Blessed are the tastemakers?

[IngievV]

Blessed are the tastemakers?

Friday, February 29, 2008

 

Duffy, Adele, Mika ... is their success solely down to talent, or have they been hyped and groomed by a small elite of 'tastemakers'? David Sinclair investigates

 

Much has been written about Adele, whose rise to the top has been handled more like a coronation than a pop marketing campaign. She was awarded a Brit (as 'Critics' Choice') and had already come top in a BBC tastemakers' poll to determine who will be the Sound of 2008 long before the vast majority of people had heard a note she had sung.

 

Indeed, such was the overwhelming weight of "expert" opinion concerning the 19-year-old singer from Croydon's star quality, that when the actual album was eventually released at the end of January, it almost seemed like the icing on the cake.

 

Duffy, another singer who was totally unknown only a couple of months ago, is currently being afforded a similar red-carpet passage to the doorway of the pop hall of fame.

 

The astonishing fuss that has been made over the blonde Welsh ingenue - magazine covers, TV appearances, reviews and showbiz coverage in every national newspaper - is in stark contrast to anything she has actually achieved, so far.

 

True, she came second in the predicted Sound of 2008 poll. But her debut album is not even released until March 3.

 

Duffy, like Adele, may well go on to great things. This time last year it was Mika who was getting the word-of-hype treatment. Virtually unknown before Christmas 2006, the then 23-year-old singer was declared the brightest hope for 2007 by just about every insider prepared to venture an opinion.

 

And within a few weeks Mika's debut single Grace Kelly and its parent album, Life In Cartoon Motion, had both topped the charts. His album is still in the chart a year later, so it wasn't as if the predictions were wrong.

 

But to what extent are these carefully orchestrated votes of confidence from the people pulling the levers of power in the record industry and the media likely to become self-fulfilling prophecies?

 

If the endorsement comes from Mark Cooper, the original producer of BBC2's Later With Jools Holland, or the show's current producer Alison Howe, success would seem to be a foregone conclusion. Not since the heyday of Top of the Pops in the 1970s has a music TV programme wielded such phenomenal clout.

 

A single appearance on Later has 'broken' many acts - from KT Tunstall to Seasick Steve - and is nowadays regarded as a key ingredient in the CV of any serious wannabe star.

 

Tellingly, Duffy, Adele and Mika all appeared on Later long before they got anywhere near the charts. But even Cooper is a little concerned about the growth of the current tastemaking industry.

 

"We love new things in this country," he says. "It's a bit of a hothouse, and people like to be in the know about what's coming up. There's a constant turnover of new ideas and new artists, which has led to something of what I call a tipping culture. I think it's got a bit bad these days, especially since that Brits critics' award. The race to identify what's going to be big has become rather obsessive and competitive."

 

The incredible boost that an appearance on Later gives to an act may not be entirely due to the programme's viewing figures, which at around half-a-million is hardly doing business on the mass-market scale of programmes such as The X-Factor.

 

More significant is the fact that all the other media tastemakers and industry decision makers watch it, which helps to build an insider consensus about what is going to be the Next Big Thing.

 

"I think it can create a snowball of interest among journalists, radio programmers, newspaper editors," Cooper says. "And the labels have seen this effect and they like it. It's just the most potent springboard that there is."

 

Other media agenda-setting individuals - including the energetic editor of the NME, Conor McNicholas, Radio 1's head of music, George Ergatoudis, and his Radio 2 equivalent Jeff Smith, the ubiquitous Jonathan Ross, together with the producers of his Radio 2 show (Andy Davies) and Friday night TV show (Suzi Aplin) - don't always end up singing from the same hymn sheet. But when they do, the effect is simply overwhelming.

 

Take the young new duo the Ting Tings for whom the starmaking process is already in full swing. Never mind that their first album won't be out until May. They have already been on Later, came in third in the Sound of 2008 poll, and are currently enjoying a coveted slot on the national NME Awards tour.

 

The 18-year-old Laura Marling, another name on the Sound of 2008 poll, and already a conspicuously nervous guest on Later, is now getting the same treatment.

 

"Everything has to be set up a long way ahead these days," says Barbara Charone, the American-born grande dame of music PR. "You have to front load a project. A record goes to radio six weeks before it comes out. So yes, you could say there are five or 10 people who could change things a lot, who you would say were the key tastemakers. But the goalposts move all the time. And they're different for each project. Music is all about taste, it's subjective. That's the great thing about it."

 

But wasn't cheap recording technology and the internet supposed to have wrested power away from this elite cabal? The idea being put about, only a couple of years ago, was that with access to the new media platforms of MySpace, YouTube et al, anyone who was good enough or sufficiently determined could propel themselves to stardom without the endorsement of the old media gatekeepers.

 

Thus, the reasoning went, a band such as Arctic Monkeys could come out of nowhere, sell out the Astoria and top the singles chart, apparently on the strength of their live reputation and a word-of-mouse basis alone.

 

"The tastemakers never went away," Charone says. "People got carried away with the idea of breaking an act through a MySpace site with Lily Allen's success and then Kate Nash. But it's like the old days again now. Later is a great barometer. It reminds me of growing up in America when you would read about an act in Rolling Stone and that would be enough to make you go out and buy their record."

 

"That Arctic Monkeys story was such a well-contrived PR and marketing plan," says Davies, producer and on-air companion of Ross on his Saturday morning show on Radio 2. "But the point was, they were a decent band."

 

And for a while, people certainly bought into the idea of an internet revolution paving the way for a glorious diversity of acts all growing up independently of each other and irrespective of what was currently being declared fashionable by the industry tastemakers.

 

Ironically, it seems with such an extreme volume of music to choose from, people are relying more heavily than ever on people like Cooper and Davies to sift through it on their behalf. "I listen to everything I get sent and the amount of stuff is quite incredible," Davies says. "Just piles and piles of stuff. You are doing a public service just going through it all."

 

Davies, who commutes to London from his home in Spain, insists that he does not pay any attention to what the press are saying about an act, and prefers to rely on his own taste to decide whether an artist or a song is right for the 3,500,000 listeners who tune in to Ross's radio show. But even he watches Later With Jools Holland.

 

Cooper, similarly, relies on his own judgement, together with that of Later's producer Howe and "input" from Holland, to decide which acts are booked for the show.

 

How do they decide who gets on? "We try to balance a wide variety of acts, old and new, from different worlds. But ultimately it comes down to taste," Cooper says. Whose?

 

"We keep it very small, because it's easy to get confused on matters of taste. You have to listen to everybody and you have to ignore them all at the same time."

 

Does it feel like playing God? "That can be a genuinely unpleasant side effect, because there aren't enough music shows on television, which can give Later undue importance for artists wishing to progress. The responsibility is heavy. You know it has influence and therefore you want to use it wisely."

 

 

Duffy plays Auntie Annie's, Belfast, on March 3. The show is sold out. Her single Mercy, is currently No 1

[Pam Travers]

... is their success solely down to talent, or have they been hyped and groomed by a small elite of 'tastemakers'?

 

// both //

[im_stuck_in_the_middle]

Duffy and Adele, maybe, but Mika has been in the business for over a year now

 

Thanks for sharing!

[AKateisaKate]

I don't think this article has much of a point. Hype is hype. Either you like the artist or you don't. What's there to analyze? But T4P, I enjoyed reading it and criticizing it.

[teddycherrycat]

"Ironically, it seems with such an extreme volume of music to choose from, people are relying more heavily than ever on people like Cooper and Davies to sift through it on their behalf. "I listen to everything I get sent and the amount of stuff is quite incredible," Davies says. "Just piles and piles of stuff. You are doing a public service just going through it all."

 

this is quite ironic actually, how can people rely on the same one like themselves having a big amount of music to choose from ????

 

i thought it was "blessed are ticketmaster", cos they charge lot service fee for tickets. i like to pay at the box office

[rescuetetra]

i like laura marling but her album is so scary, i don't want to pay for it

 

oh, this article is pointless, if it is true, why people start touring ?

when you pay at the door, you will never know it's going to be a good gig or not

just try it for fun

[Marilyn Mastin]

Mika has more than proved himself worthy to be a star! Top of the Pops used to be the show that introduced us to new talent, but it''s gone now, and new talent needs a show to showcase the stars on. There's nothing wrong with that. Jools Holland's show fits that bill. By the way. I didn't agree with Adele getting a Brit Award when she hasn't done anything yet. I think that sort of thing cheapens The Brits (a bit like a guy who can't even sing or write songs getting Best Male, instead of our maestro!)

[xlindee]

Mika has more than proved himself worthy to be a star! Top of the Pops used to be the show that introduced us to new talent, but it''s gone now, and new talent needs a show to showcase the stars on. There's nothing wrong with that. Jools Holland's show fits that bill. By the way. I didn't agree with Adele getting a Brit Award when she hasn't done anything yet. I think that sort of thing cheapens The Brits (a bit like a guy who can't even sing or write songs getting Best Male, instead of our maestro!)

 

I agree a bit, but about Adele: Her single Chasing Pavements WAS #1, and she has an album, so she HAS done something:naughty: