chicbitch

Gimmick to me is a compliment!! It means you're dedicated to the art.

These are all examples of aesthetics tho.. and not really gimmicks. Tate dancing in a sandpit or Sabrina having a 60s-inspired image is just styling and creative direction. I'm talking about actual publicity stunts, absurdity, theatrics, things that go beyond just having a recognizable image. Gaga showing up to the VMAs as Jo C. and staying in character the entire night is a gimmick. Nicki bringing a pope to the Grammys and staging an exorcism is a gimmic. There's a difference between having a visual identity and deliberately turning yourself into a spectacle.

That's kinda part of the point. Being polarizing comes with doing something outrageous so you can be talked about

I don't think anyone has run out of ways to shock people, I think we've just gotten so used to artists playing it safe that you assume there's nothing left to do. If anything, I think the bar for creativity has just gotten higher, not that shock value itself is dead (because I mean like.. people not doing music are literally profiting off it to this day, it's not once died)

By that I mean, both found fame within the same year/same audience (a little)

Equal kinda

She's camp, I love Addison down.

Aesthetic / branding / marketing vs an actual gimmick.. do you get what I'm trying to say? I don't think any of those qualify under the 'gimmick' thing I'm talking about.

I see what you mean, but I feel like that was part of the escapism lowkey.. seeing pop stars do all these outrageous things and create these larger than life personas was part of what made pop music so fun. I think nowadays there's so much emphasis on being relatable and effortless that we're kinda missing that fantasy aspect of it.

Neitherrrrrrrrrrr

Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else feel like pop stars have completely lost the desire to be theatrical or just downright ridiculous anymore? We had Lady Gaga arriving at the Grammys inside an egg, bleeding to death onstage at the VMAs, dressing up as her male alter ego Jo Calderone, and making practically every public appearance feel like some bizarre performance-art piece. Nicki Minaj had the whole Harajuku Barbie/Roman Zolanski thing going on, complete with ridiculous wigs, multiple personalities, and that infamous Grammy exorcism performance. And the funny thing is, even some of the less successful pop girls were doing THE MOST. Jessie J had her cartoonish wigs and bodysuits, Kerli was building an entire BubbleGoth universe..You didn't even need to be an A-lister to have some sort of recognizable gimmick. And before somebody says the GP wouldn't care, I actually think it's the opposite. In an era where practically anything can go viral overnight, you'd think pop stars would be doing everything possible to stand out.. Obviously, gimmicks alone don't make somebody interesting, but somewhere along the way pop music became so obsessed with being tasteful, relatable and aesthetically cohesive that everybody forgot how to be entertaining. I actually think Doja's Hot Pink era was one of the last great examples of how to manufacture a larger-than-life pop persona without making it feel completely forced. Thoughts?

Poor thing, I always thought it was the lupus tho or maybe I'm just uneducated.

I fear I'm slowly getting sick of the current girls. Sabrina can only make so many songs about being horny, Tate can only remake greedy so many times and Olivia has had the gays pretending they enjoy stale ballads for like two years now. But seriously, I've been thinking about how mainstream pop seems to go through a complete overhaul every 10 years or so. We had Gaga, Kesha, Katy and Rihanna dominating the early 2010s with obnoxiously loud electropop and huge choruses. Then the late 2010s/early 2020s brought us Dua, Doja, Billie etc. with a completely different sound. I genuinely wonder what the next wave is going to sound like. I can't imagine us entering 2030 with Sabrina still making sexual puns and Tate doing her 47th It's Ok I'm Ok. Do you think we're heading towards another electronic/EDM takeover? (ala Brat) And more importantly, which of the current girls do you see surviving the next pop reset? Because I fear a few of them are going to be looking for employment once the GP moves on.

Addison.. these Tate gays dont have taste

Literally like

After the mess that was Housewife (bland lyrics, boring recycled melodies, and yet another song that sounds like something she's already released), I'm starting to wonder if Tate needs a complete creative overhaul. If the rumors about her being in the studio with Max Martin are true, could he actually give her the pop smash she's been missing? I'm fully expecting some rejected Dangerous Woman demo Ariana passed on in 2016, and the sad part is that would probably be the best song of her career. She desperately needs her own Into You.. Max has resurrected careers before, but can he actually give Tate a musical identity? Or are we about to get greedy (Max Martin's Version) with an extra synth and a writing credit from ILYA? Discuss.

Girl y'all keep saying this like her last album and the album BEFORE that weren't serving the exact same thing..

I agree 100%, you can have every A-list producer in the world, but they can't manufacture an identity for you. Nobody was listening to Rihanna wondering which pop girl she was trying to emulate that week. (sorry Tate)

Well, when every single from your previous eras starts sounding like a variation of the same song, both lyrically and stylistically... that's not exactly... tea. No shade. A bop can still have personality, clever writing, and some sense of identity. The issue isn't that her music isn't deep, it's that her writing has become so interchangeable that you could hand half these songs to practically any other pop girl and nothing would be lost.

I'm sorry but Housewife might be the perfect example of how genuinely faceless mainstream pop has become... chi Tate feels like an artist who's constantly being passed from camp to camp, producer to producer, aesthetic to aesthetic, with absolutely nobody stopping to ask what she actually has to say. The first verse of Housewife is almost comical. We go from "tabloids and flashing lights" to her wanting "loads of cash, and a nice guy and a life lived right." Then we get the groundbreaking revelation that fame comes with a price and dreams aren't always what they seem. And the chorus? "I just wanna make money, be my own housewife." It's a genuinely fun concept, but the execution feels like somebody walked into a session, pitched the title, and everyone decided the song was finished. There's no distinct personality, no interesting perspective, no clever wordplay. Just vaguely relatable statements packaged around a potentially viral hook. Tate can dance, she's pretty, she can perform, but who actually IS Tate McRae as an artist? It feels like every era is another attempt to figure out which pop girl blueprint fits her best. She's got the producers, the choreography, the styling, the industry support, but where's the artistic fingerprint? At what point does being endlessly marketable become indistinguishable from being completely replaceable?

Now, what exactly do we think the musical landscape will look like by 2030? We saw how hip-hop practically took over the mainstream during the latter half of the 2010s, particularly around 2017–2019, while a lot of the traditional pop girls were struggling to find their footing commercially. I mean, Gaga is enjoying yet another commercial renaissance nearly two decades into her career, Chappell Roan has practically become the poster child for the new generation of pop girls, and Olivia Rodrigo has managed to build an entire career around bringing a certain brand of angsty pop-rock back into the mainstream. But will any of this actually have longevity? Will Chappell's theatrical shtick still resonate with the GP five years from now? Will Olivia have evolved beyond the teenage heartbreak formula? And how many more career revivals can the established girls realistically squeeze out before the public moves on? Or will pop remain the dominant force? Discuss. ♡

Yea, I notice this too. Odd tho how much "star power" they can get within one album, whereas it's harder in the US. Makes me think of Cher Lloyd for some reason, Want U Back was such a bop.

I've noticed this pattern for years and I genuinely need somebody to explain it to me. Why does it seem like certain pop girls can barely get a song onto the Billboard Hot 100, yet the minute they cross the Atlantic, they're suddenly collecting Top 10s and #1 singles like it's nothing? Like what exactly is going on over there? Kylie Minogue has amassed EIGHT UK #1 singles and an absolutely ridiculous chart history, while her American success has been considerably more selective. Nicole Scherzinger couldn't properly establish a solo career in the States, yet the UK had Don't Hold Your Breath debuting at #1 and Poison peaking at #3. Rita Ora has FOUR UK #1 singles. FOUR. Cheryl managed FIVE solo #1s. Mind you, I'm not saying every one of these acts was actively trying to break America or that a UK #1 is commercially equivalent to a US #1. But I'm sorry, but if I were an aspiring pop girl, I'd DEFINITELY be looking at the UK market first, I fear. Get me on BBC Radio 1, secure a Capital FM interview and let me WORK. The American market can discover me later. But seriously, why do you think the UK has historically been so much more receptive to these kinds of artists?

With Tate gearing up for another era w/ Housewife, I genuinely have to ask... what exactly is Tate McRae's artistic identity? And I don't mean the dancing, the sex appeal or the occasional Britney comparisons. I'm talking about the actual music. A lot of her discography gives me the impression of songs that have been passed around a writing camp until they're polished enough for literally anybody to record. Even when she's credited, I rarely get the sense that these songs could ONLY have come from Tate McRae. There's no real personality or perspective that makes the material distinctly hers. And before anyone brings up Britney, let's not act like having outside writers automatically means you can't have an identity. Britney could sing somebody else's demo and somehow make it unmistakably Britney. That's exactly what I feel is missing here. She's had multiple eras now, and I still feel like I know more about her choreography than I do about her as an artist. It's almost impressive how much music she's released without leaving a particularly distinct creative fingerprint. Thoughts?

Helpp?? I've never heard about this