Live by the hit, die by the hit.
That’s why you don’t want to be a pop star.
Used to be it was a reasonable trade. Everybody in the world knew your name and you could tour forever on even one hit.
Not anymore. Now you can have a hit and not be able to sell any tickets. But even worse is the hype machine, although still extant, no longer reaches many people. So you can be in “People,” be on TV, be exposed in all the traditional media and the public doesn’t even shrug, because it is not paying attention to these outlets and is completely unaware of what you’re doing.
Back in the last century, if you were on TV constantly, and you gave the public what it wanted, odds are you’d have a modicum of success. Katy Perry was on television every week, and after a couple of stiff records decided to give the audience the girl power anthems she’d built her name on.
But everybody rejected it. I haven’t seen backlash this big…EVER!
This is what happens when you live in a bubble.
In the old days, the labels controlled the narrative. Not any longer, today the public controls the narrative, and fans are watching every move, and it all happens online, so looky-loos will come across opinions…that’s right, on social media you get opinions, not raw hype. This is what many acts don’t understand about social media, if you don’t have an opinion, if you don’t have an edge, you won’t get any traction.
Meanwhile, scores of acts that have never had a pop hit are doing prodigious business on the road. Their fans own them and support them. They feel invested. As soon as it is perceived you’re a tool of the machine, that you’re being forced down someone’s throat, you’re toast. Maybe, just maybe, if you have a track so good… But in this era of me-too, and I’m talking about sound, not sexual abuse, the idea of a revolutionary sound…never comes into play. And the traditional avenue of exposure, i.e. terrestrial radio, doesn’t want anything new and different, it doesn’t want to upset the apple cart, it doesn’t want to risk a tune-out.
So… The world is bifurcated, between pop and the rest of music. But all we ever read about in industry press is pop. It’s easily quantified. Are you on the chart or not, as if recordings ruled the roost when they do not, today it’s all about live.
So who are the Katy Perry fans?
A certain demo of women. No longer young, not in the active group participating on social media. And that’s how you drive a hit, on social media. Most Katy Perry fans are out of the loop. And there are a limited number of them. Perry could not say no, she appeared everywhere, she stood for nothing so much as…stardom. And that’s not enough.
Today to sustain you must have an identity that you curate. You have to be “on brand,” you have to be able to say no. You have to look at your career through your hardcore fans’ perspective.
And the thing about fans is that they’re active. They’ll tell everybody they know about you. Trey Anastasio just had an interview in “Rolling Stone.” So the Phishheads are e-mailing me. As if I didn’t see it to begin with. As if I’m really that interested in what Trey has to say, sorry.
To tell you the truth I’m not interested in what most musicians have to say, because it no longer moves the needle. They don’t stand for anything.
Ironically, Perry stood for Democrats. She was in the mix during the last presidential cycle. If she’d stood up today, spoken her truth, said Biden should stay or step down it actually would have helped her. Because she would risk alienating part of her audience. If you’re not willing to risk losing fans, you’re not going to create strong bonds with the fans you’ve got, never mind new ones.
And we’ve been told for eons that press doesn’t matter.
Well, not the minion press. Not the brain dead press. Not the me-too press. Certainly not the traditional music and movie press.
Do you think I don’t know you’re publishing a story about this or that person because they’ve got new product, an album or a movie? It’s not like they’ve got something special to say, they’re just selling, there’s no there there. Best to do your hype when you’ve got nothing to sell. Then it looks more genuine. And the songs are there to be streamed every day of the year. You’re building an identity, not selling product. An identity, personality, lasts, you trade on it, whereas what you did on the chart yesterday no longer matters.
So there’s a whole cabal out to get those who cross the lines.
We’ve seen this in media re Biden. It was started in the “New York Times,” the media is doing the elected officials’ job, and looking good in the process. If some people hate what the “Times” has been saying, it’s doing it right. Which is to call it as it sees it, not to pledge fealty to any tribe, but to be independent. As a result, the paper has power.
As do those not just reciting pablum, tools of the label, who are pushing back.
But the bottom line is give the people what they want at your peril. It looks easy. You go back to the garden…
But the public has moved on.
This is a conundrum. Because you keep hearing from fans and your handlers and your label to go back to your golden era, but we’re not going back to horses and buggies, EVs are here to stay, and I’m fine with you making America greater than it is today, but it ain’t gonna look anything like it did back in the fifties, the era you’re fantasizing about. We only move forward, we never move back. You only gain traction in the future by pushing your own artistry.
Sure, there’s a business in going on the road and playing your hits. Assuming you created them before the internet killed the old paradigm about twenty years ago. I hope you like the money, because in many cases it’s soul-deadening. You’ve taken yourself out of the game, I thought you were a musician!
And don’t tell me no one wants the new stuff. No one wants ANY new stuff, because there’s so much new stuff out there (never mind the old stuff!) That’s the modern world, if you’re shooting for the moon you’re missing the point. Everything is happening online, grass roots. And if you only want to play new music do it in a small venue and make the public aware. There’s a business in that, but not an arena or stadium business.
But if you were on MTV, if you even had a hit in the first decade of this century, you think the public is waiting with bated breath for your new work. But this is patently untrue. In the old days, there was a limited amount of product, your tunes got a modicum of exposure no matter how good or bad they were, people would check them out. But today they don’t. Come on, the big number one hit is Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” you could even call it “The Song of the Summer,” an outdated concept if there ever was one. Not my summer. Not your summer. Just the summer of the circle jerk publicity machine that needs to feed the pipeline. And if you think “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is going to become legendary and have the legs of “Summer in the City,” you believe in magic.
So Katy Perry completely miscalculated. She’ll ultimately lick her wounds and climb back into the hole she came out of. This is what J.Lo did, this is what all the pop stars of yore do when they’re confronted with the fact that the game has changed. But if she was smart, Perry would release new music almost instantly. That was more raw, not made with legendary producers. Then again, can she make the music alone?
It all comes down to talent. Artistry. We’re back to the basics. Because there’s just too much junk, too much low grade stuff trying to fill the pop pipeline. Odds are you’re going to fail. But especially if you build up the hype, if you’ve got us waiting to see what you’re going to do.
It’s complicated. And Nancy Meyers can’t have a hit in the theatre anymore.
The game has changed. The public bites back. This is the world we now live in. Don’t be true to your school, but yourself. That’s the essence of artistry, the individual. Who is Katy Perry? Damned if I know!
