this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Showerthoughts
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I think the question is backwards. What we have isn't a prioritization of appearance but a reduction of advertised talent combined with a professionalization of cosmetics. When you've consecrated your industry around a bare handful of performers, you can pick out the fist full of people that check every box.
Beyonce, Swift, Usher, and Bieber cover all the bases.
But once you get outside that rarified niche of promoted talent? Do you really think Post Malone is famous for his good looks? Is Kishi Bashi just coasting on his pretty face?
I don't really think so.
Attractive people get more opportunities in life, it's baked into our brains. I prefer looking at attractive people. Music is something we hear, but with digital and social media it's as much seen as it is heard. More artists are coming up through tik tok now than the radio. This relationship shows that being attractive will improve a persons odds of being successful in music. Maybe if personality can shine through in those videos it can overtake appearance.
The radio isn't a thousand independent stations looking to fill air time with local talent, it's a handful of mega-monoliths looking to maximize advertising revenue with the Most Popular Thing (that fits the corporate agenda).
Blandly conventionally attractive, to boot. Could we even do Amy Winehouse in the modern moment? Could we see Eminem or Maryl Manson or Buddy Holly or Ray Charles or Billie Holiday topping the charts? Idfk anymore. Seems like it's easier than ever to blacklist anyone who is even remotely controversial. Plenty of attractive people who will do the Brittany Spears thing for fear of being the next Dixie Chicks.
Unfortunately, the personality that shines brightest seems to be the kind that singles you're an asshole.
Just ask P Diddy and Kanye.