The music industry chews up pop stars – but once they've been spat out, they can't help trying to crawl back into the spotlight
Why does anyone want to be a pop star?
When I worked in music PR I was involved in relaunching the solo career of a former boyband member, a guy with an exceptional singing voice and not a brain cell in his head. He was well into his 20s, and he'd been famous since he was 16, though his career had flagged after his first attempt at a solo career was met with indifference. By this time he was making PAs in regional nightclubs for £200 a night, and he'd often have to beg his management for £50 or £100 loans for train tickets. An adolescence spent getting off stools on cue and being told he was brilliant had left him woefully unprepared for the real world and he was incapable of anything as organised as booking his travel in advance. After a hard promo campaign, his comeback withered away – his album stayed in the vaults and he was dropped.
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That time came back to mind this weekend, when I watched the former child star Cleo Higgins, once of the girl band Cleopatra, battle for a second bite of the cherry on BBC1's The Voice. In the 90s, Higgins had opened for the Spice Girls at Wembley stadium and played for the pope; she had starred in two series of an ITV sitcom and had a US hit record; but her success was transitory and a decade of comeback attempts had led her to the reality show.
Meanwhile, The Big Reunion arena tour has been grinding its way across the country, showcasing reunited second-tier pop bands from the late 90s and early 2000s. Higgins and all of the Big Reunion acts – boybands 5ive, Blue and 911 and girlbands B*witched, Atomic Kitten and Honeyz – have two things in common: despite their stardom, none made music that was much cop, and each band had faltered and fallen apart after their audience abandoned them. The recent Big Reunion TV show, from which the tour sprang, brought us tears, bitter rivalries and unresolved issues – in each case the band had gone through a gruelling schedule, under enormous pressure, and then been dropped like a stone by a mercenary industry that valued them only as much as their last hit. It doesn't sound like much fun once the sales dried up.
But then the supposedly "fun" part doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs either. I was on the launch team behind british boyband the Wanted, who are still very much around, if somewhat overshadowed by Harry Styles' hair. Months ahead of their first single, these preposterously young kids were pushed through a schedule that had them performing at two or three secondary schools across the country every day, and usually another two local clubs and gay nights, building that crucial early fanbase and getting them used to performing as a unit. Between the travelling and the canteen PAs came compulsory gym time, photoshoots, "media training", interviews and recording, as well as constant pressure to maintain busy Twitter and Facebook accounts and create "unique content" with smartphones and flipcams. That went on for months, until they had a No 1 single. Then the workload doubled.
Reading on mobile? Watch here
At the other end of a pop career – between being dropped and the lucrative reality TV reunion – is the faded stars' back-stop option, reserved for when the solo album and "making it as an actor" haven't worked out: the student union nostalgia circuit. Glossed over on the Big Reunion was the fact that most of the featured artists who "haven't performed together since they split 10 years ago" had actually hawked themselves around university freshers' balls and pound-a-pint student-union clubnights relatively recently. I worked as assistant ents manager at a fair-sized union between 2003 and 2007 and in that time we hosted appearances from 911, Honeyz and members of B*witched (as well as the Venga Boys, at least two of Cleopatra and assorted members of S Club 7), all miming to backing tracks from old hits for meagre fees when once they commanded thousands, stumbling through the old routines for the drunk 19-year-olds who'd loved them five years before and had no interest in anything but the hits, and little interest in those. Each act would usually try and do two PAs a night, a schedule just as relentless and gruelling as the new bands had, only without the fuel of hope and youth.
It doesn't seem like the most creatively fulfilling of lives, nor is it especially lucrative. But then pop stardom is surprisingly badly paid, considering the money it generates. When the ludicrously popular S Club 7 split, tabloid reports maintained each member left the group with only £300,000 from their five years at the top, and while that's more than your average brickie earns it's substantially less than the millions manager Simon Fuller took from their career.
Overworked and underpaid, under massive pressure with little hope of longevity, and facing a humiliating chase after the spotlight, with only the hope of the reality TV buck to follow: that's the life of the faded pop star. Cleo Higgins might be prepping for the next phase of The Voice under Will.i.am's supervision, and the Big Reunion tour is already booking ahead for Christmas – but it's hard to see why any of its participants are so keen to get back on the stage. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 days ago.
Why does anyone want to be a pop star?
When I worked in music PR I was involved in relaunching the solo career of a former boyband member, a guy with an exceptional singing voice and not a brain cell in his head. He was well into his 20s, and he'd been famous since he was 16, though his career had flagged after his first attempt at a solo career was met with indifference. By this time he was making PAs in regional nightclubs for £200 a night, and he'd often have to beg his management for £50 or £100 loans for train tickets. An adolescence spent getting off stools on cue and being told he was brilliant had left him woefully unprepared for the real world and he was incapable of anything as organised as booking his travel in advance. After a hard promo campaign, his comeback withered away – his album stayed in the vaults and he was dropped.
Reading on mobile? Watch here
That time came back to mind this weekend, when I watched the former child star Cleo Higgins, once of the girl band Cleopatra, battle for a second bite of the cherry on BBC1's The Voice. In the 90s, Higgins had opened for the Spice Girls at Wembley stadium and played for the pope; she had starred in two series of an ITV sitcom and had a US hit record; but her success was transitory and a decade of comeback attempts had led her to the reality show.
Meanwhile, The Big Reunion arena tour has been grinding its way across the country, showcasing reunited second-tier pop bands from the late 90s and early 2000s. Higgins and all of the Big Reunion acts – boybands 5ive, Blue and 911 and girlbands B*witched, Atomic Kitten and Honeyz – have two things in common: despite their stardom, none made music that was much cop, and each band had faltered and fallen apart after their audience abandoned them. The recent Big Reunion TV show, from which the tour sprang, brought us tears, bitter rivalries and unresolved issues – in each case the band had gone through a gruelling schedule, under enormous pressure, and then been dropped like a stone by a mercenary industry that valued them only as much as their last hit. It doesn't sound like much fun once the sales dried up.
But then the supposedly "fun" part doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs either. I was on the launch team behind british boyband the Wanted, who are still very much around, if somewhat overshadowed by Harry Styles' hair. Months ahead of their first single, these preposterously young kids were pushed through a schedule that had them performing at two or three secondary schools across the country every day, and usually another two local clubs and gay nights, building that crucial early fanbase and getting them used to performing as a unit. Between the travelling and the canteen PAs came compulsory gym time, photoshoots, "media training", interviews and recording, as well as constant pressure to maintain busy Twitter and Facebook accounts and create "unique content" with smartphones and flipcams. That went on for months, until they had a No 1 single. Then the workload doubled.
Reading on mobile? Watch here
At the other end of a pop career – between being dropped and the lucrative reality TV reunion – is the faded stars' back-stop option, reserved for when the solo album and "making it as an actor" haven't worked out: the student union nostalgia circuit. Glossed over on the Big Reunion was the fact that most of the featured artists who "haven't performed together since they split 10 years ago" had actually hawked themselves around university freshers' balls and pound-a-pint student-union clubnights relatively recently. I worked as assistant ents manager at a fair-sized union between 2003 and 2007 and in that time we hosted appearances from 911, Honeyz and members of B*witched (as well as the Venga Boys, at least two of Cleopatra and assorted members of S Club 7), all miming to backing tracks from old hits for meagre fees when once they commanded thousands, stumbling through the old routines for the drunk 19-year-olds who'd loved them five years before and had no interest in anything but the hits, and little interest in those. Each act would usually try and do two PAs a night, a schedule just as relentless and gruelling as the new bands had, only without the fuel of hope and youth.
It doesn't seem like the most creatively fulfilling of lives, nor is it especially lucrative. But then pop stardom is surprisingly badly paid, considering the money it generates. When the ludicrously popular S Club 7 split, tabloid reports maintained each member left the group with only £300,000 from their five years at the top, and while that's more than your average brickie earns it's substantially less than the millions manager Simon Fuller took from their career.
Overworked and underpaid, under massive pressure with little hope of longevity, and facing a humiliating chase after the spotlight, with only the hope of the reality TV buck to follow: that's the life of the faded pop star. Cleo Higgins might be prepping for the next phase of The Voice under Will.i.am's supervision, and the Big Reunion tour is already booking ahead for Christmas – but it's hard to see why any of its participants are so keen to get back on the stage. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 days ago.