What qualities do you look for in a pop star?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Obviously musical/singing ability is required (well, most of the time) but what else?

- Eccentricity?
- Frivolousness?
- Dancing ability?
- Number of white towels in their rider?
- Appearing on Saturday morning kids' telly/Christmas specials?

Phrasing the question slightly differently: What makes you think an artist is 'pop'?

Comments

[koganbot]

I don't look for particular qualities in stars (whether "pop" or some other type of star); rather, their qualities find me. JoJo is not a "star" in this sense since the qualities of her music that find me don't seem to attach to "JoJo," even though the music is usually very good, as is her singing. Paula DeAnda is not a star in my constellation, despite making one of my favorite songs of the year. Whereas Robyn is, despite never making a song as good as "Easy." (Or maybe one song as good as "Easy": "Be Mine!") Robyn puts Robyn at issue in her music.

I think writers and producers and instrumentalists can be stars, even ones you've never heard of. But I'm having trouble thinking of current examples. Keith Richards was a star not just because I recognized him by his craggly face and because he was in the Stones but because I heard a personality in his playing. James Williamson of the Stooges is a star. The Stooges collectively were a star. But now that they're famous they're not a star, at least not in their new stuff. Maybe you can go back and discover a now-dead person and that person can function as a star.

The Thomas Magnum theory. Sometimes a fictional character can be a star (Homer Simpson, for instance) and can be an auteur. Maybe it isn't Ashlee Simpson the human being who's the star and the auteur of Autobiography, but Ashlee Simpson the restless character. It's this character that became the guiding force for the three crucial artists on the record: Ashlee herself, John Shanks, Kara DioGuardi (plus Shelly and Steve and Stan and maybe even Jeff). I call this The Thomas Magnum Theory, my idea being that it's not Tom Selleck (the actor) but Thomas Magnum (the character) who was the star of the show, and not Donald Bellisario (the man who created the show) or Selleck who were the auteurs but the character Magnum who was the auteur. Obviously I'm overstating this, and not meaning to deny deny Donald Bellisario or Tom Selleck or John Shanks or Ashlee Simpson "authorship." (I haven't read much on the subject of the Death Of The Author, and not everyone who uses that phrase means it in the same way, but the phrase was really really really ill-chosen, because - no matter Barthes' or Derrida's or Foucault's intentions - it implies the bad idea that there's an either/or relationship between author and (con)text, that either one is determinate or the other so that noticing the importance of text - which is basically what I'm doing here - somehow pits you against the idea of an author.) I'm more trying to make sense of the fact that Magnum P.I. was drastically better than the other similar shows on TV at the time, even while drawing on a similar pool of writers and directors - just as Autobiography is way better than anything else that Shanks and DioGuardi have had a hand in (which isn't to say that they haven't created great music elsewhere - I like Hilary's "Come Clean" more than any Ashlee song, for instance - just not with the consistent greatness and consistent character that they got with Ashlee). So my idea with Magnum is that the character - or, more accurately, the relations among that character and the other main ones in the show (Higgins, T.C., and Rick) and the character's way of relating to the guest star (who would play a Sympathetic But Screwed-Up Client who sucks Magnum in and runs him in circles, Magnum having to work through the circles to really be able to help the client) - is so rich that lots of pretty good nongenius writers could create greatness with it.

You could think of poptimists being the auteur, and even though Tom and Lex and Kat are stars, it is the role that each takes poptimists that is the condition of the stardom. So the roles can be considered stars too. "Star" critics aren't necessarily better than nonstar critics, but they often are. And contexts such as ilX and poptimists that allow writers to take starring roles are usually better than those - most of the press - that don't.

In any event, one quality of pop stars that sometimes finds me is ideas. Jagger had ideas. Ashlee has ideas, even if she's not likely ever to become an intellectual. Britney has ideas. I wouldn't bet on her thinking them through, but she's got 'em.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

"Star" is an interesting generic category, because there's an assumption of "naturalness" in the star that's necessarily socially and/or personally constructed; and yet, to each person identifying the star, the effect IS natural. I don't think I could be argued into thinking that Girls Aloud, say, are stars when I don't think they are, and yet I couldn't tell you some rule that they broke that kept them from being stars. It's a totally ad hoc rationalization for appeal (or lack thereof).

What I like about stardom is that there's no way of trying to wiggle yer way out of making a pretty serious, possibly irrevocable value judgment (regardless of popularity) about the power of the star...I dunno, presence, or auteur status, or whatever you want to call it. It's a super-something, an exemplar, head-and-shoulders above the mass of artists, and there's no particularly clear way of deciding what distinguishes a given artist's star-power/presence/whatever, despite the intensity and singularity of the classification.

Anyway, one question: can anyone, once becoming a star, actually become de-starred? The new Stooges certainly doesn't exhibit any particular star quality, but as you said, the Stooges are a star; so they haven't exactly given up their star status, they just haven't contributed anything to it. It's stuck in the past, but it's not like it disappeared.