No Talent? No Problem! How To Create a Sexy Pop Star

[rostasi]

from the film "Before the Music Dies"

[Joe G]

The clip doesn't seem to be working.

Edit: found it on youtube proper. No surprises there.

Edited December 3, 2006 by Joe G

[JSngry]

Is it just me, or is there a hint of Boyce & Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" in the hook to "Momma's Not Coming Home Tonight"?

Ah, manufactured pop music. Not to be taken seriously at face value (usually), but a goldmine of riches nevertheless. 50,000,000 Elvis fans indeed can't be wrong, but about what is still open for consideration!

[rostasi]

The clip doesn't seem to be working.

Edit: found it on youtube proper. No surprises there.

Sorry Joe. It still seems to work for me.

[Jim Alfredson]

I posted this on that site as well, but to me the problem isn't necessarily "singers" not writing their own material. Good songwriting and good songwriters are rare and most good songwriters are not performers or necessarily good singers.

The problem, in my opinion, lies with coporations who stiffle the creativity of songwriters and make "singers" out of people who have no talent except looking good. As he demostrated in that video, you can sing completely out of tune and Auto-tune will make your pitch like Whitney Houston's.

People like Ashley Simpson, who's reality show I caught a couple of times, are a prime example. The girl had never performed live before and her first gig, which was the subject of a whole episode of her show, was in front of 15,000+ people in a huge outdoor venue. That's just ridiculous. Combine that with the fact that she is not a very good singer or performer, and all you can ask is, "Why"?

Radio is a joke anyway. In a few years you'll be able to stream radio stations from the internet in your car or anywhere you want and you'll have thousands of choices. We get tons of airplay on several Live 365 stations which has led to good sales on Amazon. In this day and age, the major labels are dinosaurs, about to become extinct.

[JSngry]

I'll take indignace about "manufactured" pop music seriously when the same people who bitch about it apply the same indignace to movies.

[Jim Alfredson]

I don't really watch movies. Am I off the hook?

[JSngry]

You totally off da' hook, Dawg!

Seriously - movies are at least every bit as manufactured and post-productionalized as pop music. But one's considered an art and one's dismissed as evil crap, just because. Go figure that one.

[Jazzmoose]

Well, I think one reason for that is that, in movies, the "manufacturers" behind the scene actually get credit for what they do, whereas in pop music, everyone pretends that the star is the sole contributing talent to the product.

[Dan Gould]

Seriously - movies are at least every bit as manufactured and post-productionalized as pop music. But one's considered an art and one's dismissed as evil crap, just because. Go figure that one.

Uh, Ray? Any thoughts on this?

[JSngry]

Well, I think one reason for that is that, in movies, the "manufacturers" behind the scene actually get credit for what they do, whereas in pop music, everyone pretends that the star is the sole contributing talent to the product.

Well yeah, ok, but how many "movie stars", could do a kickass job in live theatre w/o a lot of prep work?

And how many "celebrety" editors are there? Cinematographers? Soundtrack composers (other than the John Williamses, etc> And even then. who's got the bigger name - him or Spielberg?) Etc. ? It's all directors and stars in the public'e eye, and mostly just stars.

Which is ok afaic, I'm just saying that the manufacturing of a movie & the manufacturing of a pop record are much more similar than not, yet they're percieved in totally different lights in some circles.

Not by me, though. I'm a fan of well-constructed pop records just as I am of well-constructed movies, assuming in both cases that the end result is a good story well told.

[GA Russell]

[...yet they're percieved in totally different lights in some circles...

Well, you know the circles you are talking about. I don't know anybody who respects modern movies (except for the occasional art film of course). In my circle of friends, nobody respects pop music or pop movies. Both are seen to be made for undiscerning teenagers.

By the way, movie ticket sales have been in a steady decline for the past thirty years. The studios talk about the receipts, which are made up of inflated dollars, but not about the number of tickets sold. Most people don't want to spend good money on the stuff.

Hence you see the popularity of Netflix, which allows you to watch, at home, as often as you want, something different from the usual television fare for ten to fifteen dollars a month for the whole family.

[Jim Alfredson]

Well, I think one reason for that is that, in movies, the "manufacturers" behind the scene actually get credit for what they do, whereas in pop music, everyone pretends that the star is the sole contributing talent to the product.

Well yeah, ok, but how many "movie stars", could do a kickass job in live theatre w/o a lot of prep work?

Not necessarily a good analogy because most movie actors are not stage actors. They are two different breeds, two totally different approaches. That would be like asking a classical violinist to improvise over some changes. Most would fail miserably.

[JSngry]

Exactly. And many pop records are not about the performance per se as much as they are about the finished record. A movie actor might need multiple takes, just as a pop singer would. Movies are made in stages just as pop records are, and not everbody's in the same place at the same time (2nd units, anybody?). Plus, the director of a movie is analogous to the producer of a pop record. Both provide the overall vision/direction of the finished product as well as how that product gets put together along the way. And - both can, and often do, get a lot of help from various "assistants". only some of whom are only sometimes properly credited.

So I stand by the analogy. In fact, I might even posit that the reason that we tend to look at manufactured pop music vs. live performance skills in a different light than we do manufactured movies vs live theatre is that most of us have a far greater exposure to movies than we do live theatre, but most of us have heard at least some quality live music at some point in our life. And that goes double for performing musicians for whom the notion of "manufacturing" a product instead of creating it live runs counter to our personal esthetic within our own field.

But hey - if making a successful (commercially or otherwise) pop record was really as simple as "we'd" like to think, then anybody could do it. Anybody can't, and not just because of the vicissitudes of the industry. There's a high amount of craft involved in the manufacturing, and occasionally that craft can cross the line into art. Myself, I respect the hell outta that even when I don't like/love it.

[Rooster_Ties]

But hey - if making a successful (commercially or otherwise) pop record was really as simple as "we'd" like to think, then anybody could do it. Anybody can't, and not just because of the vicissitudes of the industry. There's a high amount of craft involved in the manufacturing, and occasionally that craft can cross the line into art. Myself, I respect the hell outta that even when I don't like/love it.

Me too. Although I don't take any of it too seriously (and plunk down next to no cold hard cash for any of it), there is sometimes (occasionally) some mighty good shit to be found on the radio. Sure, not 99% of the time, but that 1% is pure magic!!

Pop culture (including pop music) -- or at least some of it -- can be mighty facinating to be an observer of. Hell, I occasionally even watch brief segments of the Country Music Channel -- and I pretty much HATE modern country-pop music. But the production (or overproduction), and packaging, and "salesmanship" of that stuff is sometimes an amazing sight to behold. Evil, sure, but facinating occasionally.

Edited December 4, 2006 by Rooster_Ties

[JSngry]

Ah. modern Country music... absolutely the most manufactured/controlled popular music being made today, bar none. Even if more often than not there's "real talent" involved (especially when it comes to the session players), if even half the stories I've heard are true there's so many rules about what a song can/can't do (including where in the bar a phrase can or can't begin, and where vowel sounds can or can't fall in a phrase), about how it can/can't be recorded/produced, that even the best of the stuff is so tightly controlled (i.e. - manufactured) as to make Milli Vanilli look like improvisors. I kid you not. And yet, there are the occasional gems, in spite of it all...

Which just goes to show you that, again, the focus of "pop" music is the record, not the performance. The performance is just one piece in the mix, and quite often not the most important one at that. Again, there's a parallel to movies, I think.

[Rooster_Ties]

Which just goes to show you that, again, the focus of "pop" music is the record, not the performance. The performance is just one piece in the mix, and quite often not the most important one at that. Again, there's a parallel to movies, I think.

Yup. total agreement here.

[Jim Alfredson]

I hear what you're saying, Jim. Thanks for explaining.

[RDK]

Seriously - movies are at least every bit as manufactured and post-productionalized as pop music. But one's considered an art and one's dismissed as evil crap, just because. Go figure that one.

Uh, Ray? Any thoughts on this?

Well Jim's pretty much right. I'm just not sure which one's the "art" and which is the "evil crap."