, we were on a little stroll through Prospect Park in Brooklyn near our house, and we both started to sort of improv what Elsa might be feeling like. So we stood up on picnic tables," said Lopez.
"We got very emo," continued Anderson-Lopez. "You know, we had been listening - we decided we didn't want this song to be a traditional Disney princess song."
"And actually it was Bobby who kept saying I feel like if I were a high school student, that this would be that moment that you had worked, and you'd studied, and you hadn't gone out, and then you just failed a test miserably. And what would that feel like? And he came up with the line," she added.
Gross later joked that parents "would probably prefer that their children sing [singing] 'hold it in, hold it in...'Like hold it back because sometimes you don't want kids to let it go because they're just going to be - they're so crazy as it is. Do you know what I mean? Like you want them to have a little bit of inhibition."
Anderson agreed with Gross' point but suggested a different message for the song that she saw as one she would share with her two children, who also sing on the Frozen soundtrack.
"That's true, but I think at the end of the day, letting - getting the message of don't allow fear or shame to keep you from being the person you should be, I imagine on a global level that's a good lesson for them to have before teenager-hood. If they've been living with fear and shame, and then it's really going to hit the fan."
Speaking on NPR's Fresh Air show, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez told host Terry Gross that some of the preconceptions outside of the industry folks might have about Disney may not be exactly true.
"Disney is not this sanitized place that you might imagine it to be. I mean, they hired Ashman and Menken after they did "Little Shop of Horrors," which was sort of the Avenue Q of its day. It was very campy and very kind of...a little off-color and racy. And I don't think Disney has any problem with employing people who have done off-color stuff in the past," Lopez, who co-wrote the satirical Book of Mormon, said.
Anderson-Lopez noted, "It's funny. One of the only places you have to draw the line at Disney is with religious things, the word God."
"Yeah. You just can't," agreed her husband.
A confused Gross followed up with her guests, asking "You can't say the word 'God'?"
Lopez hesitated, "There was even a... well, you can say it in Disney, but you can't put it in the movie," which his wife affirmed.
While Lopez and Anderson-Lopez refused to elaborate about Disney's religiosity, they freely shared about their inspiration for 'Let It Go.'
"Basically when this song came to us, we were on a little stroll through Prospect Park in Brooklyn near our house, and we both started to sort of improv what Elsa might be feeling like. So we stood up on picnic tables," said Lopez.
"We got very emo," continued Anderson-Lopez. "You know, we had been listening - we decided we didn't want this song to be a traditional Disney princess song."
"And actually it was Bobby who kept saying I feel like if I were a high school student, that this would be that moment that you had worked, and you'd studied, and you hadn't gone out, and then you just failed a test miserably. And what would that feel like? And he came up with the line," she added.
Gross later joked that parents "would probably prefer that their children sing [singing] 'hold it in, hold it in...'Like hold it back because sometimes you don't want kids to let it go because they're just going to be - they're so crazy as it is. Do you know what I mean? Like you want them to have a little bit of inhibition."
Anderson agreed with Gross' point but suggested a different message for the song that she saw as one she would share with her two children, who also sing on the Frozen soundtrack.
"That's true, but I think at the end of the day, letting - getting the message of don't allow fear or shame to keep you from being the person you should be, I imagine on a global level that's a good lesson for them to have before teenager-hood. If they've been living with fear and shame, and then it's really going to hit the fan."
Rick Santorum's Film Company to Release Movies to Churches Instead of Theaters
Former Senator Rick Santorum's film company announced on Monday that it would be distributing its movies not through the traditional box office but through churches.
EchoLight Studios, which released last year's adaptation of Max Lucado's The Christmas Candle, told Deadline that the studio made the decision as a strategic attempt to draw the masses into churches.
"We want to be a part of empowering the church to elevate its role as a cultural change agent," EchoLight President Studios Jeff Sheets said in a statement. "Our vision is not to create sermons wrapped in a movie but to create content that inspires, fascinates and incorporates a strong Christian worldview."
The Franklin, TN-based studio, which intends to release four films a year, wants both the film's message and financial profits to support churches. Consequently, EchoLight hopes to create movies which can also have a "strong ministry value as tools for the Church to use in their in-reach and outreach ministries," whose proceeds will partially "fuel the missional needs of the hosting local church."
Tickets for the studio's next film, One Generation Away, will go on sale on June 1. The studio will also re-release The Christmas Candle, which grossed $2 million over seven weeks last winter. Later this year, EchoLight will also release Hoovey, directed by Sean McNamara, who was also behind the camera in Soul Surfer.
Hoovey, starring Patrick Warburton and Lauren Holly and includes Disney Channel alums Cody Linley and Alyson Stoner, is based on the true story of a high school basketball player Eric Hoover Elliott diagnosed with a massive brain tumor.
EchoLight Studios, which released last year's adaptation of Max Lucado's The Christmas Candle, told Deadline that the studio made the decision as a strategic attempt to draw the masses into churches.
"We want to be a part of empowering the church to elevate its role as a cultural change agent," EchoLight President Studios Jeff Sheets said in a statement. "Our vision is not to create sermons wrapped in a movie but to create content that inspires, fascinates and incorporates a strong Christian worldview."
The Franklin, TN-based studio, which intends to release four films a year, wants both the film's message and financial profits to support churches. Consequently, EchoLight hopes to create movies which can also have a "strong ministry value as tools for the Church to use in their in-reach and outreach ministries," whose proceeds will partially "fuel the missional needs of the hosting local church."
Tickets for the studio's next film, One Generation Away, will go on sale on June 1. The studio will also re-release The Christmas Candle, which grossed $2 million over seven weeks last winter. Later this year, EchoLight will also release Hoovey, directed by Sean McNamara, who was also behind the camera in Soul Surfer.
Hoovey, starring Patrick Warburton and Lauren Holly and includes Disney Channel alums Cody Linley and Alyson Stoner, is based on the true story of a high school basketball player Eric Hoover Elliott diagnosed with a massive brain tumor.
Tamela Mann to Perform on The View
Grammy nominated vocalist Tamela Mann will appear on ABC's The View Tuesday, April 22. In celebration of co-host Sherri Shepherd's birthday, Tamela will perform her hit "Take Me To The King" for her friend and millions nationwide.
"Sherri is a dear friend, and I'm thrilled to be a part of her special day," said Tamela. "It's going to be a big celebration and time of fellowship, and I'm honored to be able to share my music with the ladies of The View and people across the country."
"Sherri is a dear friend, and I'm thrilled to be a part of her special day," said Tamela. "It's going to be a big celebration and time of fellowship, and I'm honored to be able to share my music with the ladies of The View and people across the country."
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