What KT Did Next
She was the overnight sensation ten years in the making. As she prepares to make her way to Sligo Live KT Tunstall talks about how it’s getting ever harder to sell records, speaking her mind about Shakira and being splashed all over the tabloids.
Ed Power, 14 Oct 2011
KT Tunstall was reading about Adele the other day when she made a surprising discovery. “Adele has had number one albums on other planets, that’s how much of a success she is,” says the Scottish singer. “And she’s sold 3.5 million albums.”
She can’t quite bring herself to say ‘only’ 3.5 million but you get the point. Tunstall’s 2004 debut Eye To The Telescope shifted 4.5 million units whilst enjoying a zillionth of the exposure Adele’s 21 has received. Not that she’s grumbling – she’s never particularly enjoyed being famous in the first place. Her point is that the music industry has changed so much this past half decade that nowadays a record can sell less than four million copies and still move the cultural dial in a profound way.
Tunstall has been ruminating on the subject of LP sales a great deal recently, for the understandable reason that her latest long player, Tiger Suit, was – as she admits – rather a flop. On the heels of two chart-topping albums, the record barely scraped the UK top five (in Ireland it flat-out died, only reaching number 33). This was bittersweet as Tunstall believes it is by some distance the most interesting thing she’s yet done. Musicians are always making such claims for whatever product they’re currently flogging. In her case you sense she genuinely means it.
“That’s the way the industry is,” she shrugs. “People say that if you sell a million records now, it’s the same as doing ten million ten years ago. And anyway, sales have never been a source of joy for me in terms of my music. It’s really who’s turning up at your shows, what people are saying about it. The fans have been great. They’ve come with me to this slightly new place. That’s all I want.”
In 2004, Tunstall was a struggling unknown, recently turned 30 and facing into a lifetime of thankless support slots and toilet circuit gigs. Then she was invited to fill-in for rapper Nas at the last minute of Later... With Jools Holland. Seizing the moment by the lapels, she stormed the show with the loop-driven blues belter ‘Black Horse And The Cherry Tree’ and promptly became the year’s biggest-selling overnight sensation.
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