Knighthoods Are Nice, but SoundScan Rules

By STEVE HOCHMAN

Sept. 26, 1999 12 AM PT

Elton John’s a knight of the realm. Geri Halliwell went from being Ginger Spice to being named a United Nations special ambassador. And Jesse Camp . . . well, we’re still not sure what he is.

But they have one thing in common. The albums they released this year with huge promotional blitzes and eyes on big summer sales wound up the season’s biggest fizzles, swept aside by a new generation of teen idols and rockers.

* John’s “Aida,” which reunited the singer with “The Lion King” collaborator Tim Rice, was poised as a multi-format dominator, chock-full of guest vocalists from LeAnn Rimes to Boyz II Men--not to mention the momentum of John’s record-shattering reworking of “Candle in the Wind.”

Total U.S. sales for this sure thing, according to SoundScan: just 163,000.

“The songs I heard were so deathly slow that it was painful to listen,” says one radio programmer, who asked that his name not be used.

* Halliwell’s departure from the Spice Girls was a little rough, but she earned a measure of credibility with the U.N. appointment and showed relative poise in interviews before the release of her solo debut, “Schizophonic.”

Her U.S. total: 146,000.

“It’s just baggage and timing,” says Michael Steele, music director of L.A. pop radio station KIIS-FM (102.7). “I liked the music. But there’s too much baggage being a former Spice Girl. And at the same time, she’s older and competing with the Britney Spearses of the world, and this summer the teen queens reigned.”

* Those two look like spectacular successes next to Camp’s “Jesse & the 8th Street Kidz.” Not that expectations were multi-platinum huge, but after all, his MTV ubiquity inspired Hollywood Records to give him a reported three-album deal and set him up with such respected ringers as Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen to craft his youth-targeted rock.

The payoff: a mere 9,600. Yes, only two zeros.

“Hollywood thought that here was the perfect record for 15-year-old boys,” says Steele. “But it turned out that his biggest fans from MTV were 15-year-old girls, and they didn’t like this music, while boys thought he was a fraud.”

Other fizzles, as compared to expectations, included the Cranberries’ “Bury the Hatchet” (284,000) and Blackstreet’s “Finally” (383,000).

And a new release is already being cast into the pile by radio programmers and retailers: Puff Daddy’s “Forever.”