Pop-Eye Gets Serious!

Apologies to fans of the X-Men, Sheryl Crow etc who wanted them to get their pop-eye moment in the sun, but I couldn't think of anything to say about them!

I think that just as the high costs involved in the production of television shows insures that only a relatively small number of television stations will ever be able to produce to-notch original programming, I don’t think the charts will ever be flooded with thoroughly cross-marketed popstars because it’ll always be too much of an expensive proposition to pull off.

(The term “thoroughly cross-marketed popstar” isn’t really true to how you’re describing Gareth Gates, but I can’t think of something tidier.)

if "all round entertainer" is placed utterly forefront as the Way to Success and Worship — as Tom rightly says, this has not been the case for decades — then SOMEONE will arrive who wants to do something "edgy" with it AND BE PAID BIZILLIONS FOR IT and ACHIEVE STAYING POWER (viz louis armstrong/beatles eg): the current blandness is a nervousness at the power and potential (= potential to FUCK UP if you are not arrogant and arty) (or actually really mad like wacko), ie not intrinsic to the concept "all-round entertainer" AT ALL... (that corporate bigwigs assume it IS is testament to the pernicious moral influence of "indie"-type thinking, not vice versa)

i continue to think the industry is currently wide-open for this kind of breach btw: much MUCH more likely than any quasi-pistols-type "chaos revolt from below"

the difft elements in the media crossover amp up entirely difft requirements: reality tv needs bonkers amateur warts- and-all => when the marketing pulls the nu-starz AWAY from that, they fade and flail => smarter "marketing" would push them further INTO it (marketing in the mclaren sense, eg, possibly: using the waiting machinery against itself: but intentions are not really the issue here)

or "self-marketing" eg art

Actually, now that I think on it, Prince and Madonna briefly pulled off a coherent movie-music-video hat trick back in '84-'85.

― Michael Daddino, Wednesday, 10 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Double Damn.

On what criteria is most reality tv 'good tv'. Maybe only on the criteria that you personally enjoy it? Sure, lots of people watch it and the press use it to fill the blank spaces on slow news days but lots of people watch Blind Date too, long after it should have been canned. This doesn't make it good tv. The only saving grace is that it at least causes shared cultural memories, something that'll become increasigly rare in a multi-channel environment.

I would also argue that the producers don't expect the idols to have a long life outside of the tv. The record companies look for quick short term success rather than building an audience over time(on the music side rather than the tv celebrity side that is) hence using this type of program to create an 'artist'. Hear'Say proved that the shelf life for these type of acts is short and this was also echoed in the Australian equivalent.

As you rightly point out, the music is secondary to the 'celebrity'. Without the life-breath of tv exposure their careers will die. For them to survive ITV will have to keep making programmes about them and this is clearly not going to happen.

Give it a year and a half and they'll be appearing on 'After they were famous'.

I think that Tom hits the nail on the head in terms of the musical aspect to these entertainers being too subsidiary, too much following the lead from the tv persona and not involving itself in dialogue with that persona. Hence the release of 'safe' records. Cf. Britney, where the process happens in reverse: "Crossroads" as the 'safe' movie designed not to rock the boat fuelled by her comparatively much more edgy music.

Most reality TV is good TV because I enjoy it yes. I enjoy it because watching ordinary people in an extraordinary situation is interesting, and because of the shared cultural experience you mention. Some R-TV series are better than others, clearly.

The point isnt that Gareth Gates himself will be famous for ages and ages but that the charts are clearly very vulnerable to strings and strings of Gateses and that this idea of what pop music is has a much bigger pull currently than the prevailing late-20th-century one.

reality tv's watchability has of course had a devastating effect on the morale of the realm of "light entertainment" in TV, wherein the market in vaudeville chops is at an all-time low: the new "all-round entertainers" are subliminally expected to deliver lightning street improv INSTEAD of 40-yrs-treading-the-boards skillz (this is a v.persistent hangover from the punk version of pop-as-Tom-defines-it)

Actually what's so interesting is not that the corporate whatevah is currently an all-controlling monolith, but at the moment of its maximum cross-media reach it has so LITTLE idea about how to sustain its hegemony CULTURALLY ("pedagogically") as opposed to merely technologically. This is why I think something is about to slip. And also why the point of slippage will be a Kym Marsh type, two down the line, rather than a Slipknot type (say).

I do rather object to the greatest daily comic strip of all time being associated with these terrible, terrible records that are dominating the charts. This is entirely beside the point, of course.

Blurillaz, no?

This sort of thing happened in the 70s as well with Opportunity Knox. That show was huge for a few years and charted hit singles I think. However the whole "sleb" process/industry wasn't as steamlined back then so the songs still held the upper hand to the persona.