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The realities of being a pop star

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Re: The realities of being a pop star

#101

Post by bigstrat2003 »

squigz wrote: post #99
IshKebab wrote: post #22

> I find that this is often where the stupidity narrative can be born. I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger in certain people and I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all. We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat litt…

> Yes he's an arsehole and moderately racist and probably quite lucky too but he is good at his job. So one can be a massive piece of shit as long as they're good at their job? Many of us here probably have worked with people like that. It's not a good environment to work in.

Nobody said that. OP's point was to say "he is good at his job" as a counter to the people who say he isn't good as his job (i.e. "he isn't a real engineer"), not as a counter to people who think he's a jerk.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#102

Post by squigz »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #101
squigz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes he's an arsehole and moderately racist and probably quite lucky too but he is good at his job. So one can be a massive piece of shit as long as they're good at their job? Many of us here probably have worked with people like that. It's not a good environment to work in.

Nobody said that. OP's point was to say "he is good at his job" as a counter to the people who say he isn't good as his job (i.e. "he isn't a real engineer"), not as a counter to people who think he's a jerk.

Then I'm not sure why the points immediately preceding that are relevant.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#103

Post by sandspar »

Her essay makes it seem like she's mostly powerless. She gets shuttled around from place to place because other people make money by using her as a prop. She gets paid lots of money and is given freedom, in a sense, but it's freedom to gorge herself on basic pleasures like attention, drugs, and wealth. Overall it seems like a childlike existence.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#104

Post by sandspar »

rubenvanwyk wrote: post #78
gishh wrote: post #37

> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger in certain people and I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all. We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in. I assume roughly half…

I also don’t understand why people don’t ascribe some inherently bad behaviours to human nature. Everyone knows people aren’t perfect, but somehow we have to blame some institutions or perceived societal phenomena instead of just acknowledging that we are, in our very nature, flawed - but capable of great change, and should just all endeavour to “be better”.

Her job is dependent on being likeable to a mass audience. If you want to be likeable to a mass audience then it's most effective to repeat bromides.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#105

Post by rkomorn »

bigiain wrote: post #77
gishh wrote: post #37

> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger in certain people and I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all. We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in. I assume roughly half…

> I assume roughly half of pop stars are male, give or take. I'd question that assumption. My gut feel says there are way more women pop stars? I did a very quick bit of research, and maybe we're both wrong. https://wealthygorilla.com/richest-singers-world/ Splits up as 31 men to 19 women on their top 50 richest singers list. So closer to 2/3rds men that half. I did realise while counting, that my gut feel wouldn't h…

Maybe it's related to the decades during which I grew up, but I'd say "rock star" had a better connotation than "pop star" when I was growing up.

"Pop stars" contained a lot of boy/girl bands or solo artists who "don't write their own songs/music" (among many other accusations of not being "real musicians").

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#106

Post by IceDane »

Insanity wrote: post #84
decasia wrote: post #6

I thought this was a really good piece of writing. It’s rare to do something like this because the job discourages it by putting PR filters on everything you say. My uncle was a pretty big pop star in the 1960s. His group at one point had a big fanzine, they were household names across the country, over time they had stalkers and weird fans and all that, made movies and albums, had big parties and knew other famous p…

It was interesting and a fun read, but not a “good piece of writing” in my opinion. Apart from some spelling mistakes, the sentences droned on and it read more like a semi-coherent rant than a thoughtful piece on “being a pop star”.

As interesting as I find it, cannot agree more. It's very childish writing - feels a lot like it was written by a teenager. It sort of reminds me of my young 8 year old niece telling me a story she finds so exciting she barely comes up for air.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#107

Post by empressplay »

SL61 wrote: post #36
jppope wrote: post #18

Courtney Love wrote a fabulous article explaining the realities of a million-dollar album (2000 - https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ ) and it explains so much of whats actually going on that the public doesn't fully comprehend. Its a great read if you've never read it. The realities are similar to what we are reading in this article. Most of what gets talked about is gross numbers not net. Most of the benefits…

It's interesting to observe that fame (and the money that usually comes with it) seems to follow something like a log scale. People usually don't become gradually more famous in a linear way. They're more likely to spend a few years with 50k listeners and then get a big hit and get 1 million listeners overnight, then the next big jump is 20 million, and so on. It's possible to be semi-famous and still able to go to t…

I will note "in the US" here.

I lived in Camberwell, Australia for a while and I would run across Geoffrey Rush in the local supermarket fairly routinely.

Nobody bothered him.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#108

Post by nekitamo »

astrange wrote: post #50
ggm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she's prosecuted before a long queue of others, we'd be entitled to suggest the law is not being applied equally. Start a little higher up the food chain with the politicians.

The politicians aren't announcing they use cocaine in public, are they? Even if some of them do sniff a lot on camera.

They’ve literally found cocaine at the White House and refused to persecute anyone for it. Rules for thee but not for me.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#109

Post by empressplay »

sfblah wrote: post #40

I had to go on Youtube to listen to some of the music mentioned here, as I'm pretty out of the loop on it. Given what I heard I honestly think we're basically at the point where AI can generate equivalent or even better music. It's just very simple and doesn't feel particularly innovative or noteworthy. Point being, I think it's likely this person is one of the last pop stars. Actually, as I'm writing this, I realize…

The novelty in pop music is not usually in the harmony. The novelty is usually in the presentation. The idea is that you hook the audience with familiarity (nostalgia) and then keep them with a novel expression of it. In recent years, this means really strange synth patches and vocal effects.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#110

Post by gizajob »

rootusrootus wrote: post #76
bigiain wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, of course. But often there are obvious and "easy" answers that are anything but easy for the person who needs those answers. "Just cheer up, depressed person!" "Just eat less and exercise more, fat person!" "Just stop shooting up, heroin addict!" "Don't accept generic lifestyle creep, pro athlete who's teammates are all living it up like they live in a gangsta rap music video!" I'm sure there are lots o…

> Just I often think this is the biggest word in the English language. Similar to how I think "might as well" may be the most expensive phrase.

Can you expand on that? I feel like it’s the most misused and overused word in my vocabulary and one I wish I could just get rid of a lot of the time and never seem to manage. It just creeps in.
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