| I was hoping for more fleshed-out examples of why the business models were good, but the list was interesting nonetheless. My two personal-favorite business models are (in no particular order): Tesla and Miley Cyrus. Tesla: evident if you're familiar with it (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-p...) My interest in the Miley Cyrus model might need a little more explanation. Back a few months ago, when she was releasing over-the-top videos (wrecking ball?), everyone was saying some variant of "wow why is Miley famous she obviously has no talent and this is just lewd." But this is the crux of her brilliance.[0] She has tricked a very large number of people into advertising for her, regardless of whether she does anything requiring talent. But then there's the obvious tradeoff: she has to deliver all of these ridiculous things, likely to the detriment of her ability to contribute anything actually meaningful to the industry. Maybe other people have made that deal but none seem to have been as successful, at least based on the data from my facebook feed. And this is a rare case in which facebook feed data is a useful measure of the success of the business, because it fuels the clicks and the conversations and the weird interest. Anyway. Every time I see something about her, even overwhelmingly negative, I shake my head and think "another person tricked into feeding her success". Her willingness to decouple her success from anything "worthwhile"[1] about her (talent/skill/beauty/benefit to fans), at the cost of irrecoverably changing her career in what most would view as a very negative way, is sort of fascinating. [0] I say "her brilliance" but in reality I am sure she is just the face for a manager type orchestrating the money-and-fame-for-girl's-reputation-and-soul deal. [1] "Worthwhile" in quotes because is anything in the pop music industry really worthwhile? |
If so, I don't think it's a correct assessment. Her music is ultimately popular because people like it. I don't think people think Wrecking Ball is a better song because the video was over-the-top, nor would a wild video make me like a song I would otherwise hate. Miley was also popular before she got more extreme. On the flip-side, Britney Spears was far more popular before she got extreme. I'm sure there are other cases where an artist receives more press attention that does not correlate to increased music sales.
Chris Brown has had nothing but bad press since he hit Rhianna a few years ago and he's still placing songs on the charts and radio. People seem to mostly dislike him, but will still listen to his music. I don't think they're listening to him because he hit a woman and is in and out of jail. I think they just like the songs he makes.
In the end, people still need to have some connection to the music. In pop music, that connection may not be entirely rational, and it certainly isn't lasting, but it's still there for some period of time.