Claymate Enters Billboard Contest To Write Clay Aiken Concert Review?

The Claymates are enraptured by a positively glowing review of Clay Aiken’s recent concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, written by Dave Chung, whom they believe to be an official reviewer for Billboard magazine. His review is posted on Billboard’s “Mobile Beat Blog”:

http://billboard.blogs.com/mobile_beat/

” WELCOME TO THE MOBILE BEAT BLOG!
Hundreds of live shows, 26 bloggers, 17 cities, one summer. Billboard.com has turned over this concert season to a small army of our readers. Armed with a blogging-ready LG camera phone, who will come up with the coolest coverage of live summer? Come back often to check out their latest photos and reviews and you judge.“

Here is his review:

http://billboard.blogs.com/mobile_beat/post_DC.html

On reading this review, it becomes clear immediately that the writer, Dave Chung, is a Clay Aiken fan (who owns Clay’s CD’s) and a reader who recently won one of the 26 spots as amateur reviewer by entering the “Mobile Beat Competition” contest:

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/mobile/index.jsp

”Complete 2 blog 4 Billboard w/LG Phone Welcome! This is your chance to enter to win press access to some of the hottest music acts in the country and a sleek new camera phone from LG. Here at Billboard, we'll choose dozens of winners to attend local concerts, festivals and shows for free throughout the summer in our Mobile Beat competition. If you are a lucky winner, you will receive up close and personal Billboard press access to concerts in your area. What you will need to do for us is take photos at the show and send us your review for posting on our special Billboard blog page. Seriously, how cool is that!?!? Just follow these simple instructions on how to enter and you could end up with one of the hottest prizes of the year. * First off, get creative and send us the coolest photo mashup you can come up with - and yes, they have to be your photos and yes, they need to be safe. Keep them clean too, please. * Then, in 100 words or less, tell us why you want to be a Billboard blogger in our Mobile Beat contest. * We'll then choose a bunch of winners and mid-June they will be announced and ready to hit the hot summer concert circuit. The only requirements are that you need to be at least 18 years or older and ready to deliver mini reviews and photos from your brand new LG camera phone on a regular basis. Good luck!”

Furthermore, Dave joined a Clay Aiken fan message board before writing his review, suggesting that he was perhaps more than a casual fan or wanted to make friends with members of Clay’s large and extremely enthusiastic Internet fanbase.

http://www.claymaniacs.com/forums/index.php/topic,14668.0.html

“DaveChung
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My review of Clay's Concert in Los Angeles for Billboard.com
« on: August 05, 2007, 06:22:35 PM »

Hi Claymaniacs!

Thanks for all your help in preparing me for my first Clay Aiken concert this week Smile I had a great time at the show!

I am a writer for Billboard.com and I'm currently in a blogging competition covering concerts all summer long for Billboard. I'd love it if you guys could check out my review and leave a comment on the Billboard page (one of the ways the competition is being judged) to let me know you've stopped in! It's such a great community here on Claymaniacs and I'd really appreciate all your guys' support! I hope it'll be some great exposure for Clay and I think it's a fun read as well.

http://billboard.blogs.com/mobile_beat/2007/08/clay-aiken-the-.html#more I've covered a bunch of other shows this summer, which can be found here http://billboard.blogs.com/mobile_beat/post_DC.html as well. Thanks so much Claymaniacs and see you at the next show! Sincerely, Dave Chung”

In reality, Dave Chung is not “a writer for Billboard.com” in the sense of being a legitimate staff member, but he is simply someone who won a position as an amateur reviewer in the “Mobile Beat” contest run by Billboard to recruit readers of Billboard magazine and a possible Claymate. Dave has actively promoted this review on various Internet sites, including a Carrie Underwood blog where he wrote the following:

http://blogweber.com/carrie-underwood/?p=1499

” Hey Carriefans!

I checked out fellow American Idol alumnus (though he didn’t win like our Carrie) Clay Aiken’s show in Los Angeles this past weekend for Billboard.com. It wasn’t quite the experience that it was with Carrie’s show a couple weeks back, but I had a great time!

I think it’s a fun read, perhaps not as action packed as my Carrie write up, but I’d appreciate it if you guys could check it out and leave a comment to let me know you stopped in!

Clay Aiken Concert Report

Thanks guys!”

Dave is obviously an enthusiastic Carrie fan. It’s understandable why Dave was so excited by Carrie’s concert, since he got to meet her. Dave’s recap of Carrie’s concert can be found here:

http://billboard.blogs.com/mobile_beat/2007/07/carrie-underwoo.html#more

So, unlike the more tempered review by Ben Wener, a respected, professional music critic and writer at the Orange County Register ( http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/clay-aiken-manilow-1798759-night-vegas
), the Claymates are lauding the review by Dave Chung and regarding it as an official music industry review of Clay’s concert by Billboard magazine.

Sorry, Claymates. Although Dave’s reviews are certainly fun to read and enthusiastically written, they do not qualify as legitimate music industry reviews. Instead, these reviews should be regarded as no more or less than they are – amateur recaps written by readers of Billboard magazine recruited to cover the various summer concerts.

So Claymates, by all means, shower Dave with your praise and compliments, and give his reviews lots of hits. That will go a long way towards helping him win the “Mobile Beat” competition. It looks like Dave made a very wise choice in attending Clay’s concert and writing a review that he knew would be so popular to Claynation. ;)