Olympics Planning to Go for Platinum

Athletes aren’t the only ones going for the gold this summer.

Organizers of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics are hoping to strike gold (500,000 sales) or even platinum (1 million sales) with “The Sound of the Games,” an ambitious, five-album collection designed to raise money for, among others, the U.S. Olympic team.

The albums--each devoted to a separate style of music, from country to classical--will be sold individually in record stores and collectively in a boxed set via telephone and at the Games, which run July 19-Aug. 4.

Each of the albums features a veritable dream team of artists and producers, including Boyz II Men, Gloria Estefan, Willie Nelson and John Williams.

“Sports and music are universal,” said Louis Cunningham, vice president of marketing for Centennial Olympic Properties, a joint venture of the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. “They belong together.”

Cunningham conceived the project four years ago, believing that music--besides raising money to support the Games--could help change what he feels is the highbrow image of the Olympics.

“Unfortunately, in some circles the Olympics are looked at as an aristocratic, corporate-driven event that has no touch with the common man, no grass-roots element,” the Atlanta-based executive said. “The common man doesn’t understand rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming or team handball, but he can understand the power of a song, especially when sung by a Gloria Estefan.

“We’re taking the power of the Olympics off the playing field and taking it to the streets.”

Or at least as close as the conservative International Olympic Committee wanted them to get. Conspicuously absent from the album set are rock and rap.

“You have to understand that four years ago, when we embarked upon this, this was cutting edge,” Cunningham said. “We had no idea what direction rap was going to go. Fortunately, we didn’t [include rap] because now it’s toward this gangsta rap. . . . We stuck with things we knew.”

Atlanta’s Olympic organizers chose to release five albums rather than a single blockbuster collection, in part, Cunningham said, because sales of a single Olympic-themed album four years ago were disappointing. Also, in their quest to expand the popularity of the Olympics, they wanted to target specific groups that research told them were indifferent to the Games.

The five albums, featuring mostly new material, will each be released by different record companies and carry separate titles:

* “One Voice,” a country-flavored work featuring Nelson, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss and Trisha Yearwood, will be released April 23 by MCA Nashville.

* “Rhythm of the Games,” an R&B; and pop-accented compilation with a lineup including Boyz II Men, Babyface, Toni Braxton, Luther Vandross and R. Kelly, is due May 21 on LaFace Records.

* “Voces Unidas,” a Spanish-language set with performances by Selena, Ricky Martin, Jon Secada and Julio Iglesias, is due in mid-May on EMI Latin.

* “Summon the Heroes,” which features John Williams conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra and includes Williams’ official ’96 Olympic theme, is expected in late May or early June on Sony Classical.

* A still-untitled jazz album, its roster of performers not yet determined, is expected in June on Mojazz Records.

Though pop stars are besieged with requests to contribute to benefit compilations, the music community responded strongly to the Olympic project.

“I love athletics,” says the Cuba-born Estefan, who still has the bronze medal that her father won for volleyball in the 1952 Pan-Am Games. Estefan’s song, “Reach,” appears on the “Rhythm of the Games” album and, in Spanish as “Puedes Llegar,” on the “Voces Unidas” album. The video will be premiered on Sunday during halftime of NBC’s telecast of the Chicago Bulls-Orlando Magic game.

Tony Brown, president of MCA Nashville and executive producer of the “One Voice” album, said most of the artists he contacted were big sports fans.

“Just to be involved with the Olympics, in any fashion, seems to be exciting to them,” he said. “I started calling people and all of a sudden I had more than I needed.”

Brown didn’t limit himself to country music on “One Voice.” He wanted to celebrate his Nashville home base and Southern music generally by bringing in a wide range of artists including pop-dance diva Donna Summer, pop-gospel star Amy Grant and folk singer Nanci Griffith.

Cunningham expects the R&B; and Latin albums to each sell about 500,000 copies. About 225,000 copies of the country album will be shipped, he said, and about 100,000 copies each of the classical and jazz albums will go out.

Four years ago, Warner Bros. released an Olympic-themed album, “Barcelona Gold,” which has sold about 250,000 copies to date, according to SoundScan.

This time, though, the albums are backed by the Olympic organizers, who will play the music during breaks in the action at all of the events in Atlanta this summer--during basketball timeouts, court changeovers in tennis, between swimming events, etc.

“You won’t be able to get around it,” Cunningham said. “When you come to Atlanta, you’re going to be swept away by our music.”