All She Wants to Do Is Have Some Fun, Again

After many years of paying her dues as a backup singer for the likes of Don Henley, Eric Clapton and Michael Jackson, Sheryl Crow launched her solo career in a big way three years ago. Her 1993 debut album, “Tuesday Night Music Club,” has sold some 3.8 million copies in the U.S., according to SoundScan, and spawned three Grammys. But as A&M; Records prepares for the Tuesday release of her second album, “Sheryl Crow,” industry observers are wondering: Can Crow avoid the sophomore slump that has resulted in disappointing second-album sales from other ‘90s rookie phenoms, including Candlebox, Green Day and Hootie & the Blowfish? Candlebox’s eponymous 1993 album has sold 3.3 million copies, but 1995’s “Lucy” has sold only 419,000 copies; Green Day’s 1993 collection, “Dookie,” has sold 6.1 million copies, but 1995’s “Insomniac” has sold 1.6 million; Hootie & the Blowfish’s 1994 debut, “Cracked Rear View,” has sold 9.1 million copies, but this year’s “Fairweather Johnson” has sold 1.8 million. Despite what appears to be an epidemic of fickleness among fans, retailers are confident about “Sheryl Crow,” which has already spawned a Top 40 hit, “If It Makes You Happy.” “It looks pretty bright,” says Gary Arnold, vice president of marketing for the 261-store Best Buy chain. “She built an amazing fan base with record No. 1 and she’s coming back with record No. 2 at a time when female artists are being embraced more than they ever have been in the past.”

Getting Noticed, Relatively Speaking

ABC will again try to get a new drama series sampled by temporarily scheduling it at 10 p.m. Tuesdays--the time period normally occupied by “NYPD Blue.” The program is “Relativity,” a romantic serial starring Kimberly Williams and David Conrad and produced by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, creators of “thirtysomething,” which once occupied that slot. Episodes of the show will air Tuesday, Saturday and again the following Tuesday at 10 p.m. before settling into its regular time period of Saturdays at 10 p.m. The logic is that more people watch TV in general (and ABC in particular) on Tuesdays, so if the network can hook those viewers, some will be enticed to follow “Relativity” to Saturday. In addition, delaying “NYPD Blue” until Oct. 15 ensures a steadier stream of episodes with fewer repeats during the season. Problem is, that strategy didn’t work terribly well last year, when ABC gave its most-ballyhooed new drama, “Murder One,” three Tuesday airings before shifting the show to Thursdays--where it was promptly hammered by “ER.” Networks have discovered that getting people to try a series can generate viewership initially but seldom helps when the show finally has to face an established hit--in this case, CBS’ reigning champ “Walker, Texas Ranger.” On the plus side, “Relativity” moves into a time slot previously occupied by the canceled NBC soap “Sisters,” whose fans may be unlikely to find solace in watching “Walker” or NBC’s “Profiler”--a new series about a detective who hunts serial killers.

A Theatrical Lesson in Bilingualism

When the movie version of Isabel Allende’s novel “House of the Spirits” was released in 1994, the stars playing the Chilean family at the center of the narrative were definitely non-Latino: Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Winona Ryder, Vanessa Redgrave. Latino activists passed out leaflets at Westside theaters protesting the casting. Now, the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts is opening a new stage adaptation Friday, at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, with an all-Latino cast. “I was kind of outraged when I saw the cast for the movie,” said Carmen Zapata, Bilingual Foundation’s producing director and a member of the cast at LATC. “There are plenty of Hispanic actors who could have played those roles. They might not have been the box-office draw that the producer wanted here, but they might have been a bigger box-office draw in Latin America.” They couldn’t have been much smaller of a box-office draw here; the film grossed a mere $6.2 million domestically. What about the notion that the movie cast universalized the story? “If that’s the case,” Zapata replied, “they should have set it in another country. [The cast] looked very Anglo. It was a little difficult to believe they were Chileans involved in a coup. The direction had no understanding of what an Hispanic family is like.” Zapata’s group uses Latino actors for a practical reason as well--the same casts perform at both English and Spanish performances, and she finds that Latinos are likelier to know both languages.