Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Taylor Swift's Platinum Prowess; The Secrets to Taylor's Swift's Success; Organizers Encourage Peaceful Protests; Bad Boys Survive to Win Re-Election

Aired November 06, 2014 - 16:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. The Money Lead now, she already had broken the record for the most hit songs bad mouthing an ex. Now Taylor Swift is celebrating yet another achievement.

In just one week, she sold 1.2 million copies of her new album "1989" making it the first of the year to go platinum. Now, you're probably thinking, wait the minute, the first of the year? Isn't it November? Isn't the year almost over?

Well, the date on the calendar only illustrates how tough it is these days for an artist to move that kind of volume and it's not just what Swift did, but the way she did it that has gotten the music industry so smitten.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): Just face it, you're done. This song will be in your head for the rest of the day. But here's some unshakeable news to remember. Along with Taylor Swift's lyrics, her album "1989", sold, sold, sold.

Here's a stunning statistic, Taylor Swift was responsible for 22 percent of all album sales in the nation last week. Hers is the first album in 2014 to breach the million marks nearly 1.3 million in total sales in just the first week to be precise.

That's equivalent twice the population of her beloved Nashville, Tennessee. Industry experts predicted "1989" would sell 650,000 the first week, Swift wrote on her Facebook page. You went and bought 1.287 million and it's got me like --

Swift should feel amazing. A platinum release is a big deal because with the growing popularity of streaming music sites and individual digital song sales --

To many experts, it seemed music fans were never, ever, ever getting back together with the idea of purchasing full albums.

According to "Billboard" magazine, overall album sales are down 13 percent this year even worse than the 8 percent plunge in sales the year before. Swift's special brand and the love/hate relationship it might invoke some adult fans --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like Taylor Swift. I know I don't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you do. You frigging love her.

TAPPER: Were just mocked by "Saturday Night Live."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Realizing you love Taylor Swift has become the leading cause of vertigo in adults. They are swift to me.

TAPPER: But streaming service Spotify is not laughing. The 24-year- old yanked her music from the online service earlier this week leaving 40 million users wondering --

But Swift is not being mean, industry experts say. She's being savvy, discouraging free streaming to help boost lucrative listening. Quote, "Music is art and art is important and rare," Swift recently wrote in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed.

"Important rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for." So as you hum this million dollar diddy the rest of the day, just realize being tempted to buy the rest of the album being Swift's plan is working.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: After news broke, Swift jokingly posted a throwback picture of herself on Facebook from 2002. That was the last year that an album sold as many copies as her current one did in a single week.

It was a little easier back in 2002. The music world has changed quite a bit in 12 years, 2002, when Swift was only 12 years old. In case, you didn't already feel like a dinosaur, the last album to pull this off was the Eminem show.

Joining me now is Christopher John Farley. He is the editor of "Wall Street Journal's" entertainment blog and author of the book, "Game World." Christopher, good to see you again.

That Eminem album came out before the iPod era, before Twitter and Instagram. Why has it taken so long to see this kind of success in the music industry? How was Swift able to do it?

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, EDITOR, WSJ ENTERTAINMENT BLOG "THE SPEEDEASY": Well, her album is kind of a throwback because of its sound invoking pop hits of yesteryear and it's also a throwback in the sales scoring the kinds of platinum numbers that we haven't seen in about a decade. And the reason is, you know, they say that sex sells.

In Taylor Swift's case, ex sells, that's without the "s." She's breaks up with boyfriend's songs about them and those songs bring her hits and not she's broken up with Nashville and with country music and turned that into a hit.

Part of her charm, part of the secret of her success is she turns her albums into events. She gives you reasons why you have to go out and you must buy this new album. In the past, she's done it by saying, this is an album I'm doing by myself. I'm writing all of the songs.

She had great duets and now with this album it's her first pop album and that gave people a reason to go out there and buy it and experience her music as if for the first time.

TAPPER: Now, we've seen other artists try to figure out how to negotiate this new, difficult world. Jay-Z and YouTube have teamed up with corporations for album promotions. Beyonce did her whole "no promotion" promotion.

And while those stunts helped, they didn't see Swift's level of success, why do you think her approach has been so much more successful?

FARLEY: One, she really takes a hands-on approach about her marketing. She's very visible in it. I remember when I interviewed her for her last album, I was surprised -- maybe not surprised, but interested to see that she really is the CEO of brand Taylor.

She takes as much interest and puts as much effort into the marketing of her music as she does into the writing of it. So for this new album, she formed some really smart partnerships with Target.

She is selling an album with extra tracks at Target, a smart promotion with Diet Coke, which helped sell her albums through the commercials. She was on Yahoo! streaming an early event to tell people that this album was coming.

That all these things helped to draw people to her album. Plus, her incredible presence on Twitter and Instagram, you saw the Instagram of her rapping along to a Kendrick Lamar track.

All of this makes people feel that they have a piece of her, they know her intimately and makes her more prone to want to go out there and buy one of her releases.

TAPPER: You said you met her. Quickly if you could, Christopher, you met her. You've spent time with her. How much of this is her steering the ship and how much is it her surrounding herself with some brilliant people? Not to take away from people who surround themselves with smart people. That's what I do, but is it really her as the CEO of this brand?

FARLEY: Sometimes when you talk to artists, they don't quite know what is happening with the marketing. They don't quite know what's going on with what singles will be released next. She was up on all the details. She knows what is going on because she seems to be directing the ship.

So I think she's the one in control, but she does have a very nimble record company. Big machine records as an independent national-based label and because I think she has a nimble record company, it allows her to move with social media, to navigate partnerships with different brands and to get her work out there.

I'm sure a lot of other artists today are saying, why can't I get a million hits like Taylor Swift have managed to pulled off three times with debuts and part of the reason why is they may be attached to major labels that can't quite move as swiftly as her label. No pun intended.

TAPPER: Fascinating. Christopher John Farley, thank you so much.

Coming up on THE LEAD, no need for tear gas when water bottles are flying. Protesters are looking for a little slack as Ferguson braces for a grand jury decision in the Michael Brown shooting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. The National Lead now, the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer had exposed some deep wounds about race and class in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in Missouri, wounds that in many cases have yet to heal.

We could learn any day now whether Darren Wilson, the officer involved in that shooting, will be or will not be indicted by a grand jury. Many worry that if he is not, we'll see a repeat or even perhaps an escalation of the chaos and looting and violence that unfolded in Ferguson in the days after Michael Brown was killed.

So in an effort to prevent another outbreak of violence, community organizers in Ferguson have presented what they call rules of engagement to police and prosecutors. They are asking for 48 hours' notice before any grand jury decision and for police to avoid wearing specialized riot gear.

They also want police to be more tolerant of what they call minor law breaking, such as water bottles getting thrown at officers. Joining me now is St. Louis Alderman Antonio French. He's been deeply involved in organizing these peaceful protests.

Alderman French, thanks for joining us. Let's start by talking about these so-called rules of engagement. Have you heard back from police or the prosecutor's office about whether they plan to go along with any of these requests?

ANTONIO FRENCH, ST. LOUIS ALDERMAN: So first, I haven't really been involved in any organizing of protests, but I've been supportive of the young people out here and the message they are trying to get across.

From what I understand, a request that has been submitted to the police, the unified command has been received and is being taken into consideration. I think many of them are very modest requests and done in a spirit of trying to keep the peace.

TAPPER: But you have not heard yet back. If these protest groups get a heads up, let's say, they go along with the 48 hours' heads up request, then what? What will be done to try to prevent any violence?

FRENCH: Yes, I think that's really good for everyone in the community. There's a lot of anxiety right now about what may or may not happen in the weeks to come, the days to come. I think it would be -- it would serve us all well to have a bit of notice so that we can have community partners engaged, schools can be notified.

In fact, superintendents have requested pretty much the same thing of the county prosecutor to give them a heads up. So as we all sit here on pins and needles waiting for this shoe to drop, I think it's good for law enforcement, the county prosecutor as well as citizens to be able to communicate to figure out how can we keep our community safe.

TAPPER: So protesters are asking police to tolerate -- maybe there's a better word for it -- things such as water bottles getting thrown at them. I mean, officers, don't they have to right to protect and defend themselves if someone starts throwing things at them?

FRENCH: Absolutely. I think officers definitely have a right to protect themselves. I think what protesters are asking for is for police not to overreact in the same way that we saw back in August where in a crowd of several hundred people, one individual may throw a bottle and police respond with rubber bullets and tear gas into entire crowds that included women and children.

So I think it's important to ask them not to overreact and to work with them as they try to keep the peace. Keep in mind, that there may be a few individuals out there who are not going to be peaceful and we need to work together to deal with them and to keep peace ultimately in our whole community.

TAPPER: Alderman French, just to be candid, it's unlikely that Officer Wilson is going to be indicted and I say that based not only on the leaks that have come out of the process, but also the fact that it's very difficult to indict a police officer in a he said/he said type of event.

What are you and other community organizers going to try to do in the next few days and weeks to try to make sure there's no more unnecessary violence, no more of what we saw on the streets in Ferguson in August?

FRENCH: Well, first, I don't boy that premise that there will definitely not be an indictment. I'm holding out hope because ultimately -- not because I'm prejudging the guilt of Mr. Wilson, but I know that the community right now needs an opportunity to have all of the evidence presented in a fair way with both sides to have an opportunity to lay out their cases and that can only be done in a trial.

I think that's what is going to be required to have long-term peace and to really do the healing we need to see. As for the violence, we want to stop violence on both sides. The folks out here are upset about the violence perpetrated against young African-Americans and rightfully everyone in the community does not like to see this over -- this anger-fueled violence that we saw a few weeks ago.

So we need to all work together, both community and police, to make sure that both in the short term and long term we are making our community more peaceful for everybody here. TAPPER: We are all hoping for peace. Alderman Antonio French, thank you so much.

Coming up in politics, sure they are hounded by personal scandals that have buried their political careers in the past but this is 2014. We can't let the other guy win. Are we so divided that morality doesn't matter anymore?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Some more politics now, in some ways, rooting for one sports team is hard to justify because, you know, the players are always changing and the team can pick up and move to another city. In some ways you're actually cheering for the cloaks.

Those are the words of the Jerry Seinfeld and that doesn't apply only to baseball or football. In today's red or blue political worlds, it's now clear that candidates can get away with the most hypocritical behavior, as long as they are wearing the right jerseys.

CNN national correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux, joins us now -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, is it a red? Is it a blue jersey? You'd be amazed at what some of these candidates have done or alleged to have done, still get elected anyway. And one of the most common tactics that they use, Democrats and Republicans alike are asking voters for redemption.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Voters are an awfully forgiving bunch. Just check out these guys, the midterm winners. The Republican doctor, who got one of his patients pregnant and then demanded she get an abortion. The federally indicted congressman who threatened to throw a reporter over a balcony or how about the ex-con who served four terms as Louisiana's governor now leading the pact to get his old job back? What is going on?

DAVID WASSERMAN, U.S. HOUSE EDITOR, "THE COOK POLITICAL" REPORT: As long as you're wearing the right colored jersey, it doesn't matter if you'll be wearing a jumpsuit in a couple of months. You still have a shot at winning a seat in Congress.

REP. SCOTT DESJARLAIS (R), TENNESSEE: We really appreciate this big win. It's nice to have a great margin of victory.

MALVEAUX: Congressman Scott Desjarlais is the pro-life Republican and doctor who slept with multiple patients, got one pregnant and demanded she and expecting wife get abortions, but he apologized. After all, who doesn't like a comeback?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. MALVEAUX: New York Congressman Michael Grime sealed his victory quoting Rocky, "To die as a fighter." No, really. The former Marine who faces a 20-count indictment was caught on tape threatening a reporter who dared to ask about it.

In Washington, D.C., Democrat William Kennedy Smith of the famous political Kennedy dynasty won his neighborhood commission seat. Smith had been tried and acquitted of rape in a televised trial during the '90s.

Louisiana's former governor, Edwin Edwards, who served nearly nine years for extortion campaigned on the slogan vote for the crook. It's important. Now he's in the lead heading into December's runoff.

California congressional candidate, Carl DeMaio is also still in the running. The San Diego councilman was dogged by accusations of sexual misconduct before being cleared. Holding a slim lead, he pleaded during the ballot count.

CARL DEMAIO (R), CALIFORNIA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I think all of us could use a break and just look at what the outcome is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So I do have to agree with him. We could all use a break from the shenanigans here, but not everybody gets a pass. Look at the case of the so-called kissing congressman. We are talking about Louisiana Republican Vance McCallister caught on tape making out with his scheduler.

But then he had his wife appear by his side saying, she was blessed to have a husband who owns up to his mistakes. Jake, he came in fourth. Not everybody is forgiven. I have a question for you. Do you think if any of these candidates were women, that they would have won?

TAPPER: I don't know, but I need to shower after that spot. Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I turn you over to Wolf Blitzer, in the Situation Room.

Wolf?