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The realities of being a pop star

itscharlibb.substack.com

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Re: The realities of being a pop star

#81

Post by bigiain »

gdulli wrote: post #15
carabiner wrote: post #2

Fascinating. Also impressive rawness, and it doesn't even seem like she passed it thru Chatgpt. It's insane that my first inclination is to detect those telltale signs in a blog post, and here I found none.

She may be of the final generation of real creatives who aren't at a disadvantage relative to those who take the path of least resistance and put out slop. The current/next generation of the audience may look at manually created art as a curiosity, the way most of us think about listening to vinyl.

I'm less sure and perhaps more optimistic.

Spottily has clearly identified a paying market for "incidental" music, something that people will play just to fill in as background noise while not caring about it. But it relies on a huge number of people who're prepared to pay a vanishingly small amount for it, or even to put up with ads to have it play for free.

But that's not "the audience" that all "creatives" are seeking or writing for. At least some of them are writing for the sort of person who actively seeks out and values "manually created art". People like me. People who'll not only go and listen to an artist's back catalog after enjoying hearing a previously unknown artist, and who'll buy the music that they love (including buying the vinyl even though they have access via streaming and paid downloads as well). People who'll keep an eye open for tours, and who'll buy concert tickets and encourage friends to do so as well.

That will probably never generate Taylor Swift or Rhiannon style careers or income, but I think "1000 true fans" is a valid today as it was almost 20 years ago when it was written:

https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

Anybody "putting out slop" using GenAI in their art is fooling themselves if they think it's ever going to be possible to become truly rich and famous that way. If there's money to be made from AI slop music, it'll be raked in by streaming services and AI companies who can produce a million tracks a day and A/B test then on streaming services with a billion listeners. And _maybe_ there'll be a very few specialist AI music production companies, someone with a finely tuned AI and extremely skilled prompters - and with enough skill and talent to recognise when the AI output is going to be popular enough to be worth releasing. Someone like Stock Aitken Waterman used to be back in the 80s. But those production companies are directly in the targets of enshittification by the AI companies (the same as every company in any industry that becomes dependent on someone else's GenAI).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Aitken_Waterman

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#82

Post by astrange »

XorNot wrote: post #48
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of places drug enforcement is being deprioritized, for good reason. Of course then you run into all the problems with only enforcing against people someone doesn't like.

One of my rules for travel is don't go to places where the laws are basically selectively not enforced for the convenience of tourists.

Bali and Singapore will execute tourists for having drugs, so you can go there I guess.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#83

Post by russelg »

astrange wrote: post #30
ivraatiems wrote: post #21

There is a weird assumption people make that somebody as successful as Charli XCX isn't smart because her persona is "I like cocaine and partying," and then are surprised when she can express herself like this. Like she says: "Another thing about being a pop star is that you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid." Making music at any professional level is extremely…

> There is a weird assumption people make that somebody as successful as Charli XCX isn't smart because her persona is "I like cocaine and partying," Considering cocaine is both illegal and has an obviously unethical supply chain, you'd think someone would try, you know, prosecuting her or something.

What's the point of prosecuting users?

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#84

Post by Insanity »

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”.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#85

Post by Insanity »

globalnode wrote: post #62
saghm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "average" player in one of those sports leagues isn't really a celebrity at the level the article is talking about. Charli XCX's last album was nominated for 11 Grammies and won six of them, and it has the 15th highest aggregate rating from Metacritic of all time. If you're comparing to athletes, this is All-Star roster, potential MVP winning-level performance for at least that season. By no means it's every play…

never heard of them before this HN article lol. the only thing that struck me was no paragraphs in the article, just one giant wall of text. and also how bored id be living that lifestyle (personally)

I know of her name, but I couldn’t name a single song of hers.

Luckily we don’t all enjoy the same music, that would be boring as well! :)

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#86

Post by Insanity »

jameslk wrote: post #45
ivraatiems wrote: post #21

There is a weird assumption people make that somebody as successful as Charli XCX isn't smart because her persona is "I like cocaine and partying," and then are surprised when she can express herself like this. Like she says: "Another thing about being a pop star is that you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid." Making music at any professional level is extremely…

Charli XCX is diverse and experimental enough that my first instinct would be to assume she’s rather intelligent. For example, her collaboration in the PC Music scene comes off rather nerdy and eccentric actually, not exactly pop. And her lyrics usually have more to it than meets the ear, e.g. sometimes intentionally being a commentary on the party persona keeping her distracted from worse things. “I hate the silence…

Does she write her own lyrics? Or does someone else write those for her?

I’m not saying she is or isn’t intelligent, and either way she clearly is talented in some area of music, just wondering if she is a singer or singer/songwriter :)

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#87

Post by nprateem »

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…

I thought the same thing.

As for Musk... tbh I think as the vast majority of us want things from other people we temper our behaviour.

But when you have enough fame and money to do what you want the filters can come off and we can be the selfish nasty people we really are. And some people obviously like to play on that too to get air time or just prove a point.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#88

Post by nprateem »

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…

Maybe you could tell all her fans how stupid they are and shouldn't enjoy her music.

Why not save them from themselves with some of your approved recommendations?

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#90

Post by bloodyplonker22 »

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…

It is ironic that she talks about "the patriarchy" brainwashing people. I have serious doubts that she came up with the thought to blame it on the "patriarchy" herself.
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