The realities of being a pop star
itscharlibb.substack.com
itscharlibb.substack.com
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 people, pretty much all those things that the OP writes about (circa 50 years later, some of it has changed but not that much).
He could be charismatic and surprisingly eloquent and I could picture him writing a piece like this, if the mood had struck.
He also lost pretty much all the money through mismanagement (several times over), eventually moved out of LA, had a tumultuous family life with numerous spouses and wasn’t around much for his kids, and after his 40s was trapped in a sad cycle of reunion tours because the band still needed the money. The tours still had some level of excitement and crowd enthusiasm, even pretty late in life and I guess he always loved the stage, the performing, all that. But in the end, I kinda felt it seemed like a lonely existence. Hard to form really deep connections when you’re always traveling and often away in your head.
Celebrity memoirs are often written for the same reasons, or to promote other ventures. For instance Peter Wolf seemingly reluctantly shared vignettes about Dylan, The Stones, Faye Dunaway, and rock 'n' roll life in the 1970s to promote his newer stuff:
"I was putting out solo CDs. Not to sound self-congratulatory, but I thought each one got better and better— but they weren’t finding an audience. I thought a book might encourage people to check out the other stuff. So basically, the intent of the book was to find a wider audience."
https://www.boston.com/culture/books/2025/03/10/peter-wolf-m...
The problem is there are too types of writers who don't get the help of an editor, those who are too big and famous to accept one and those too poor to afford one.
I sort of feel the people who are saying it's bad aren't very able to separate their own preferences from determining quality
https://medium.com/luminasticity/to-speak-meaningfully-about...
I'm a 50-ish years old American man, and I just don't notice anything like that in my own attitudes or of those around me.
I wonder if one or both of us have biased vision, or alternatively maybe we just live in different societies.
I agree with you though, if you're willing to live a small life where you only need the love and respect of a small handful of people, you can do almost anything and very few people will genuinely hate you.
The more common term you're searching for is "privilege", and yes, you both have it.
Do you hang a lot in professional entertainment circles? I'm not saying she's certainly correct, but if I were to wonder what problems a mid-20s female pop star faces, I'd buy her anecdata over a 50-ish man who posts on HN.
Why is it exactly that you feel the opposite way?
I think the author is walking a tightrope between convincing the reader that she wrote this herself and that there's more depth to her than what we see on stage or in pop media. Writing this blog is definitely a tougher assignment than doing podcast interviews or behind the scenes videos.
You are right, of course, a good editor could make this better, but I think she's deliberately avoiding that here. A pop star is unwise to fire a good producer without a better replacement, but sometimes they have to bring out the piano and do an acoustic performance live.
Is it sadder than any other individual who has to work into retirement age? Or is the fall itself what you find sad? I can imagine some artists might be happier in this latter stage of their lives where they can focus on their real fans and better fostering other personal relationships in their lives.
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 of the job, are in the journey not the destination - if you're even into that stuff... i.e. having your music impact lives.
I wish sooooo much that people could read these things so when I go to a dinner party or random event, some GenPop person knew that JK Rowling makes billions of dollars but your average published writer loses money publishing a book. Your average NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL athletes are broke 5 years after they are out of the league. Fame, is mostly a curse.
Good on charli xcx for writing this and for writing period.
I'm not familiar with the financials of music / media production (I didn't read the linked article yet, sorry). But I feel this over-pitying attitude towards professional sports players is misplaced. They do often go broke after their career. That is sad. It is also completely avoidable with _very_ basic financial planning. I think feeling sorry for them is a disservice, because it makes it seem that this outcome is hard to avoid. It's not hard when they're making 500k+/year:
1. Spend (a lot) less than you make. At 500k/year anywhere in the US, you should easily be saving 200k / year.
2. Invest the money you've saved. There's lots of good advice online, and realistically if you're saving 200k/year you don't have to worry about making the best choices -- just decent ones.
3. Don't accept generic lifestyle creep!
People need to be responsible and take control of their finances. You can't rely on somebody else to watch your finances, or make you eat your vegetables, or brush your teeth. The same advice applies to lots of people in tech, IMO.
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 of pro sports players that get and heed advice just like yours, and finish out their short and bright sports career well financially set for their remaining 60-ish years when they're no longer capable of earning half a mil plus a year being athletes.
But I'm also fairly sure the career and lifestyle, and the managers, hangers on, and sycophants they're surrounded with push then hard the other direction.
I'm not from the US, so I don't have a real understanding of US pro sports and the way people end up there, but I have this impression that it's "one of the ways out of the ghetto" for at least some of them. People who won the genetic lottery, but lost the birth demographics lottery. They've never had generation wealth or even a middle class safety net. They don't have family or friends who have experience or advice about what to do with suddenly having way more money that anybody the have even known. They don't have family or close friends who can recommend trusted financial advisors or lawyers. Any advice they're getting risks coming from people they ane not certain they can trust to have their own interests at heart, and aren't trying to skim their own percentage off the top.
I don't exactly pity someone who earns 500k+ a year in a short pro sports career, and blows it all ending up poor. But I think I can understand how the system is set up - if not to actively encourage that outcome, at the very least that system probably doesn't do as much to protect against it as they could.
I'm not sure lifestyle creep is actually the main problem that celebrities going broke suffer from. Stereotypically the lifestyle is something they can afford, but they make bad investments.
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.
Justing trivializes life entirely.
It just creeps in, but why? Why does it creep in? Often because we do not want to do the complicated analysis as to why things are the way they are because then it does not validate our preferences which are often emotional and not movable by logic anyway.
Just exercise more, fatty, says that the problem of being a fatty has a simple solution that anyone can see and there is no need to argue the point here. Start jogging!!
Just in the rather archaic meaning nowadays as being right and proper and what should happen in a fair and balanced universe is tangentially related, the archaic meaning of Just is memetically echoed in the assertive mode of Just doing things. If the world was fair and balanced and most of all really simple then Just jogging would cure the fatty, but it doesn't.
on edit: changed than to then.
* These are elite athletes at the top of their pyramid, which means they have an absolutely bonikers elite competitive drive that got them where they had so far.
They were probably the best player on every team they've been since kindergarten. They've made it to the top of the pyramid and most want to keep going. Championships, all-stars, MVPs, all of these are things they are USED to getting at every level so far, and they want to keep going.
So when they sign there $X00,000 rookie deal they're not thinking "OK how do i save the most of this for my retirement", they're thinking "how do i get $Y,000,000 deal next? And the $WZ,000,000 deal after that?" And of course then I'll be set for life, and it will be easy to save and retire cuz i'll be rich.
This is just human nature.
$500k/year sounds like a lot, but that's enough that taxes are going to take a large bite. Only the biggest stars can get their income deferred beyond their career. Because of the nature of the job, you're going to have larger housing costs: when you get traded, you need to find somewhere to live quickly and you might be on the hook for the old lease for some time; depending on the league, off-season training may happen in a different part of the country than the regular season, so you might need housing there too... Moving costs probably add up, because trades are immediate.
If you're only in the league for 5 years, chances are you're spending some time in the minors and you're typically not earning at your headling contract rate then... Also, a lot of the headline rates include bonuses for winning the championship which statistically few teams and players do.
There's also the problem that yes, these people need financial advice because they don't always have financial skills, but they also have trouble picking financial advisers because they don't always have financial skills.
Also, young people of all income levels get themselves into trouble with finance; higher income probably makes it easier.
I certainly agree that $500k/year for 5 years should leave you well off after, but it's not that surprising that it often doesn't.
> $500k/year sounds like a lot, but that's enough that taxes are going to take a large bite.
It seems to imply that taxes are going to make the $500k income life surprisingly hard, but let’s do the math. In California, with $500k income, your effective taxation rate is 41%, looking here: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#M0SXJ.... So you’re going to take home about $300k after tax!! I think that’s still _so much money_. I would struggle to spend that even if I tried to. Ya, the taxes are higher. But it’s not that big of an issue, once you’re making a ton of money it just doesn’t hurt much. That’s why graduated tax rates are tolerable to begin with, imo.
Quite a few stars get scammed. "Our accountant/manager stole all the money" is not an uncommon thing.
Music and sports both have shady links to organised crime, so it's not a given that stars are going to be surrounded with the kindest and most professional people.
To be a good "team player", it's good to be liked by your teammates. If you want to be friends with your teammates, who all spend money like there's no tomorrow, it probably helps if you do the same.
I'm not saying you can't save up as an athlete, but it's probably harder than we think.
Consciousness. We all have a wealth consciousness.
this is a good point and also I believe obviously wrong.
What are the stats on people making 500k a year on losing that going broke? Do they outperform sports stars etc.?
If it is the same then that implies that on the average people do not handle 500k basic financial planning well, or two that basic financial planning won't do what you say with that amount of money (for what, 5 years?). At any rate it would mean that generally people suffer this way and thus it is doing a disservice to point out how dumb they were for not doing basic financial planning.
If it is not the same then it implies that there may be something about the career that makes it harder then it does for other people in which case you are doing even more of a disservice.
I believe it is actually there is something about the career that makes it harder (this belief is formed by just thinking about it and doing absolutely no data analysis because I just do not have the time to devote to it past this HN post)
But I think we can create a thought experiment that shows why it is different
Many of us here are familiar with careers the top of which make 500k a year, there are a few engineers who could make that much. Or management at tech firms, it doesn't matter. There are people who can make that much.
Now if you lose your 500k job in tech what happens? You probably fall down a level to a lower paying job in tech. Let's say 390,000. That's a significant drop, but it's still a pretty nice wage.
The reason for this is because the tech career is a pyramid, 500k at or near top. And a pyramid means that the levels lower than the higher levels are wider (this being an analogy) and being wider has more entries for you to fall into.
Sports is also a pyramid. Or really several pyramids. There is the small pyramid of multi-million dollar players who can fall into single millions and then into the hundreds of thousands. But mainly the pyramid you are dealing with is an inverted pyramid. That is to say the sports career chart is top = player, most players, when you fall out of player level you fall into a level with fewer slots - coaches, commentators, agents, recruiters. If you can't fall into one of these slots and perform adequately (perhaps because you are doing a high paying job that also has high risks of causing brain damage [depending on sport obviously]) then when you lose your 500k sports job you are probably significantly worse off than most of us are when we lose our 500k programming jobs (obviously counterexamples abound, like if you lose job due to illness that means you won't get 390000 programming job either)
Anyway I believe your point that these people should not be pitied over much because they could handle their problems with basic financial playing probably is a bit mean, and one I often hear around here.
It's possible to be semi-famous and still able to go to the grocery store and pump your own gas without getting recognized. The local sports radio guys don't need an entourage, even if they do get recognized. But as a rising artist, you hit a point where you can no longer go out in public at all. It's really shocking when it happens because it's so abrupt. My dad's famous friend was a regular at a local restaurant and wasn't bothered for a long time, even when his name/face started showing up in the media. Then one day another customer shouted his name and he got mobbed by fans, and he realized he couldn't go out to eat like a normal person anymore. I think Charli crossed that line with the success of her album Brat last year. It's the point where you start to ask yourself if it's really worth it, and maybe consider going full recluse like Thomas Pynchon. (That's not even getting into the online stan culture stuff that Charli talks about in the article.)
In Hollywood, that line gets crossed at a surprisingly low level. I am friends with Josh Sussman, who played Jacob Ben Israel on Glee. I occasionally visit him in LA, and we can’t go anywhere in public without getting constantly stopped by people wanting photos. It’s exhausting.
I lived in Camberwell, Australia for a while and I would run across Geoffrey Rush in the local supermarket fairly routinely.
Nobody bothered him.
I also heard about Matt Lucas, of Little Britain fame. He was slowly plugging away at it, and was about to give up. At around 30 years old, he teamed up with David Walliams, describing it as the last roll of the die. Their popularity exploded.
Morgan Freeman didn't become famous until he was in his 50's. Someone asked him if he was upset that it took so long. His response was: "No, because it didn't have to happen at all."
I looked her up and started listening as I read the article, and the while listening to the two track released so far from her upcoming album I was thinking "this is really good, why haven't I listened to her before?" then I put on her last album Brat, and realised "Oh, right. That's not my style of music. She's never been writing for me, and I know who she is writing for, and I understand why they like her and why she's so popular." And I respect that.
I'll keep an ear out for her new album, and based on what I've heard so far I fully expect to enjoy it, way more than I'm enjoying Brat. I've also added her substack to my rss feeds, no guarantee it'll stay there long term, but I'm at least curious enough to follow along for her next few blogposts.
My point wasn't that everyone will recognize them, just that there's a pretty clear difference between the most successful few at the top of their domain and the others who might still be able to make a living doing it but aren't superstar-level compared to their peers, and that's independent of whether every single person knows who they are. The parent comment brought to the idea of average players of the major professional sports leagues, and I felt like that was almost missing the context of this article, which is someone who might be the literally have been the most successful artist of last year, not just an average a professional musician.
Luckily we don’t all enjoy the same music, that would be boring as well! :)
Also debt isn't always bad, but most individuals quoted in the study are probably not holding the good type of debt (debt one can easily pay off but doesn't).
[1] https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/demographics/
It is, but it's also a reflection of the business of professional sports in America and where most professional athletes come from. Most professional athletes don't come out of a positive financial environment, they mostly come from poor upbringings and neither through family or the education system are they taught basic financial literacy. Professional athletes in the US suffer the same exact problems as lottery winners, for pretty much exactly the same reason.
They would also have been broke if they hadn't been athletes. The career doesn't damage their finances. It's excellent for their finances while it lasts, and then they revert to normal. Why would you call that a curse?
I think there has to be a balance, personally. If you spend your life trying to be as interesting as possible, it gets very spiritually depleting. If you do take an honest interest in others, though, the pop-star factor gets multiplied.
So many times I’ve seen fans congregate around a star, struck as they were, to be regaled with that stars new interesting thing, or entertaining acts. Sure, they walk away with the experience. But, whenever the pop star turns it around and takes more of an interest in the other person - wow! The fan factor multiplies significantly. (Incidentally, this works not just for pop stars but also anyone at all, actually.)
That said, I don’t think being a pop star is a particularly healthy activity. The exhaustion levels once the green room door is closed are pretty obvious, and the means of healing from weeks, or months and months of continuous, daily, “being interesting” takes a huge toll.
The pop stars I’ve known, intimately, who have a strong family that just treat them like regular people, are usually the healthiest. The few stars I consider friends, as in we could call each other just to hang out and chat now and then, are really the ones who find this balance early in their life.
I also have a somewhat famous actress in my family, and she is an extremely tiring person to be around, even though she has millions of adoring fans, because there is a continual vibe of being as interesting as possible, no matter the circumstances, and this is exhausting for those of us who live with her on a regular basis. Inter-family gossip always takes note of her attention levels.
But even regular people try too hard to be interesting sometimes. Attention is a currency in our culture; its too often traded poorly.
2025 example: Chappell Roan - I have no idea if she is genuine or is this a very cleverly manufactured brand. Outbursts at fans, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc.
Needless to say, the pop industry is all about creating a facsimile of a thing, if not the thing itself. You're not buying bread from these stars - you're buying a picture of life.
My dad flew 32 missions over Germany. He watched men die. 80% of his cohort did not return. He expected to die and made his peace with it. He told me once that when he returned home, he was struck by the trivial problems people had and obsessed over. After all, they weren't flying a mission tomorrow with near certain death.
He said whenever he felt down, he'd recall the men that never had a chance to grow old, and his problems would melt away.
And I always respond with, yes, not everyone risked death, and they do have a right to complain about rent. You did it because of your own free choice.
Another aspect of this silly stance is that if we always compare with death, nothing ever gets done. It is perfectly reasonable to have everything, and still aim towards other goals. If one is not risking life, you are well justified in complaining about the traffic jam.
Not much. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t voluntarily faced death or consciously experienced the threat of it.
I respect both views. I guess it takes some Janusian thinking skills [1], for me at least, but both perspectives are worth it.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creative-exploration...
I've never wanted to transfer my brain into a machine. Isn't it wonderful to feel the floor under your feet? To smell the air? To taste a steak? To hear the bees? To see the leaves? To hold your partner?
Every day is an opportunity to enjoy your life.
I don't really know what kind of a man I am, because I have never volunteered to face death.
Since when is getting drafted a free choice? Over 60% of US soldiers in WWWI had no choice whatsoever.
All the B-17 crews were volunteers.
I always feel put in a position when I'm in an interview and they ask about handling pressure in the workplace.
I can imagine resistance when you are invaded (and still, you need to weigh your real chances). Sending someone to Africa from France to protect some interests there, well not that much.
My comment was general - I am French and we send our army mostly to Africa to secure our sources of various minerals. Or to Asia in the 70s. We did not go to Iraq but that would have been another fight for oil (this time).
Western countries have not been attacked since WW2, but it also have been busy (same as the US)
Mostly because they've sold out, at Yalta, the Eastern countries as a "buffer zone" to protect them from the orcs. Even today, Ukraine's heroic people are dying daily so that Westerners can enjoy their morning Starbucks PSLs.
The few sacrifices you made were also in your own long-term interest. Imagine the blood-thirsty Russia using Africa's people and its resources for war: life in the west wouldn't be that peaceful and comfortable anymore.
The cereal aisle scene from Hurt Locker always did it for me
Edit: Actually that link is incomplete, this is also important: https://youtu.be/YJEvZHN9E6s
"Are you happier as a brunette?"
"Uh...are you happier as a schmuck?"
...
"You like doing things you don't like?"
"Yeah. That's a paradox isn't it?"
I believe I listened to Charli XCX music once, my girlfriend has grandchildren. Not really my thing, but it's great that people are still being influenced by those interviews.
I still listen to the Velvet Underground all the time, but if I listen to Lou Reed's solo stuff, it's either Walk On the Wild Side or those interviews.
Maybe "The Kids" from Berlin once in a while.
And "Sweet Jane" depending on whether you consider Loaded as a VU album.
It happened from time to time that people recognized me when at the groceries or some other place. I always had found that very awkward. These people have an image of you, they know a bit about you, they like you but on the other hand you absolutely don't know them. I did my best to be welcoming and had genuine interest in who they were but the asymetry was very awkward to me.
Also, people close to your friends also know you are "on tv" and then you can feel they look at you differently. It's subtle (after all, I was just a verrrrrrrrrryy minor figure) but it's there.
But what I've learned a lot is that once you see the TV and some famous people from the inside, you realize that they are much more normal than what you thought. Sure they've got some talent you sure don't have, but for the rest they're human: some are cool, some are not, some funny some boring, etc.
I really don’t see this. Female singers seem to be enjoying about as much freedom to do and act in whatever way they please as it’s possible without basically letting them get away with criminal behavior… and even then many openly talk about doing drugs and other stuff that would get anyone else in trouble. Is it possible I am blind to some patriarchal society traits that make us “hate” women and she’s right about that?? If not, why some women still believe that??
Look at top 20 male and female popular artists on Spotify and try to think how many of them are agreeable and objectively good looking.
https://kworb.net/spotify/listeners.html
I don't know know if this answers your question. I also might have a huge blind spot, open to talking about this.
It just looks like pretty people are in general a lot more successful, which is unsurprising. The attempt to apply a sexist lens to it is a bit tortured.
the difference is even bigger when I look at agreeability - this is more difficult to measure.
Female privilege can be used to bend men to a woman's will. It's kind of like a resource curse like oil exports. You can cheaply import anything and pay for it by exporting oil. This means your country doesn't have to develop independent production, which makes it dependent on the imports of another country. When things are going wrong internally, you can always point at an external locust of power. The problem is that your trade partners are no longer exporting their products to you and they obviously know that this will hurt your country. They are making a calculated decision against you. You are powerless and it's because the other countries have been hoarding/accumulating power and are using this power to keep you powerless. The classic communist excuse that it's the capitalist sanctions that are the problem.
As I said, the problem is a lack of an internal locust of control. The externalisation, no matter how convincing, is a way to distract from the actual problem. The fact that there are gender specific boogiemen doesn't really change anything.
Normal people despise being lectured by celebrities about social or political issues.
The deliberate irony is that contrary to the servicemen's belief that rock stars live a life of ease, the life of a musician can be grueling. You have to spend years mastering your instrument(s) and then win the record-deal lottery; after which your time is pretty much divided between being in the studio recording, on tour performing and promoting the album on a round-the-clock schedule, and with the rise of MTV shooting music videos. It's no wonder rock stars are prone to hedonism; they probably think they have to drink deeply of relaxation and pleasure while they have the opportunity, in order to reset and be ready for the next album, the next concert tour, the next press event...
They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
Baby, don't you cry for me It's an illusion, just an illusion
BZN - Just An Illusion https://genius.com/Bzn-just-an-illusion-lyrics
Two sentences I would've not predicted in close proximity to one another! Hah, love it. Guess he's been through a lot over the years.
How so?
Do you want to be the best rapper in Sweden? Do you want to be the best engineer at EA? 2 million a year to work at Palantir? Sign with a label and get 2 million a year to live in LA and have your music in Pepsi ads? Start an open source greenfield passion project that has only your vision as the runway? Work your own musical genre even if your audience isn't there yet?
As a talented young person (or at least you believe in yourself!) it's early in your life/career where you can sculpt and morph yourself while you are still formable.
You couldn't go out in public without being hounded or swamped by people. The parasocial relationships people form with you can put your life in danger.
Even worse is being a politician - particularly at a global leader level. Surely there has been an average Joe who has shithoused their way into being a leader of a significant country. Once you do that, with politics being as toxic as it is, for the rest of your days you can be a marked person.
Link: https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
I mean "fell upwards". Gave it a shot for shits and giggles and made it.
Aussies have 50 meanings for the word "cunt". It can simultaneously be both the worst and the best thing you can call someone. And aussies know exactly which meaning is intended from context.
Sure, any public figure will be the target of hatred, negative projection, ridicule. And doubtless that's doubly true for female celebrities. But much of this is driven by envy - envy fuelled by the gilded age level of inequality we're currently experiencing. By the performative nature of conspicuous consumption by pop stars. By their ubiquity and elevation to celestial rather than mere celebrity status.
There's another factor she fails to recognise. Charlie XCX's music is woeful. 'Pop' in the sense of ephemeral, unoriginal, commercial, rather than merely popular. That, combined with her pretension to art makes her vast wealth and celebrity irksome in a way that the success of more original, avant garde or obviously 'artistic' musicians from David Bowie to Imogen Heap is not.
It's as much a part of being human as love or work or dance or any other culturally universal meaningful activity. And making art is significantly more important for our personal development and wellbeing than consuming entertainment.
> We all want some sort of excitement or maybe magic, and these superstars give it to us.
You're not describing magic, you're describing succour. The avoidance of pain. It's not worthless by any means, but it's low down on the pyramid of needs. It's a testament to the diminished expectations and value inversions of our culture that we misperceive fluff as worthwhile, and sincere creative expression as 'taking yourself too seriously'.
Ed Sheeran gives off what i suspect is a very carefully managed vibe of ordinariness. If it's not curated it's very well done.
At best, it allows "celebrities" to hop into any domain of their choosing without any real qualification or having earned their way in that particular field.
> Public sector service requirement
> The public sector service requirement is that the person has: held office for three or more years as Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament, Attorney-General, Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Auditor-General, Accountant-General or Permanent Secretary;
> Private sector service requirement
> The private sector service requirement is that the person has: served as the chief executive of a company and the following four criteria are met:
That's a strange characterization; he was famous across the country before there was even a concept of "reality TV".
I added it’s a word way to put it. He became more famous generally but he was already known to NY and powerful people.
I assume roughly half of pop stars are male, give or take. Or, given the quote and speaking in generalities, at least roughly half of successful people are male. I’m sure we can all name wildly successful males who garner the same hate she is speaking about.
I don’t think it’s patriarchy, I think it’s simply jealously, insecurity, and judgmental feelings all wrapped up into a big ball of hate.
Or it’s the patriarchy. Just doesn’t make sense for the point trying to be made.
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 have included a lot of those men as "pop stars", in retrospect probably because my interpretation of "pop music" leans heavily towards women, and rightly or wrongly I'd label at least half the men on that list as "rock stars" instead (and very few of the women).
"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").
I see a lot of other figures in pop culture echo this sentiment. The need to downplay the effort involved because the payoff is disproportionate to the effort/payoff ratio of most other jobs. In a job where mass public perception dictates success I can see why she would feel the need to include this, but I hope she doesn't truly believe it. A globally recognized chef who gets paid millions for their work isn't downplaying his effort because of how disproportionately valued it is, so neither should a pop star.
> patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all
I'm not totally subscribed to this "patriarchy" narrative. I think any "brainwashing" (or establishment of cultural norms) is from a mix of figures from both genders alike. I don't think it's a symptom of the perceived problem of higher positions mainly holding men in power. I do agree with her assessment with there being people postured to give an excessive amount of hate to women who don't fit their societal expectations vs. men who don't, so I'll give her that.
With that said, this was still a good read. I'm not too familiar with Charli XCX but I have a lot of respect for her using her free time to share her experiences. I hope to see more from her in the future.
The locals there will try to pin which celebrity you are or if they have seen you before on the television.
It's not a 100% thing, maybe a 10% thing, of course.
But the more remote you are, the higher the hit rate.
It's because they know they are remote and off the paths, so they think that the only reason that an American is there is because they are filming something. Note this doesn't work with French speaking areas.
I don't think trying to detect ChatGPT is a good use of time. Either the writing is good, or it's not.
"...let some random person you’ve just met in the bathroom try on the necklace around your neck that is equivalent to the heart of the ocean"
Like you I always look for signs of AI in writing I see online, and it's incredibly disappointing how often it's there. There's no personality, no charm, nothing unique - just the same flawless grammar and overuse of cliche. This piece is filled with the quality of humanity that we once took for granted. This is what we are losing.
Is this maybe an American thing? Ie it’s just not used much there?
I’ve always liked the American flag. I have a little pin on my jacket. People assume something by its presence.
That’s life. Delve is now an LLMism.
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).
Oh my god, can we stop with the obsession of whether something has been chatgpt-ified? I like to know when things are true, or when they are good. I couldn't care less if they are chatgpt-y.
People like authenticity. ChatGPT ain’t it.
Is this limited to females or even those in pop? I think any star is at risk here. I'd argue male athletes are targets at least as often. See: public discourse on Travis Kelce.
Nah it's nothing to do with women, it's simple jealousy. Everyone wants to be successful. If they can dismiss successful people as lucky or whatever (tbf some are) then it makes them feel better about their own failure to be successful (they are just as good; they just weren't as lucky).
A natural human tendency. Look at all the people saying Elon Musk isn't really an engineer. Yeah right, he definitely is heavily involved in the high level technical decisions. Yes he's an arsehole and moderately racist and probably quite lucky too but he is good at his job.
On the same note here. It's quite interesting what women are quick to attribute any negative behaviour or feeling against them as a sexism and maybe this is a result of some popular culture behaviour.
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.
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.
- “(Scoffs). You’re an engineer? Yeah, right. What about that Challenger explosion? And how come you don’t put anyone on the Moon for 50 years? Engineer…”
That’s how your comment reads.
However...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
making 31 public predictions about his self-driving cars over 20 years and only being right about one of them is not so clever.
> There is no objective valuation
Value investing is Warren Buffett's style, which is generally a backwards looking approach. It's not good at predicting transformative technologies. Such was no good at predicting the success of, say, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, etc.
And the other examples you ara giving…
Apple’s valuation went up as it was clear that Apple had a sustainable advantage and was going to see increasing revenues and profits going forward. Where are the companies that invented the modern smart phone?
Microsoft has a sustainable advantage that hasn’t been challenged in over four decades with operating systems, office apps and later cloud services. But their stock was in the doldrums in the 2000s when investors didn’t see a sustainable advantage with increasing revenues
Meta has also been volatile when investors didn’t see a sustainable advantage.
Amazon also has a moat
What does Tesla have?
It does more than cars. It's in the solar energy business, the grid scale battery business, AI, FSD, robotics, a global network of superchargers, home battery systems, etc.
Tesla shareholders voted to offer him a $1t compensation package over the next decade, provided he meets certain targets.
Again what is their moat? Waymo is much further along with self driving, they are a very distant also ran in AI and absolutely no company is going to choose them over anyone else, and their supercharging network is more anemic than you think it is in the vast majority if the US let alone the world.
China has shown its very capable when it comes to battery technologies and they have most of the rare earth minerals needed.
He fell off when he lost his egirl and became a drug addict.
There’s nothing in there that I couldn’t capture with a very basic imagination.
While I appreciate how women face misogyny, we have made great progress where women are showing better progression than men in income and career achievement. I am a father to a young woman and feel our social group is full of very successful and inspiring women that we all appreciate to be around.
The author does women a disservice, instead of being inspiring with her climb to success, she’s venting that the world is just not good enough.
To become a pop star comes from pure luck and what is marketable in the moment. For this case, the observations are more of a cliche than anything interesting.
Of course you father of daughters doesn't think she's a good feminist role model for your girls. Thank you, good sir, for being an actual feminist. How brave.
Tell me more about what you think would be a service to women? Do you have a Substack where I can read your manly wisdom?
The more anonymity the better.
Making music at any professional level is extremely hard work. Touring and dancing and hosting shows is even harder. It requires a substantial intellectual capacity and stamina to achieve. You either have these things yourself, or you are propped up entirely by others who have them and are invested in you for money's sake. Given Charli XCX's background, it's not actually surprising that she, in fact, has all the talent, skill, and intellect required to do this stuff herself.
Editing to add: Another place to look to learn that people with this skillset often have very very deep inner lives is Dua Lipa's book club podcast (https://www.service95.com/tag/book-club). As someone who used to run these kinds of in-depth interviews, I can say, she is damn good at it.
Charli XCX, like nearly all popstars, was propped up by the producers and writers who shaped her sound and composed large parts of the music. Producers have been there the whole way. In particular, her blowing up was highly influenced by the stylistic direction, composition, production and sound engineering of people associated with the PC Music record label. The statement that she had good enough taste to have been around these people is rather unfair -- she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.
The most common refrain is that popstars often write their music. This is misleading: they write the lyrics, suggest a general vibe, and some rough melodies or chords. And even this is a stretch many times. They are not composing or producing the music in any larger sense, and this is the pivotal part of actually making music.
One famous exception that comes to mind is Grimes, who largely actually /makes/ her own music. She rarely seems to get credit for this.
This is not to say that vocalist popstars don't bring a lot to the table. They do. But what they bring to the table is incredible performance skill and charisma. I think poptimism has gone too far, to the point that we think the product was responsible for creating itself.
No, if anything Charli XCX was the one that put PC Music on the map. She has been a fairly big name since 2012
> she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.
Sophie didn’t pioneer the sound of PC Music any more than e.g. AG Cook, QT, Hannah Diamond, Danny L Harle, 100 gecs, or any of the other many artists involved, including Charli XCX
You’re talking as if PC Music is some huge label with a lot of help, when it’s mostly just AG Cook. He and Charli XCX collaborated on tracks for a couple of Charli’s albums
Sophie was an example. I didn't see it necessary to talk about all the artists involved in PC Music to make the point that the producers on the label pioneered the sound.
Look at the credits for her albums. She had producers and writers credited on every single song. This IS a lot of help. You're acting like she just did a couple of collabs with AG Cook and that's it. She had many different people helping her on the actual composition and production of every single song.
This is the point being refuted -- that the popstars are geniuses responsible for carrying the burden of their rise. It's mythology. The reality is that they bring performance skills and charisma to the table, some non-awful lyrical skill, and then the lion's share of actually making the music work is done by producers and writers. They would be nowhere without the producers. The producers would be nowhere without the popstars. But it's the most common poptimist mistake to confuse the popstar's charisma for the producer's mastery.
I think in the modern day, due to Internet, access to DAWs, etc, a lot of pop stars actually do/did much more of their own writing and production, see Billie & Finneas or Chappel Roan. It's just much more accessible, there's lots of pretty faces on social media so to really break out, you either need some real connections or real chops.
To be fair, if they write the lyrics, define the vibe/feel of the song, and compose the melody and chord progression, then that does sound like the vast majority of the song. What's left - I guess some additional instrumentation, the percussion, production? To me it does sound fair to credit the popstar with having composed the music in this case.
If you're writing for a guitar and voice, then you've basically got a song, but pop music is built on sometimes hundreds of different instruments and effects.
If you gave Lennon and McCartney a couple of guitars, a few days of studio time, a good mood, and no other help you'd probably get a hit. Or at least an interesting song.
If you gave Taylor Swift the same you'd get a demo, maybe. You might get an unassisted hit, but the odds are much lower.
Charli XCX - even more so. Give her a laptop and microphone and some plugins and no producer, and I doubt you'd get much.
Not to say that what she and Dua Lipa do is easy. But they're fundamentally performers and brands for a music production operation.
Creative agency isn't a binary. It's on a spectrum. Some people have very little. Some have a lot. Some have taste that defines the product, even though they're mostly curating other people's work.
Michael Jackson was notorious for this. He was a phenomenal dancer, an ok vocalist, not much of a practical musician. But he had a strong sense of what he wanted, and he had a theatricality that pulled the whole thing together.
Charli XCX is a version of that. I don't think her appeal is as strong or as universal, and I doubt she has as much agency as Jackson did. But it's the same idea - shape, curate, perform.
You could argue that Harrison and Starr always deserved some of the writing credit, since they often determined their parts, and I wouldn't actually disagree with that -- though Lennon and McCartney were kinda control freaks, so I'm not sure how much leeway was actually given. When they started bringing in extra instruments, again, there is arguably some extra credit to be given to Martin and others, but Lennon and McCartney were still strongly directing what was to be played.
For what it's worth -- and this is going to get me hated even more than my popstar-skepticism -- I don't really like the Beatles that much. But it's transparent that they did more than Taylor Swift because they were specifically and precisely writing the melodies for the instruments being played.
Of course, that isn’t a shallow opinion so perhaps someone unfamiliar to her would think otherwise
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 :)
> Does she write her own lyrics? Or does someone else write those for her?
Even when a singer is performing a song they didn't write, they're often doing that because the song appeals to them.
after all, it takes a smart guy to play dumb. artists do portray a persona, or are encouraged by labels. at the same time we cannot blame others for buying it or making their own assumptions.
from first look about the book club podcast, it seems great that one reads a book and gets to talk directly with its author.
Considering cocaine is both illegal and has an obviously unethical supply chain, you'd think someone would try, you know, prosecuting her or something.
More likely you’ll face a fine or a strong talking to if you get caught at the airport with some small quantity of pot.
You're getting banned for life.
I’d be shocked if the airport experience at Bali was really different, although they would probably want a bribe from you.
Also, it's illegal.
That's how most people function. People work their asses off so that they can do something fun two weeks a year.
> 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.
Because even though people clearly have different levels of intelligence, saying this out loud goes against values of the society, and keeping the society together is more important than being truthful. This is one of those things that "normies" understand subconsciously but never articulate, while autists rarely understand because it's never articulated.
> 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
Pop star gets successful by playing a role of a stupid person. Some people think she's actually stupid. It doesn't take a degree in social sciences to connect the dots.
> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger
Jealously has existed since the dawn of time. Various cultures have sayings along "nothing makes one happier than someone else's misery".
> the patriarchal society
I've noticed that many people who see themselves as oppressed get tunnel vision and attribute lots of unrelated problems to said oppression. This is one of those subconscious biases that exist because having them gives you massive social advantage because you can get all the pity you want.
> Over recent years some people seem to have developed a connection between fame and moral responsibility that I’ve never really understood.
Rich and famous people have power. They're expected to use that power for good regardless of how they got the power.
I did 100% business travel for a couple of a years, and it was pretty grueling despite mostly being stationed with the same customer for a couple of months. At the Charli XCX level, you may be doing 4 gigs in 4 different cities in 3 days:
Point being, I think it's likely this person is one of the last pop stars.
Actually, as I'm writing this, I realized that probably the music being produced by this person is actually done by a computer. So, maybe she's in the first wave of totally artificial pop stars.
Her main collaborator, co-creator and producer of many years is the artist AG Cook, who founded the label PC Music. He appears often in her music videos and gets mentioned in her lyrics. His own solo work plays a lot with pairing the artificial and the organic, taking the "slick" aesthetics of electronic pop to abrasive extremes and placing it next to vulnerability and gentleness.
This is my favourite piece of his work (both the song and the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH2wQ5speuU
Charli's work or his might not suit your taste! But these are real people doing interesting stuff and playing with the form. It's not fake.
These are some that I like from various albums:
Why not save them from themselves with some of your approved recommendations?