Pop Star Theory

STAR THEORY — Dyer applied to Pop Stars

The terms "pop performer" and "pop star" have become interchangeable — strictly speaking, in media terms they are not the same thing. The study of stars as media texts/components of media texts demands that the distinction be made between those who are simply known for performing pop music and those who are known for being pop stars, who have an identity or persona which is not restricted solely to their musicianship.

One of the reasons so many pop performers are described as pop stars is that they are quickly promoted to this status by their management. This is easily done courtesy of a few judiciously placed stories, a famous boyfriend/girlfriend, attendance at premieres/parties and a feature in NOW magazine. It can be easy to forget about the music in the light of the outfits or love affairs. There are some who appear to leapfrog the performer stage entirely, but they do have to go through it.

HOWEVER, a true pop star does have a lasting significance, and has "brand awareness" amongst a wider market over a period of time. Many of the so-called pop stars thronging the top forty have not made a sufficient sociological or cultural impact to be classified as true stars if we return to Richard Dyers’ definitions.

1. Stars as Constructions

Stars are constructed, artificial images, even if they are represented as being "real people", experiencing real emotions etc. It helps if their image contains a USP — they can be copied and/or parodied because of it. Their representation may be metonymic — Madonna's conical bra in the early 1990s, Bono's 'Fly' sunglasses, Britney's belly. Pop stars have the advantage over film stars in that their constructed image may be much more consistent over a period of time, and is not dependent on the films they choose as star vehicles.

Dyer proposes that

A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music])

Yet that construction process is neither automatic nor fully understood. Record companies think they know about it — but witness the number of failures on their books. TV programmes such as Pop Stars or Pop Idol show us the supposed construction process, how an ordinary teenager is groomed, styled and coached into fulfilling a set of record company expectations. This is not true stardom, which must happen through a combination of public interest, tabloid inches, cultural significance and... idiosyncrasy?

“Imagine showing us 15 years ago to Simon Cowell! That's the problem with Pop Idol. They're auditioning cabaret singers. It's not pop music. It's Batley Variety Club.”

— The Pet Shop Boys, quoted in Q, March 2002

“[Cowell is a] dreadful piece of crap who drags the music business down whenever he rears his ugly head... Pop stars today have no longevity. Rock 'n' roll is not about singing perfect notes or being a showbiz personality. It's about the anger and the angst. I hate what Pop Idol has done to the business.”

— Roger Daltrey [of The Who], ibid

As a public, we prefer to believe in stars who are their own and our constructions — Alanis Morrisette over Zoe from Pop Idol — rather than a transparent offering designed explicitly to appeal to our blander tastebuds served up by a record company interested only in our wallets.

Read Charlotte Raven in The Guardian on the phenomenon of constructed pop stars.

2. Industry and Audience

Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose — to make money out of audiences, who respond to various elements of a star persona by buying records and becoming fans. Stars are the cogs around which a plethora of record company gears find themselves turning. Record companies nurture and shape their stars — as the PopStars/Pop Idol process has shown us. They tend to manufacture what they think audiences want, hence the 'photocopied' nature of many boy bands, teen bands etc. However, there are whole markets out there who are not convinced by the hype and don't want to spend their money on blandness. The record industry also has a duty to provide bands/artists who are perceived as 'real' (for 'real, maybe read 'ugly' or unpolished) for these audiences. Stars can also be created by this route. Oasis perhaps? Or U2, whose slow rise to stardom took a decade. Pop stars, whatever their nature, are quite clearly the product of their record company — and they must be sold.

Dyer says

Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings.

The music industry is well aware of the range of audiences it caters to, the perky pre-school Tweenie fan to the ageing hippy, and it does its best to keep us all happy. The industry provides us with a range of commodities all with different meanings and significations. Want safe, clean sexuality and dreamy harmonies? — have Blue! Want grungy 80s-retro guitars and leather jackets? — have Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!

Many pundits who say that the music industry is in the doldrums claim it is because this range of meanings is absent, or because the meaning of the star is superficial and transient.

3. Ideology & Culture

Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and will promote a certain ideology. Audience interest in these values enhances their 'star quality', and it is through conveying beliefs ideas and opinions outside music that performers help create their star persona (Bono again, Britney & virginity). A star may initiate a fashion trend, with legions of fans copying their hairstyle and clothing. Stars initiate or benefit from cultural discourse, and create an ongoing critical commentary — whether this is in the form of tabloid tattle or serious reviews.

Stardom, and star worship in general is a cultural value in itself. Ideologies drawn upon include materialism and sexuality. Whole sites of institutional support (eg radio & TV shows, magazines) are devoted to "stars"; we seem to have an insatiable appetite for information about them.

http://www.hello-magazine.co.uk/

Stars also provide us with a focal point for our own cultural thinking — particularly to do with Youth & Sexuality. Britney Spears has generated thousands of column inches of ideological discussion since her debut — centring around the virgin/whore dialectic, mainly. These two articles from Salon.Com present some of the main issues about Britney and the ideological nature of her stardom:

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2000/05/22/britney/index.html

http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2001/12/03/britney_spears/index.html?x

4. Character & Personality

A star begins as a "real" human, possessing gender & race characteristics, and existing against a socio-historic background. The star transformation process turns them into a construct, but the construct has a foundation in the real. We tend to read them as not-entirely-fictional, as being are very much of their time and culture, the product of a particular generation. Stars provide audiences with a focus for ideas of 'what people are supposed to be like' (eg for women, thin/beautiful) - they may support hegemony by conforming to it (thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still lovable). Much of the discussion of stars in celebrity magazines is about how stars compare to the current hegemonic ideal, and how we compare to the stars ("Meg Ryan's fab new haircut"/"How you can look like Meg Ryan").

Dyer says

In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions. On the one hand, our society stresses what makes them like others in the social group/class/gender to which they belong. This individualising stress involves a separation of the person's "self" from his/her social "roles", and hence poses the individual against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in such groups would now wish to contest (eg the struggles over representation of blacks, women and gays in recent years). Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated.

Richard Dyer — The Stars (BFI Education 1979)

Film stars are represented primarily through their roles — written by faceless screenwriters. The personality and characteristics making them similar/different are created for them by others, and their overall image is constructed from many fragmented parts, which may or may not contradict each other. They may indeed represent a perceived appropriate norm of behaviour (Haley Joel Osment now effectively embodies the "weird clever kid who only makes friends with adults" and that's OK for him but if you try it at school you'll get your head kicked in) but it takes several similar movies to create this effect. Film stars may survive individual flops — there are always other movies in the can — and embody several different values simultaneously. It's more difficult if you're in the music industry.

Pop stars, on the other hand, establish their character and personality through songs and performance and will strive for immediate star identity with a first album. They appear to have more control over their persona in that many of them write their own songs, and that their body of work develops, chronologically over time, along with society. Pop stars don't do aberrant costume dramas or science fiction movies which take them out of place in time and space and confuse their audience (Keanu Reeves in Dangerous Liaisons, Much Ado About Nothing). They produce 45-74 minutes of music which gives a clear indication of their interests, moods, appetites and lifestyle at a particular point in time; audiences read music=person, and will base their understanding of the star's persona on the sentiments expressed by their songs. This understanding may be very personal and intimate, the star's music can infiltrate every corner of a fan's life. Albums are continually read and re-read as texts — think of the 100+ times you might listen to a CD, whereas films tend to be watched once or twice only.

Because a pop star's persona is constructed on the basis of a narrow text, continually re-read and reassessed, this may lead, in many cases, to second album syndrome, when an artist is unable to sustain their persona over a period of time (largely because they got rich off the back of the first album and bought all the houses cars etc they'd ever wanted) and they are unable to create a consistent account of their character and personality in their second major release. The rootspring of their persona then disappears, or becomes confused, which is very much what happened to the Gallagher brothers post-"What's the Story..." and led to the near-implosion of the band.

A pop star's persona, therefore, as depicted in terms of character and personality, is a fragile thing which needs constant nurturing. Madonna has been excellent at adapting and changing her persona to keep fans interested. Her personality has evolved from defiant slut to devoted mum, selling records all the way. Eminem has gone from cheeky outsider poking institutions with a sharp stick to posterboy of a generation. Who knew?