I just don't see Toni being big again. And Alexandra .. I honestly dont know how well she will do in the US ... but in Europe she will do AMAZING :]]

Didn't Alexandra said before that she will be the next Beyonce?

Doubt it, Alexandra at times thinks she is better then she is, but when it comes down to it she is pretty humble. Thats my perception of her atleast.

Alexandra needs to re-record Listen for the album.... she OWNS that song.

LMAO. Poor Toni. It's not like many people care ANYWAY.

Like the poster after you (yuminari) said, that story is entirely realistic and believable. This **** happens in the record industry all the time. And if you don't know who Alexandra Burke is, she's the chick who won the most recent season of the UK's X-Factor (the same show won by Leona Lewis 2 years ago).

Simon Cowell is almost certain to try and replicate Leona Lewis' success with Alexandra on an international scale, which means this time next year, she'll probably be guesting on American Idol and Oprah singing some ballad that was meant to go to Toni.LOL!

Alexandra might be a newbie, but money talks in the record industry, and her numbers will perk even the interest of American producers who never knew who she was before last month. At this stage of her career, Alexandra is already breaking records and well ahead of where Leona was when she won X-Factor, in terms of pure numbers. With her debut single, Alex has the fastest downloaded song in European history. She's also has the best selling single by a UK solo female (in the UK charts) of all time. She's sold over a million copies of "Hallelujah" (not even Leona manged that for her debut single or any subsequent singles). In a few weeks time, Alex should overtake Kylie Minogue to have the best selling UK chart single of any solo female (of any nationality) for the whole decade. The hype around in in the UK is incredible. Bookies have her as odds on favorite to have the best selling UK album of 2009 (UK is the second biggest music market in the world after America, so that's a pretty big deal).

Toni's last album in 2005 Libra only sold 431,000 in America. The ways sales are falling today, she'll be lucky to do even half that with her new album. Toni was a huge artist in her heyday, but her commercial clout has been in decline for years. Happens to lots of artists that have been around for a long period. Alexandra's debut album will probably sell at least 3 times what Libra did in America, in the UK alone . Producers care about royalties, not past achievements. The more an album sells, the more money they make. Nobody know how well Alexandra will do in America, but it's almost a guarantee that in Europe, she's going to have huge album sales. And if she manages to break the American market, that's even more money for them. If I was a record producer/executive, Alexandra would be a much "safer" investment in terms of getting royalties. Toni does not sell albums like she used to, and I don't think The Pulse is going to change that

^ Omg, what an essay.

Alex wont penetrate US

Well, vocally Alexandra has much more in common with Toni Braxton than she does with Beyonce. But I get the impression Alex idolises Beyonce, particularly for the "performance" aspect of her career. It allows Beyonce to move easily between ballads and performance based songs/uptempos. I've never considered Toni to be an all-round entertainer/perfomer, which Beyonce is. Toni is really known as a ballad singer. Whenever Toni has tried to go uptempo, she's never really made an impact (doesn't help that she's not a partuclarly convincing dancer). She makes the attempt, but people don' really buy her as anything other than a ballad singer.

Alexandra's main similarity to Beyonce is that she seems to be a natural as an all-rounder. She moves on stage and dances quite easily, and some of her most engaging performances came in uptempos. I think the Alex will be percieved to be more versatile than Toni because of that. I think the only comparison to Beyonce is that she doesn't want to be pigeonholed as a "ballad singer", which Toni was.

Question for Toni: why doesn't she co-produce or co-write the songs ? As far as I know, if you have credits in producing/writing a song no one can sell or give it to someone else, without your consent.
She has to do something more than just relying on other people to get her an amazing comeback.