Identity crisis
by Duncan Day-Myron
Image always has been an important part of any pop performer’s career, but on Billboard top 10s filled with costumed and outrageous singers like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Ke$ha it’s almost impossible to draw any kind of distinction between the performer and the person.
Alter egos aren’t entirely unprecendented. Back in the good old days, The Beatles had Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, and in the 1990s even Garth Brooks had Chris Gaines. In the past decade Mariah Carey emancipated Mimi; we met Damita Jo Jackson, Janet’s more sensual alter ego; and Ciara took (no) listeners on a Fantasy Ride as the vitamin supplement-sounding Super C. But with each of them it was nothing more than a sidebar, a part of their career that existed outside of the music they’d created as themselves. The persona being embedded so strongly in every aspect of their careers is certainly a striking, and fairly new, trend.
10 years ago, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson made their debuts. Forget everything that happened to them in the following decade, but just try and imagine what each of them was at the time: good, all-American girls who professed their virginity time and time again, their personal lives often preceding the music itself in the public’s eye. We knew some of their parents (Britney even “wrote” a book with her mom about her childhood), knew where they’d come from (The Mickey Mouse Club for all three, which I assume is the codename for the same machine that went on to create Miley Cyrus and is probably powered by a frozen Walt Disney’s unbridled anti-semitism) and who they dated. The connection was forcibly intimate, as if we were reading about our besties in the pages of Tiger Beat.
Trying to think about comparable details for the pop stars of today is almost impossible. Sure, Beyoncé is married to our generation’s Elvis and Rihanna is dating some kind of athlete, but there isn’t the same infatuation with the mundane aspects of their biography anymore. Now, performance isn’t just one part of their jobs. It is their job. Lady Gaga has conducted interviews with an inexplicable teacup dressed like a fever dream, Ke$ha has an imagined personal history involving run-ins with Paris Hilton and Quincy Jones and does her makeup like a character in A Clockwork Orange (fitting considering the drunken rowdiness that fills almost every song on her début Animal), Beyoncé goes to awards shows dressed like a comic book hero while Rihanna films videos dressed like her blonde pompadour-ed villain. Although they might class it up occasionally, it’s always only a matter of hours until the robot hand makes an appearance or someone puts on a mask.
It’s hard to say whether this is a business move that’s easier or harder to market. Record sales are in the toilet, but concert ticket sales are breaking records. It seems like a shrewd business move to shift attention towards the theatrical aspect and acquiescing to poor sales figures than pandering to them.
Say what you will about songwriting, artistry and integrity, the singer-as-entertainer had a place in popular music long before rock and roll and the singer-as-artist’s emergence. But throughout that time, the men and women behind the curtain— the wizards of Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building, Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland, and Stock, Aitken & Waterman, to name but a few— kept the top 40 timely and resonant.
At the Grammy’s this past weekend Lady Gaga sang with Sir Elton John on conjoined pianos. They mashed up Gaga’s ‘Speechless’ with John’s ‘Your Song’. While ‘Speechless’ is a beautiful Queen-esque track, possibly the finest number on Gaga’s newest album, it is nothing compared to Sir Elton and songwriting partner Bernie Taupin’s beautiful, subtle love song. They just put some fireworks on it and dressed up in Armani Privé.
Pop music is nothing if not of-the-moment but that has never interfered with certain songs becoming generation-defining. When we look back in 10 or 20 years, it won’t be unlikely for people to remember the costumes, the haircuts, the makeup during the stage shows, the cartoon characters of our cultural zeitgeist, and not necessarily the songs. If that ends up true, then surely we have all lost the plot. And what are characters without a plot?