A group of American soldiers stationed at a military base in Afghanistan star in a lip-synced version of Lady Gaga’s hit “Telephone”. The video which began to spread online yesterday, can be viewed here. The video was the brainchild of Aaron Melcher, a soldier who graduated in 2004 from North Carolina’s Gramercy Christian School. After the video hit 5,000 views, a soldier who starred in the video posted a update on his Facebook wall: “5,000 views…I’m going to be Famous!!!”

Oddly enough, Runner Runner, featured in our Crystal Ball column has signed with start up label Clear Entertainment Music, funded by late-night talk show host David Letterman. Their debut album will be released this summer. The first single ‘So Obvious’ can be heard on myspace and falls between Jimmy Eat World and All Time Low. Contact: jrecor@gmail.com

The music business is a business of exceptions and certainly unpredictable. Would you ever guess that the 47 year old singer Susan Boyle would propel Simon Cowell to the 11th in the list of top British music millionaires?

Sunday Times Rich List Music Millionaires 2010 (Britain only)

1. Edgar Bronfman and family (1.64 billion pounds)
2. Clive Calder (1.3 billion pounds)
3. Andrew Lloyd-Webber (700 million pounds)
4. Cameron Mackintosh (635 million pounds)
5. Paul McCartney (475 million pounds)
6. Simon Fuller (350 million pounds)
7. Mick Jagger (190 million pounds)
8. Elton John (185 million pounds)
9. Sting (180 million pounds)
10. Keith Richards (175 million pounds)
11. Simon Cowell (165 million pounds)
12. Olivia and Dhani Harrison (160 million pounds)
13. Jamie Palumbo (150 million pounds)
14. David and Victoria Beckham (145 million pounds)
15. Tim Rice (140 million pounds)
15. Ringo Starr (140 million pounds)
17. Tom Jones (135 million pounds)
18. Eric Clapton (125 million pounds)
19. Roger Ames (120 million pounds)
20. Barry and Robin Gibb (110 million pounds)

Weekly Digital sales of the most popular songs..

Train ‘Hey, Soul Sister’ (158,600)
Rihanna ‘Rude Boy’ (124,425)
Ke$ha ‘Your Love Is My Drug (123,940)
Adam Lambert ‘Whataya Want From Me’ (100,288)
Christina Augilera ‘Not Myself Tonight’ (74,136)
The Script ‘Breakeven’ (67,118)
One Republic ‘All The Right Moves’ (55,098)
Muse ‘Uprising’ (21,377)
Train ‘Drops of Jupiter’ (12,517)
Journey ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ (15,376)
Bon Jovi ‘Livin On A Prayer’ (9,994)

Consumers are still buying CD’s, but that will soon come to an end. This is what CD sales look like – listed are weekly sales and the total.

Justin Bieber ‘My World 2.0’ This week (92,129) Total (767,983)
MGMT ‘Congratulations’ This Week (66,231) Total (66,796)
Lady Antebellum ‘Need You Now’ This week (65,318) Total (1,767,686)
Usher ‘Raymon v Raymon’ This Week (63,601) Total (486,058)
Coheed and Cambria ‘Year of The Black’ This Week (51,064)
Lady Gaga ‘Fame’ This Week (31,588) Total (3,213,017)
Ke$ha ‘Animal’ This Week (31,213) Total (599,506)
Sade ‘Soldier Of Love’ This Week (24,727) Total (1,099,527)

Even though CD sales are near its death, artists still have a viable financial career, more so than ever. For instance, Ke$ha only sold 600,000 physical CD’s, but she sold over 7 Million digital singles. She will make her money via product placement, touring, publishing etc. There is a lot of money left on the table for an artist with a hit song.

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Email Dean@kingsofar.com with new music along with your myspace link for consideration.

Check out the track Why’s It So Hard by Gabrielle Baty. She is currently writing songs with R&B artist Michael Warren (Atlantic Records, Kings of A&R). Gabrielle has over 600,000 views on YouTube. Contact: thinkcreativemm@gmail.com, danielrfriedman@mac.com