base talk Kim Petras: what went wrong? (Long read)

[perpetual novice]

So, I wanted to do a dive into Kim's history as a burgeoning pop star, because it's incredibly messy. While Kim has always felt at the edge of mainstream crossover, she never really made it. I put together a chronology of her career, and I think she's a great case study for mishandling of up and coming stars careers 

 

-

 

Arriving in 2017 with sugary pop hits like I Don't Want It At All and Heart to Break, Kim Petras breathed new life into what was a dying pop scene at the time. R&B and hip hop had taken the top spots on the charts while the other pop girls were putting on their best island girl accents to try keep up with it.

 

Kim quickly gained traction as a reliable source of glittery pop songs, racking up tens of millions of streams on her early batch of singles mostly on  word of mouth and no major label.  Opting not to release a debut album from her first set of singles, now referred to as "Era 1", Kim begins to promote her so-called debut album Clarity with a new set of singles.

 

Clarity was well received by fans and critics alike, holding an 83 Metascore and firmly establishing Kim as an artist to watch in the pop music sphere. We see upward trajectory here, right? This is where things start to wobble a bit.

 

Released independently and sitting at 132 million streams on Spotify, Clarity feels like a success. It didn't chart or anything, but this was a respectable performance for a debut artist that up until this point hadn't really had any traditional promotion, but it doesn't seem like Kim and her camp agreed. Following Clarity's release, the project was later referred to as her debut mixtape. A minor walkback at the time, but one that set the stage for instability for the next few years of her career.

 

Less than a year after Clarity, Kim returns with Malibu, the lead single from her "debut album". Malibu felt primed to take a step into the mainstream, with its music video including cameos from multiple celebrities and Kim making her TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel and HBO pride. Although still gaining a respectable amount of streams for an independent artist, sitting at 35 million on Spotify, Malibu did not chart. Kim disappears for a year and this debut album doesn't materialise.

 

A year later Kim returns with Future Starts Now, the lead single to her next so-called debut album Problematique, her first release under a major label at Dr Luke's new Republic imprint. Future Starts Now performs moderately, if not a little worse than Malibu. This single is followed by Coconuts which fairs similarly.

 

Two months later, Kim releases and tours her new EP **** Pop, which does not include either single. (What? aren't we in the middle of an album rollout?) **** Pop sheds the glittery vibes of her previous work in favour of short, quotable, TikTok ready tracks. This release polarises fans and critics. 

 

Following **** Pop's rollout things begin to look a little uncertain, there's a clear desire to break her out into the mainstream, but nothing is sticking. Problematique leaks and Republic shelves the album and sends her back to the studio. Finally, Kim lands her first #1 with a short feature on Sam Smith's Unholy.

 

With three false starts under her belt the stars finally align for Kim, sitting at #1 on the Billboard 100 and with major label support, Kim finally announces the lead single to her debut album, the Max Martin produced If Jesus Was A Rockstar. This single is a car crash, a complete mess. Completely abandoning her dance pop roots in favour of folk pop, this single becomes the worst performing song of her career so far. This debut album doesn't materialise. 

 

Course correcting, Kim returns a few months later with brrr, a lab-produced hyperpop track built in the late SOPHIE's image. brrr fails to perform commercially.

 

Kim & Republic give it one last shot, enlisting the help of Nicki Minaj and a heavy dose of sampling in her next single, Alone gives Kim her first lead artist placements in mainstream charts at #55 in the US and #37 in the UK. Finally, after six years since her debut, Kim announces her "debut" album, Feed The Beast.

 

Feed The Beast arrives to poor commercial, critical and fan reception, with many criticising its lack of cohesion and artistic direction, ultimately becoming Kim's least successful body of work. Kim releases once-scrapped Problematique as her second studio album a number of months later to an audience that isn't really watching anymore.

[RideOrDie]

what didn't 

[Relampago.]

Karma

[Big Bad Wolf]

TLDR: She's a flop.

In all seriousness, all of those "Era 1" songs make an album, and should have been released as such. That was mistake #1 for her career.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Big Bad Wolf

[Uncatena]

mismanaged by the label + abuser supporter I fear

[Odd]

 

 

this mess

[DemDam92]

Nothing went wrong

 

She was never meant to be a star.

she was super lucky with the feature on Unholy and her first week numbers for her album did fine

[Dancehall Queen]

Commercially her career was always a long shot. 

[scenekiller]

She's a try hard who already gave us all she had to offer artistically with her "Era 1" singles

[perfectillusion204]

Edit: I realize I lack reading comprehension skills.

Edited September 24, 2023 by perfectillusion204

[perpetual novice]

3 minutes ago, DemDam92 said:

She was never meant to be a star.

I agree with this in a sense but not in the same way. She and her team certainly tried very hard for it. I think she would have fared so much better nurturing a cult following.

[Cry]

1 minute ago, perfectillusion204 said:

Imagine writing a whole essay about someone who's "failure" is still going to be more successful than anything you do with your life 

Isn’t the point of this website to discuss pop singers and such though?

 

On topic though, I think her releasing S1ut Pop was one of the big missteps in her career.

[perpetual novice]

3 minutes ago, perfectillusion204 said:

Imagine writing a whole essay about someone who's "failure" is still going to be more successful than anything you do with your life 

I pointedly didn’t mention anything about Kim or her character, her projects objectively have not done what they wanted them to do 

[Dula Peep]

She’s done well, not everyone is meant to be Beyoncé 

[whitehotforever]

 

[nostalgic]

When your selling point is simulating bukkakes on your instagram account and mocking people who criticize your collaborations with a sexual abuser, we shouldn't be surprised when that doesn't yield success.

[CBC]

shes done very well for a trans girl from germany

[Kim Petrat]

i think it’s easy to act like she’s a failure when you compare her to the big pop girls we constantly talk about on this site… but when you compare her to the other girls of her caliber from pre-unholy she was always associated with (rina, shygirl, slayyyter) she’s CLEARLY light years ahead of them in terms of commercial performance.

 

i would say she’s on the same path as charli where she’ll flounder for a bit attempting to be a mpg but will outlast her contemporaries commercially… she clearly does having a fanbase and can sell a tour. obviously these current venues are GIANT in comparison to her past tours but she can sell out theaters/small venues fairly easily.

 

also - i think we seem to forget that the thought of her ever charting a year or two ago at all seemed laughable. genuinely WHO would’ve guessed she would ever have a grammy, a number one feature or a song with nicki minaj? i think she’s done great all things considered… and we never know when another song might take off on tiktok or something and get her a solo hit 

[Post Malone]

I think she's another Charli/Tove etc gay pop girlie MOTHER. The only problem is she sees herself as something more/as a MPG when she's not. She needs to give the mainstream success UP and deliver us GAY MEN what we want and not alienate us for a no1curring GP again and again 

[Bussea]

everything + big forehead 

[Solaris]

38 minutes ago, perfectillusion204 said:

Imagine writing a whole essay about someone who's "failure" is still going to be more successful than anything you do with your life 

Babe I don’t think a music discussion board is the place for you

[magazine]

she's an indie artist, nothing wrong with that!

[wantedyoutogrow]

some artists just aren't meant to be mainstream superstars

 

BUT also she is kinda unlikeable tbh, while her music is good to okay for the most part. If she tried to distance herself from Puke I think her career would've been at a better place rn, instead she kinda doubled down on it.

[Scandalous]

58 minutes ago, perpetual novice said:

I think she would have fared so much better nurturing a cult following.

100%

an artist like Kim was sadly never going to be poised to be MPG status. with Era 1/Clarity/TOTL she had the gays eating out of the palm of her hand bc as you mentioned in OP we had been missing those joyful pure pop girl songs, pop fans were starving in an era of music dominated by rap/r&b and the Chainsmokers, and she built up a cute, dedicated gay fanbase. things went awry when she started hit chasing - it backfired because those songs didn't resonate with her existing fanbase and did nothing to gain her new ones. in chasing major label success she lost the spark and charm of her early work, and I personally know several people who were huge fans of hers back in the day who didn't even bother listening to FTB because the interest was long gone after a string of such mediocre singles + **** pop. either she is pretending to not understand what her fans want from her or she's just ignoring it and doing what she wants, but if she keeps doing that she's digging herself into the ground even more. she needs to release TOTL3 and focus on getting back her old fans, she can easily play that Tove Lo type of lane.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Scandalous

[Popboi.]

Summary: Only Unholy went right, so to answer the question, everything else.