Material girl
Britney Spears is the poster child for a crippled music industry that sells celebrity first making music an afterthought

By Greg Kot/Tribune music critic
Published November 16, 2003

Hmmmm, let's see, what's Britney Spears selling this week? Oh, yes, she's got a new album, "In the Zone" (Jive), out Tuesday. As for the music it contains -- does it really matter?

No wonder the music industry, crippled by years of declining revenue, is getting out of the business of strictly selling music. Its future lies in pushing one-woman self-marketing machines like Spears for whom music is just another product line.


With CD sales plunging and consumers by the tens of millions turning to the Internet for a free music fix, the multinational corporations who dominate the $12 billion business know they need to embrace a new entertainment model to lead them back to profitability. The new question becomes: how to sell music-related product in an age when recorded music has lost substantial commercial value?

Enter Spears as the poster child for the new music business, a role model for a wave of telegenic performers who sell . . . everything. It's easy to overlook the idea that Spears is a singer amid all the other stuff she's been pushing in recent years: the risque video shoots, the derriere-baring and topless magazine covers, the soft-drink commercials, the step-into-my-shower concert finales, the breathless interviews about when she did what with whom (insert name of tattooed and pierced pop celebrity here). In the end what sticks isn't the music but the titillation: the ex-Mouseketeer traipsing down the hall in her schoolgirl outfit, the did-she-or-didn't-she sexual escapades of her teen-pop romantic summit with Justin Timberlake, the French kiss with Madonna.

Once these activities might have been perceived as distractions. Now they're necessities, and the music is the afterthought. The erstwhile teen-princess, now a 21-year-old multimillionaire, has a career that's only getting bigger. Those who predicted that her Lolita-esque boy-toy routine had run past its allotted 15 minutes were focused too much on the meaninglessness of the music, and not enough on the whip cream, the froth that turns lowercase personalities into uppercase Celebrities whose every activity generates "news" and marketing opportunities. It's a world in which she is now first among pop stars, both old (Madonna, Cher, Michael and Janet Jackson) and new (Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera), performers who can be bought and sold in a variety of formats: television, movies, DVDs, video games, T-shirts, lunch boxes, soft drinks.

Though the music industry has always wanted to produce multimedia stars, in the past these cross-marketing strategies hinged on music as the one indispensable ingredient. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beatles and even Bob Dylan went Hollywood. Johnny Cash hosted a prime-time television show, and Ricky Nelson and the Monkees were created as performers to star on the tube. Yet music remained essential to how those performers were perceived and marketed. Even Nelson and the Monkees were able to build long careers -- if not by becoming credible artists, at least by performing credible songs.

A cosmetic quality

But for Spears, the music has always been cosmetic. Yes, there is a new Spears album, but more important, "In the Zone" is accompanied by a relentless and pricey marketing campaign. Last week, journalists around the nation received a cardboard box, shipped for a $1.50 mailing fee, that contained nothing more than a poster with pink and white lettering on a blue background announcing "her brand new album ... featuring Madonna." It was a gesture designed to prove that Spears' label will spare no expense in promoting its most valuable product. Factor in at least four or five videos, and there's little doubt that the marketing expenses for Spears' new album will eventually hit eight digits.

Spears has become the ultimate commodity in a rapidly consolidating and increasingly panicky music industry not because of her music, but almost in spite of it. Time Warner Inc., EMI Group, BMG Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Universal Music Group -- the multinationals that dominate the $12 billion a year music business -- are in a tailspin, bedeviled by their inability to keep up with the rapidly expanding world of Internet file-sharing. Sales have plummeted for three straight years, and the downward spiral shows no signs of abating; album sales are down an additional 6.4 percent so far this year, to 461 million. Even Spears was caught in the downturn: after selling 22 million copies of her first two albums, her 2001 release, "Britney," was a relative flop, with 4 million sales.

In its desperation to reverse the slide, the industry has shifted its goals away from its former strengths: developing artists and letting them grow over an extended career. The big labels are now transforming themselves into mega-marketing companies with an eye on celebrities and potential cross-format stars rather than artists. The industry has already begun to proffer restructured contracts that turn artists and labels into business partners across a broad spectrum of potential revenue streams, rather than just albums. Labels realize that to survive, they must become increasingly diversified entertainment companies. And they'll likely get even bigger: Sony and Bertelsmann are talking merger, as are Time Warner and EMI. That would leave three major labels running the show, which will mean more bands and jobs will be cut. Only the biggest, most easily marketable entertainers will be retained (at the same time opening up unprecedented opportunities for smaller artists on indie labels and through the Internet).

Some legitimate artists will still get a major-label shot, but they won't be indulged the way musicians from previous generations were; they'll be expected to turn into big sellers quickly, or be dropped before they turn into a financial liability.

In the future, expect to hear and see more of fewer carefully groomed entertainers across a broad spectrum of media, from photo books to Internet pop-up ads. The middle tier of the mainstream music industry, the one capable of sustaining artists who sold 300,000 or fewer albums, will disappear. It will leave an upper crust dominated by multimillion-selling entertainers, and a huge lower tier of artists, bands and independent record labels for whom 100,000 sales is a huge hit.

Image is everything

The shift has already begun. Movie stars-turned-singers such as Hilary Duff and Jennifer Lopez are priority acts at their record labels. The "American Idol" television series has turned nobodies such as Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken into icons. In each of these instances, a relationship with the consumer has been established in which music is not nearly as critical or compelling as the story and the image. Whereas in the past, the music urged us to know the performer, now the music is merely a byproduct of celebrity, a convenient way of buying into it. The American public is being fed a steady diet of media melodrama, and its hunger remains unsated: the cameras in Ozzy Osbourne's bathroom, "Joe Millionaire," Kobe and Shaq, J. Lo and Ben, Kid Rock and Pamela, Martha Stewart's decline, Rosie O'Donnell's dueling lawsuits, Elizabeth Smart's abduction-turned-made-for-TV movie, Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a culture where the celebrity feeding frenzy shows no sign of abating, performers such as Spears are the music industry's new meal tickets. She'll be everywhere in coming weeks as she promotes "In the Zone," though her musical talents remain safely buried beneath layers of top-shelf production. Abetted by the finest producers that a bottomless corporate budget can buy, including R. Kelly, Moby and the Matrix, the album reeks of Madonna envy, circa the Material Girl's trancy "Erotica" phase, ornamented with Caribbean and South Asian "Bollywood" accents. Spears' heavily processed voice ranges from a pinched nasal whine on "Me Against Music" to a faux Jamaican patois on "The Hookup." Like the latest albums by Lopez and Duff, "In the Zone" is so expertly constructed that it doesn't require a real personality or heavy-duty voice to make it fun. The clever arrangements are entertainments in themselves: the way a hip-hop back-beat morphs into a banjo lick on "(I Got That) Boom Boom," the way fluttering flutes and sexy-siren violins conspired to create a woozy hangover feeling on "Early Mornin'," the giddy juxtaposition of spaghetti western guitars and swooping ELO-like strings in "Toxic"

Those looking for insights into Spears' personality will have to settle for a few lines in the closing song. The billowy ballad "Everytime" could be interpreted as an apology to her ex-boyfriend, Timberlake: "My weakness caused you pain." Otherwise, the new "adult" Spears sounds like a lap-dancer seducing a client: "After the screaming's at an end, why don't we do it again"; "I find myself flirting with the verge of obscene"; "don't stop, because I'm halfway there." On Kelly's "Outrageous," she equates sex with a shopping spree. "Touch of My Hand" is about pleasuring herself.

In the Britney-approved bio accompanying the album sent to the media, Spears defends the song and, presumably, her more sexually active "In the Zone" persona: "It's not freaky freaky, it's just a little freaky."

Also a little freaky is how, after announcing last year she was taking a "hiatus" from the music biz, she's only gotten bigger. What's her secret? Call it the Madonna Factor: an ability to exploit the media as much as it exploits her. There was the full-on lip-lock with her role model, Madonna, at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, which caused such a scandal that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was compelled to apologize to outraged readers who objected to a Page 1 photo of the smooch. Her relationship and subsequent breakup with Timberlake has been keeping tabloids in business for months, and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst regaled Howard Stern's listeners with graphic tales of his relationship with Spears, which inspired a new round of he-said, she-said "reportage." Then there were her recent appearances -- topless and bottomless -- on the covers of glossy general-interest magazines such as Rolling Stone and Esquire.

None of it had anything to do with the music, but it all had everything to do with a business losing its dependence on music. CDs may not be worth as much as they used to be, but the price of celebrity -- and Britney Spears -- is at an all-time high.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

WHAT ever happen to just making GOOD MUSIC!!!! OH that's right IT"S all up to the INDIE ARTISTS to do that NOW I forgot!!! WE shall soon overcome!!!

why is this on the front page. When you talk about an artist good or bad it promotes. Just ignores these damn people please.

I miss the music.

I saw the interview with Britney on ABC Primetime (I think it was Primetime).
I listened to every thing she said, watched all the video they showed.

Just friggin' sad. I never saw an interview on primetime network programming with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison...
they say talent will out...but does that mean talent IS out ?????

All the labels care about, really, is does the support "lift and separate".. I'm with ronnie.. ignore 'em and BOYCOTT 'em.

Britney, Justin, Madonna, Hillary, J.Lo., Xtina, Eminem, Pink, Avril, et al need to be hunted down by a special police force, severely beaten during capture, held in a cold damp prison for several weeks before then being led individually into a small chamber and gassed.

And of course, any fool who buys CD's from these "anointed" acts are not only supporting and perpetuating this industry-dictated shift towards what I refer to as "empty-headed music for empty-headed people"; they are also pouring money into other multinational corporations that indulge the industry's rabid paranoia and obsession with "piracy" by foisting discriminatory, prejudicial, bigoted, regressive "copy-protectionist" pseudo-"technology" (read: corrupt to the core) down everybody's throats. Or to put it another way, people who buy these acts' CD's are giving the RIAA enough rope with which to eventually hang them in connection with the ongoing trumped-up "piracy" witch-hunt (or providing that organization with a knife with which to eventually cut their throat, or whatever). Not to mention the ultimate manifestation of the industry's outright CONTEMPT of its potential customers.

But on another level, Britney is a prime example (and symbol) of the industry's steady devaluation of women in music over the last few years -- almost exclusively as sex objects to arouse hormone-addled males, at the expense (and to the detriment) of all else. If a Janis Joplin or Joni Mitchell (or even Carly Simon) were to try to break into the business today, they'd be thrown out on their duff (and no, not Hilary).

And a little aside about another of these "image first, music dead last" acts: Jessica Simpson, the blonde bimbo who was the butt (again, my apologies) of many jokes about her Chicken of the Sea and Buffalo Wings "observations." I read in a newspaper article that she is in debt way up to her eyeballs to Sony, as none of her albums have been all that great sellers (at least some people have sense out there, I'd like to think). And a syndicated columnist recently referred to her as "vacant-eyed." Connection, perhaps? Or in other words, can you say "pigeon"?

I really wouldn't mind all the marketing sleaze that much if the music was at least good. But it isn't.

What Britney sells is not music. She is a prime example of everything that is wrong with the music industry today. A bimbo wearing a pricetag. I'd like to see Janis Joplin come back and knock her on her little plastic ass and then show her how to sing.

As a fan of Michael Nesmith, I laud the honest assertion that even a created act like The Monkees actually turned out some respectable music, though it admittedly took years before some of them mastered their instruments, and years before they began performing their own material.

But the songs they performed in the 60s were the work of some of the top professional songwriters of the era, and it's pretty surprising how well those tunes have held up. Sure they're pop tunes, but they're pretty damned good pop tunes, especially when compared to the garbage being produced now.

Nesmith himself has always been a pioneer in music. A driving force in the creation of MTV, he dropped it like a hot potato when he saw the direction it was going. His Pacific Arts Studio has always been a frontrunner in innovation. His 1981 efforts even won him the first music video grammy ever given.

The big music industry has always been about flash and glitz. But Rick Ferrero is right when he says that nowdays the music is no longer important in the music biz. That's what's going to ultimately kill them. People looking for real music will look elsewhere, and in fact have already started.
~zippy.

She's all hype and she won't last! Everything she says is studied by her and then she speaks, she is a toy! And darn it TOYS BREAK!!! LOL

Zippy..how about Hendrix opening for the Monkees...
check this page out...
http://library.shastacollege.edu/music/hrj/chap22.html
"Michael Nesmith of the Monkees fame (the Monkees were a popular "manufacted" rock band of the late l960s designed for use on Television) discusses how the Monkees actually discovered Jimi Hendrix and brought his talent to America, and to the world of rock music:

There were a few incredibly unusual side effects to the Monkees, not the least of which was the strange case of Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees.

It is a little-known fact that Hendrix was introduced to the United States by the Monkees. Actually, he was discovered by Mickey Dolenz [a member of the Monkees] in a small club in London.

I can't remember why we were in London at the time, but I was hanging around the London pop scene with John Lennon. The Monkees were due to start an American tour and we needed an opening act.

So Mickey comes to me and says he heard this trio in a club the night before, and the rock'n'roll they played was unlike anything any of us had ever heard. At this point, we had enough control of our tours to demand who we wanted.

Mickey says he wants the trio, and I say fine, OK. Later that night, I trundled off to a club and met Lennon and McCartney and George Harrison and Eric Clapton. This was like me being with the Vatican, the pop priests of the time.

Lennon says, "Listen, you guys have to hear this." And he pulls out this little Sony tape recorder and plays "Hey Joe," by Jimi Hendrix, the same guy Mickey wants on the tour. ..."

Awesome.

Oh, well. At least she's going to hell.

I'm bad, I know. But I like it when bad things happen to bad people. ^_^

Interesting CodeWarrior.. I don't have anything new to say here but I'll add it in the posts anyways. What happened to the heart and soul into music? Where's the music that inspires us to become better human beings, and where is the music that directly speaks to our emotions? Yes, some of the RIAA music is actually good as much as I hate to admit it, but the reality is that 75% of it is garbage and this figure I came up with by my sole experiences isn't due to the fact that I don't like various styles of music, it comes from the fact that the music these days is manufactured to sell to the media and ignorant children (it's not their fault that they don't know what good music is when they grew up with the same business model since they were born). Where are the bands like radiohead and the beatles? Sure, there is always an exception to the rule, but good bands are dwindling rapidly because the music business can't whore these bands as much as they can whore out Britney Spears, Christinia Aquilara, Backstreet Boys, ect.. So you see, it's not the fact that i'm downloading crap like this that causes them to lose sales, it's the fact that even if file sharing didn't exist I still wouldn't buy more than one cd a month tops (before they sued people, now I would never buy an RIAA CD). I'm 23 and I consider myself very hip to music and the sad part about it is that I prefer a lot of older music over the new crap that keeps rolling off the presses. Another point is that cd's these days have about 3 or 4 good songs (If you're lucky) and I don't feel like paying $15 for a couple of songs when I can pop in a Led Zepplin CD and listen to the whole thing all the way through without having to keep hitting the skip button. Wise up RIAA. I have your solution to slumping sales and here it goes.

1) Stop producing CRAP
2) Lower CD prices
3) Sign artist who can produce a FULL cd of good material (there are a lot of independents who do this)
4) Stop Suing people
5) Come out with a service selling GOOD MUSIC at reasonable prices

Problem solved, next...

Great article. Zippy, you're a little off in your Nesmith history. His show was Popclips on Nickelodeon. From what I read, he sold the show and concept to Warner Amex and they used those ideas to start MTV. But he was never involved with MTV proper.

I'll bet JIMI openning for the monkeys didn't last

Pretty tough for them to follow that act!

all the "monkeys" are running and ruining music

I heard on Q101 that Brittany completely lost it on Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer, when she began talking to herself as if Diane Sawyer wasn't even in the room. Someone called in and said that it had drugs written all over it. It was as if she was hearing little voices in her head. They kept replaying it over and over and she kept cocking her head back and forth all twitchingly. Did anyone else see this? If you did, isn't it interesting how this isn't this concern being addressed in the tabloids? They are only simply saying that she broke down and cried a little, but it was far worse than that.

stonehenge, the "monkeys" are NOT running music (even if they ARE ruining it) most music is run by the musicians and most musicians are INDEPENDENTS! What the "monkeys" really run is the DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS. They got radio, tv, print, etc... the INTERNET is all that is left... but they want it too.

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

Great Piece. Britney Spears epitomizes every that is wrong with the music industry.

The very first video ever aired on MTV says it all: "video killed the radio star". The emphasis on image has killed a lot of quality in the recording industry.

Ok ! Fine !
She's a media 'ho.
She has no talent.
She's the female anti-christ of Pop Stardom.

I'd still do her.

I hope Britney's new album tanks. I'm tired of seeing the little skank everywhere. What is she going to do when she's as old as Madonna? Still take off her clothes to get peoples attention? She probably will but cause people to vomit instead of stare just like her kiss with Madonna.

Who CARES?!! BOYCOTT!!

Code, I don't doubt your Monkees tale! (pun intended LOL! ) but in the matter of who "discovered" Mr. Jimi Hendrix, a little history is presented here.

1)
http://home-3.worldonline.nl/~suzannex/CurtisKnight.html

In 1964, Curtis Knight discovered Jimi Hendrix in New York City and together they performed on the rock circuit along the East coast of the US for approximately two years. Curtis Knight was the first to urge Jimi to sing, and took him into the recording studio, allowing Jimi to express his own creative freedom.


2) http://www.guitarscanada.com/legends/Legends_jimi_hendrix.htm

In 1966, using the name Jimmy James, Jimi Hendrix and his band played in a small coffee houses in Greenwich Village, they were discovered by bassist Chas Chandler (the Animals). Chandler convinced Hendrix to join him in London. He soon went on to become Hendrix's manager. Together they decided that Jimi would be most successful in a trio. So they chose Mitch Mitchell on drums, and Noel Redding to play bass. Thus began The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

3)
http://www.jungle-records.demon.co.uk/jungle/freudcd065.htm

In May 1966, Jimi Hendrix was discovered playing the blues in New York clubs by the then girlfriend of Keith Richard, Linda Keith. Excitedly she brought down music-business friends Andrew Loog Oldham and Seymour Stein, who passed on signing the act. Then she brought along Chas Chandler, who was about to leave The Animals. The rest is history.


4)
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/RuvsPage/hendrix2.html

In 1966, Jimi Hendrix formed a band and elected to sing for the first time. The band had a regular spot in Greenwich Village. One night Chas Chandler checked out the show. He had bee the bass player for the Animals but was trying to form a business. Chandler was overwhelmed. By the end of the set he invited Hendrix to London. In September 1966, Hendrix arrived in London. Chandler introduced him to England. Following an impromptu jam with Eric Clapton and Cream, Jimi Hendrix was the rising star in London. His first priority was getting a band. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed in London in October 1966.

5)
http://www.electricladystudios.com/hendrix.html

Under the guidance of Chas Chandler, bassist for the Animals, who discovered Jimi playing with an impromptu "pickup" band at NYC's Café Wha?, Jimi moved to England in early 1966 to form his own group. Calling themselves The Jimi Hendrix Experience, they began playing London dates featuring Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on the drums.

6)
http://scienceandreligion.com/pop_ups/tam_hendrix.html

Discovered in desperate circumstances at the age of 24 in New York in 1966 by Chas Chandler, an ex-member of The Animals, he had the chance to fly to England for a proper attempt at recording music.

7)AND FINALLY FROM HIS "OFFICIAL WEBSITE"
http://www.jimi-hendrix.com/biography.html

Throughout the latter half of 1965, and into the first part of 1966, Jimmy played the rounds of smaller venues throughout Greenwich Village, catching up with Animals' bassist Chas Chandler during a July performance at Café‚ Wha? Chandler was impressed with Jimmy's performance and returned again in September 1966 to sign Hendrix to an agreement that would have him move to London to form a new band.

Switching gears from bass player to manager, Chandler's first task was to change Hendrix's name to "Jimi." Featuring drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding, the newly formed Jimi Hendrix Experience quickly became the talk of London in the fall of 1966.

The Experience's first single, "Hey Joe," spent ten weeks on the UK charts, topping out at spot No. 6 in early 1967. The debut single was quickly followed by the release of a full-length album Are You Experienced, a psychedelic musical compilation featuring anthems of a generation. Are You Experienced has remained one of the most popular rock albums of all time, featuring tracks like "Purple Haze," "The Wind Cries Mary," "Foxey Lady," "Fire," and "Are You Experienced?"

Although Hendrix experienced overwhelming success in Britain, it wasn't until he returned to America in June 1967 that he ignited the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival with his incendiary performance of "Wild Thing." Literally overnight, The Jimi Hendrix Experience became one of most popular and highest grossing touring acts in the world.