The Year Music Failed to Blockbust
Or how Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, and more of pop music's biggest superstars became little more than a lifestyle condiment
By Steven Hyden on December 17, 2013PRINT
When historians look back on pop music in 2013, I suspect they will gravitate to one word as a summation for the year's events.
Delusion.
Before we get to the reason for this delusion, let's revel for a moment in glorious self-deception. After all, this was the year of the carefully orchestrated pre-release promotional campaign, when albums were marketed with the all-in sweep of a $200 million summer blockbuster. And for a while, it was kind of fun. In February, semi-big time and über-silly rock band 30 Seconds to Mars declared that it was launching its new single into outer space.1 Outer space! And that was only a prologue to the year's truly big albums. In spring, Daft Punk commenced a clever advertising scheme for Random Access Memoriesutilizing old media like billboards and enigmatic music videos that aired on Coachella's JumboTrons and were subsequently bootlegged. We actually pirated commercials back then! Seriously! A few months after that, Jay Z appeared in a Samsung ad with a crew of superstar producer pals in order to announce the July 4 release Magna Carta … Holy Grail like he was Will Smith unveiling Independence Day 2. Remember when you were excited to hear Magna Carta … Holy Grail? Good times!
As the year wore on, the gambits grew weirder and more desperate. Katy Perry deployed an 18-wheel semi-trailer truck to trek across the country in order to promote her new album, Prism.2 Eminem stumped for The Marshall Mathers LP 2 by engaging in the most awkward nationally televised conversation ever involving Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit, and "The Stroke." Finally, Lady Gaga unleashed Volantis, also known as the world's first flying dress, at a comically ostentatious press event–cum-metaphor for the record industry's "fall of Rome" period.
The albums these shock-and-awe media sieges were waged in honor of were similarly outsize. And long. So, so very long. Arcade Fire'sReflektor was presented as a double album. The Daft Punk and Eminem records had enough running-time tonnage to be unofficial double-album albums. Justin Timberlake released two albums in the same year that were long enough to each be double albums, which suggested that his primary influence was no longer Michael Jackson but rather Use Your Illusion–era Guns N' Roses.
The most hyped albums of 2013 were intended to envelop the senses and overwhelm limited attention spans with extreme prejudice. Collectively they represented a defensive strike against the ongoing "accessorization" of music, where the latest pop product is used merely as a device to get people to spend money on iPhones, iPads, and other tech goods. It began with the pre-release marketing bonanzas, which were generally (and strikingly) analog-based. Like a character in a Daft Punk song, this year's pop stars were digital-based organisms that yearned to be "real." Because no matter how Internet-centered pop culture becomes, there's still a common perception that something doesn't truly matter unless it achieves a certain stature in "real" life. This is what necessitates a designation between famous and Internet famous — famous really means "real life" famous, whereas Internet famous is meant to denote "less than."3 It also explains why Katy Perry felt the need to rent a fukking truck to advertise her record despite having 48.6 million followers on Twitter. More and more, pop stars seem to exist solely online. And therefore they don't really exist at all.
Read the rest:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...y-eminem-justin-timberlake-beyonce-year-music
Or how Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, and more of pop music's biggest superstars became little more than a lifestyle condiment
By Steven Hyden on December 17, 2013PRINT
When historians look back on pop music in 2013, I suspect they will gravitate to one word as a summation for the year's events.
Delusion.
Before we get to the reason for this delusion, let's revel for a moment in glorious self-deception. After all, this was the year of the carefully orchestrated pre-release promotional campaign, when albums were marketed with the all-in sweep of a $200 million summer blockbuster. And for a while, it was kind of fun. In February, semi-big time and über-silly rock band 30 Seconds to Mars declared that it was launching its new single into outer space.1 Outer space! And that was only a prologue to the year's truly big albums. In spring, Daft Punk commenced a clever advertising scheme for Random Access Memoriesutilizing old media like billboards and enigmatic music videos that aired on Coachella's JumboTrons and were subsequently bootlegged. We actually pirated commercials back then! Seriously! A few months after that, Jay Z appeared in a Samsung ad with a crew of superstar producer pals in order to announce the July 4 release Magna Carta … Holy Grail like he was Will Smith unveiling Independence Day 2. Remember when you were excited to hear Magna Carta … Holy Grail? Good times!
As the year wore on, the gambits grew weirder and more desperate. Katy Perry deployed an 18-wheel semi-trailer truck to trek across the country in order to promote her new album, Prism.2 Eminem stumped for The Marshall Mathers LP 2 by engaging in the most awkward nationally televised conversation ever involving Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit, and "The Stroke." Finally, Lady Gaga unleashed Volantis, also known as the world's first flying dress, at a comically ostentatious press event–cum-metaphor for the record industry's "fall of Rome" period.
The albums these shock-and-awe media sieges were waged in honor of were similarly outsize. And long. So, so very long. Arcade Fire'sReflektor was presented as a double album. The Daft Punk and Eminem records had enough running-time tonnage to be unofficial double-album albums. Justin Timberlake released two albums in the same year that were long enough to each be double albums, which suggested that his primary influence was no longer Michael Jackson but rather Use Your Illusion–era Guns N' Roses.
The most hyped albums of 2013 were intended to envelop the senses and overwhelm limited attention spans with extreme prejudice. Collectively they represented a defensive strike against the ongoing "accessorization" of music, where the latest pop product is used merely as a device to get people to spend money on iPhones, iPads, and other tech goods. It began with the pre-release marketing bonanzas, which were generally (and strikingly) analog-based. Like a character in a Daft Punk song, this year's pop stars were digital-based organisms that yearned to be "real." Because no matter how Internet-centered pop culture becomes, there's still a common perception that something doesn't truly matter unless it achieves a certain stature in "real" life. This is what necessitates a designation between famous and Internet famous — famous really means "real life" famous, whereas Internet famous is meant to denote "less than."3 It also explains why Katy Perry felt the need to rent a fukking truck to advertise her record despite having 48.6 million followers on Twitter. More and more, pop stars seem to exist solely online. And therefore they don't really exist at all.
Read the rest:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...y-eminem-justin-timberlake-beyonce-year-music