NOW is the time!!!
- Hans Ebert
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
A group of friends were asking me over lunch earlier this week about my thoughts regarding the music industry- there really isn’t one, at least not the way some of us might have known it to be- and specifically about the pop group Now United, managed by my longtime friend Simon Fuller, below, and the reasons for their somewhat short stay in Hong Kong.
It’s a complicated answer to what should have been a clean, crisp longtime success in the city and which turned into a botched up dim sum soufflé of everything and more that a well thought through marketing plan could have helped avoid.
Simon Fuller created the group in 2019 mainly for his three young daughters. Us fathers are extremely proud and protective of their daughters who will always be their “baby girls”.
and put them on pedestals through and shield them from everything that might harm them.
Having met Now United and their team a few times when they were in Hong Kong, it’s my opinion that the Hong Kong Jockey Club had no idea what they were working with and what to do with the group- a group that I had introduced to the HKJC along with the star power of Simon Fuller.
Now United were and are around 8-10 unpretentious and fun girls and a couple of boys from different parts of the world brought together by Simon to symbolise unity and friendship and pure joy.
He and I never discussed any of this because we have been in the business of music entertainment for a long time and know how to read the play, what each can bring to the table and to be objective.
We know how things work when everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and abhor decisions made by committee or researched to death and which is like the difference between Miles Davis and a sausage factory.
For example, I might enjoy the music and “brand personality” of Gorillaz, Talking Heads, the Beatles and Bob Dylan, but this didn’t stop me during my earliest days with EMI from cajoling the relatively unknown Danish pop group Michael Learns To Rock into recording in English a very well known hit sung in Mandarin and hugely successful in China for Hong Kong’s Jacky Cheung.
This recording, buoyed by its popularity in what was at the time the extremely important karaoke world, sold around six million units in the region in less than six months and which led to a massively successful tour of the region.
This is what A&R skills are all about and these were not available to the HKJC and whoever it was from their side that was managing the Now United project.
For example, with the Now United team including the world class choreographer Nicky Anderson who has worked with artists like Taylor Swift, Shakira and others, the idea to trot out the ubiquitous Canto Popster Aaron Kwok as some sorta guest “si fu” of Dance was puzzling.
By this time, I had bowed out of being involved in the project, because I really didn’t agree with where it was heading and really didn’t see where I might have fit in on this runaway train.
Nothing at all wrong with the music genre, but Now United has never tried to be Black Pink or jump on the K-Pop bandwagon.
Simon and I had spoken about there perhaps being a collaboration with PSY on a Dance Remix of his hit Gangham Style, and something which I still believe can work very well for the group.
Same with them covering the Sly and the Family Stone hit “Everyday People” and perhaps either of the Prince songs- “Raspberry Beret” or “Manic Monday”.
With the World Cup taking place and the HKJC positioning itself as “The Home Of Football”, I am not giving up on Now United donning jerseys of football teams from around the world and kicking a few musical goals.
Someone in Hong Kong really needs to give the city a conga line of World Cup fever and get pulses racing- and this could be Now United.
Meanwhile, I have written a song titled “Now Is Your Time”, which I found out is also the global theme for the Standard Chartered Bank, and there could possibly be some synchronicity here.
The song is not exactly “Strawberry Fields Forever”, but it is unadulterated Pop not dissimilar to what another Simon Fuller managed group SClub7 were recording and were about- young, fun and uncomplicated. And who amongst us are not into nostalgia and good times, and didn’t love SClub7?
I remember my daughter, below with Simon in Hong Kong last year, when fresh out of university, and working with the group.
I also remember watching the group in concert in London and seated next to Simon’s lovely mother. She very proudly told me about her son’s new partnership with British Telecom for enabling voting for contestants via texting for his television series “Pop Idol” and which became “American Idol”.
With Hong Kong still looking for a brand personality, why not have this come together through the diversity and unity of Now United and guests and musical storytelling about an amazing city waiting for a Wake Up call and partnering globally with Standard Chartered?
Why not indeed?
Just maybe, the time is now and everything that happened was leading up to this day and where the stars are more aligned?
Yes, I believe that NOW is the time.
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