Until Coolfer read Malcolm Gladwell's recently released book "Blink," I had never heard of the artist Kenna. Gladwell painted a flattering picture of the artist. Record execs, artist managers and A&R reps all instantly fell over when they heard his music. M2 played his video. His live shows, often performed to a crowd who had never even heard of him, instantly converted the crowd into fans. He was signed to Columbia Records. Judging from the initial industry reaction, he wrote, Kenna the makings of a star.

I'd like to think that I know of and have heard of a lot of bands--even if I don't particularly like the music. I'm exposed to a lot of music every day, from all kinds of genres...but I completely missed Kenna. Nobody ever said to me, "Hey, you've gotta check out this record." Nobody ever asked me, "Do you know anything about this guy Kenna?" Considering the crowds in which I run, I'm honestly shocked that Kenna escaped my attention for this long.

So naturally I went straight to AllMusic.com to read the guy's bio and a review of his album, New Sacred Cow. Reviewer Bret Love gave it four stars and called it a "bizarre mixture of new wave, synth pop, and hip-hop."

Then I went to Rhapsody and listend to it. And liked it. A lot. It's an adventuous album, produced by the Neptunes' Chase Chad as if he were Butch Vig on acid--it's big, bold and clean, but filled with squelching synth riffs, flittering backing vocals, stoned beats and enough sonic surprises to keep the ears and mind very busy (if you really want to pay attention to the layers and handicraft behind the verses and choruses). Kenna has a voice that's a bit Peter Gabriel, a bit Andy Bell, a bit Simon Le Bon. His songs aspire to U2's uplifting, grandise themes, and he's one of the few pop artists to have Bjork's gift for putting melodies over a wide range of rhythms and time signatures. The lyrics are thoughtful, progressive, honest and political.

So why didn't Kenna break out and become a star like people thought he would? Gladwell wrote about how he didn't fit into a nice, clean radio-friendly format, and thus it rated poorly in market research. "His music was new and different" he wrote, "and it is the new and different that is always most vulnerable to market research." It's not because whatever's being rated is bad, but because it's new. The TV show "All in the Family" scored low in tests, Gladwell pointed out. So did "Mary Tyler Moore."

There's another reason why Kenna's sales are so low. It has to do with how different types of listeners will come to different conclusions about the same music. People taking part in market research won't come to the same conclusions as experts. As Gladwell wrote:

"The first impressions of experts are different. By that I don't mean that experts like different things than the rest of us--although that is undendiable. When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex. What I mean is that it is really only experts who are really able to account for their reactions."

What Gladwell meant is that experts are able to put into words why they do or don't like something. They have the vocabulary and the experience to judge in ways that non-experts cannot. (Much of the book is spent explaining how experts need only a split second to make a judgement about something.) Gladwell explained that the market research conducted on Kenna's music is a poor way to predict consumers' judgements on an artist like Kenna. A short clip of a new style of music might immediately excite an expert, but a typical listener would probably give it poor feedback. Also, people don't listen to short clips of songs. They listen to whole songs and whole albums. Only an expert can tell is a short amount of time if Kenna is any good or not. (A parallel would be something from the same chapter. Coke changed its recipe because Pepsi was beating it in taste tests. New Coke was a failure. Why? Mainly because people don't buy a soda and take one sip--they drink the entire can. Pepsi has a taste that is better suited to taste tests. Coke is better for the long haul.)

Underlining all of this is the extraordinary impact radio has on selling records. Albums that are truly different aren't good for the format. New Sacred Cow is at once many things and nothing in particular, which leaves it outside of the radio/market research comfort zone. It's souful, but it's not soul. It can rock out, but it's not rock music. It's got good beats, but it's hardly hip hop. It's danceable and laced with loops, but it will never be filed in the electronic section of a music store. If it were dance, or soul, or heavy metal, or whatever, the label would know its immediate market. It would know how to attack. (Do ads in these magazines, get airplay at those stations, give white labels to these DJs, play at those clubs.) Kenna's debut is just a pop album, and sometimes it can be hard to break a pop artist when he doesn't sound like any pop artist on the radio. Market research isn't going to be kind to that kind of pop artist, and without good market research scores, radio is going to be out of reach. Labels--at least the ones that depend heavily on commercial radio, like Columbia--won't risk it.

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