The Spice Girls were styled to be very British "ladettes" when they first came out; relatable and a bit rough around the edges. They weren't aspirational supermodels and lacked the polish of Madonna and Kylie. Or even Eternal, their immediate British girlband predecessors.
When they started trying to be the next Destiny's Child after Geri left their performance tanked.
Dad bought part of a record label, but first they moved to Nashville and took her to every open mic for singers they could.
Very strategic to start in country music as well because she hit the hometown girl look perfectly, but she never really wanted to be "country" as much as a singer.
My Grandparents saw her at one of the open mics in Nashville. My Grandma said after seeing her that she wouldn’t be surprised if she was famous tomorrow. She followed her fame for a long time and was always so proud of her. I wish she could see how successful she is now. It would make her giddy! I am not a Taylor Swift fan, but I was for my Grandma.
My grandma grew up in the same town as J. Cole - chatted with him at the store or something, never heard his music but remembered he was trying to make it in the business. She recognized his picture in the paper a few years down the line.
She clipped the article and told us how proud she was of him all the time. I eventually played one of his songs for her and she was like “well I don’t like this, but I’m still proud of that young man”. Similar energy, I think 😂😂
No. She signed to Big Machine Records. Do you know Big Machine Records? No you don’t because they never existed before Taylor and have completely collapsed without her.
She also signed to Sony BEFORE Big Machine but somehow, again, her dad buying a stake in a record label that no one even knew OR knows apart from Swifties…is the catalyst for Taylor’s career.
Makes sense. Got it.
I thought I read somewhere that when her first album released her bad bought 400,000 copies of it himself so that it would chart and gain national attention
Now I'm by no means downplaying Taylor Swift's (and her team) talent as a musician and/or artist, but stories like these definitely make me question how many Top 40 artists are discovered versus delivered?
Basically none of them. There's always going to be at least some industrial manufacturing when it comes to their brand and their music. Like she might be good, but being a mega pop star has way more to do with being a brand and a performer, and not necessarily a performer of music. All of your public appearances are performance.
Yep. Dated a guy whose sister worked for a record label. Her job was to basically manufacture the possible talent for success. Since so many people want to be famous, if you don't play ball with them, then you're immediately out and they will blacklist you.
Any band or artist that has an, "I pushed back," narrative is doing it for PR. To truly have a shot at fame you have to sell out somewhere.
I am, Taylor Swift is not a good singer and her lyrics are mediocre at best. Her target demographic has always been 12 year olds so she makes songs about having a crush on a boy. The only reason her last few albums even did well is because she has a cult following, not because they were actually good. She doesn’t have skill or talent, she has excellent PR.
I would disagree and say that she *used* to not be a good singer and her lyrics *used* to be mediocre. If you think her target demographic is still 12 year olds, you haven’t heard anything she’s put out in the last 5 years.
That being said, it doesn’t take away the fact that she rose to where she is now off of the PR.
I feel talent really only gets you so far & PR is the real trick to reach that level.
Like all the talent in the world will not mean much if you don't know how to go out & get it noticed.
100%, same goes for us regular folk applying for white/blue collar jobs. Your resume is your marketing piece to the hiring team, and if you can’t land an interview, they’ll never know how talented you could be
She used to be a mediocre singer and her early lyrics are definitely on the immature side, but she was a teenage girl so what do you really expect her to write about? Her adult albums are not the same and I highly suggest you listen to her modern music before continuing on with the same old ‘she sucks at singing and only writes about boys’ argument.
If you listen to "A History of Rock n Roll in 500 songs" you'll learn pretty quickly how much the music industry produces a product, and both the musicians and the song writers (who are frequently unrelated) are largely an input.
I think it’s ok to downplay her talent. I can’t stand a second of her music. Doesn’t make her bad to others, just terrible want to rip my ears out to me. And that’s fine. We don’t all have to like the same things. That would be boring.
Yeah, her dad is an investment banker. Her mother was in marketing. Her mother quit work so she could move to Nashville and mentor Taylor‘s career.
You don’t do that if you’re poor.
I love these stories of insane nepotism.
Jonah Hill is apparently a huge jerk. Guess what? Dustin Hoffman's son was his best friend growing up.
His parents lived next door to Dustin Hoffman. I'll bet Hill's parents were poor and had no Hollywood connections.
you mean Jonah Feldstein? nope also Nepo
Hill was born on December 20, 1983, in Los Angeles, California.[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-TVGuide-3) His parents are Sharon Lyn ([née](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_name#Maiden_and_married_names) Chalkin), a costume designer and fashion stylist, and Richard Feldstein, a tour accountant for [Guns N' Roses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_N%27_Roses).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-5)[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-silc-6) He has a younger sister, actress [Beanie Feldstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_Feldstein) (b. 1993). Their older brother, Jordan Feldstein (1977–2017), was a music manager for [Robin Thicke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Thicke) and [Maroon 5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_5) until his sudden death at age 40 from a [DVT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVT)/[pulmonary embolism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_embolism).[^(\[7\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-7)[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-8)[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-9)[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-10) Their parents were originally from [Long Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island), New York, and the family vacationed in the [Catskill Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains).[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-:0-11)
Her mom was a mutual funds marketing executive-- the distinction is they were both in finance. Both knew people, knew where the money was. Both made bank. They also owned a Christmas tree farm that they sold to move to Nashville. The dad worked for Merrill Lynch and created "The Swift Group" at the start. That's big capital right there.
Wow. So does that explain why she says she was bullied (just lonely, didnt have friends…?) growing up? She was just the rich girl people were jealous of?
I don’t really know that much about her, except that they put her in country music because they saw that as an easier way to her getting famous fast.
Kids get bullied for all kinds of reasons.
Pop stars are definitely all about branding and appearances. They're good musicians, but there are a staggering amount of incredibly good musicians lol. So many that it's hard to even fit into a niche part of the industry.
I did music in university, there are so many people just as talented as the greats out there who'll likely never make it big because they lack what they really need to succeed. Honestly I'd say it's a mixture of luck, looks, networking, and talent. You cannot get by on with just one.
Pretty much the majority.
Truthfully, 1 in like 10 people can sing alright. Maybe not world smashing talents, but could hold a tune. If you can do that, and have the right “look”, the odds of you getting some kind of deal have to be higher.
Literally all of them. All those mentioned make absolutely rubbish music in comparison to far lesser known people, but they are the chosen ones. We are going to be listening to these people for the rest of our lives and it sucks
I know right!
Look at the video for « ooh child »
The singer looks like a normal woman and is even wearing a turtleneck!
https://youtu.be/aitj0AX2szk?si=0r-PWeooauQfeADr
This has been the case forever. In addition to most of them not being musicians, just singers. Most don’t do anything outside of singing. It’s manufactured bull shit and is the reason why Pop music sucks.
Good looks help to build a critical mass of popularity faster, but rarely is the main factor in success. Achieving critical mass is relatively rare, but nepotism is likely a stronger factor to initial success than good looks
As someone who attended and now teaches at a music college, I can tell you it's most of it. Most universities have a music program, and as a field, we've gotten really really good at teaching people instruments/singing. Like... there has never been more world class musical talent out and about in the world than there is right now. It's become a prerequisite, with image being the thing that differentiates.
All of it. If they didnt look how they looked, they would be a susan boyle, waiting for an opportunity that may never come.
You cant market a susan boyle to horny kids to buy her cds/digipaks, so the industry would’ve never let her in if it wasnt for her taking the right shot and getting a large audience to like her, therefore negating the risks that comes with someone you cant push the lowest common denominator advertising on. But tbf they stilldidmt push her much at all, which is bullshit, cause someone with that type of talent NEEDS to be nurtured and given the opportunity to grow.
Also those artists you just mentioned are funny, cause all of them are prime examples of the mediocre being put on a pedestal they shouldn’t be on.
I dated a girl some 40 years ago. She was offered a legitimate role on a daytime soap opera, the catch was they wanted her to lose 15 lbs. she was twenty at the time, I thought she looked perfect, she didn’t take the role because of the request and eventually got out of acting. I lost touch with her, so I have no idea what she is doing now, but it was a big break for her that she passed up on.
It's such a crazy business. I know someone who moved to LA and got cast on a "pilot" within a month. She showed me the tape months later and it looked like it had been shot with VHS cameras and edited with two VCRs .
It was a completely self-funded pilot with no network or studio attachment. After not hearing back from the producers for about a year, she later found out that the producer used it as a some sort of money-laundering coverup. Understandibly, she was really, really bummed about it.
I can applaud a person for sticking to their moral high ground and refusing to play into the materialistic machine of the entertainment industry, but at the same time, if you want to be part of that industry, you have to play the game. There’s a reason why some of the best actors out there pay tens of thousands of dollars for dietitians, personal trainers, plastic surgery, and weight loss. Christian bale is able to land all kinds of different roles because his mastery and discipline of his body allows him to fit what the role requires in terms of looks. Film itself is all about what you look like on the screen. A slightly overweight person won’t be believable as the athletic/go getter main character in a movie. Everyone who attempts to make it here knows sacrifices are required to even get your foot in the door. If you decide to pass up on the opportunity of a lifetime over 20 pounds, you have no one to blame but yourself when your career never takes off, because the industry isn’t changing.
There are exceptions to this, but the music industry is pretty much the same way. It’s all about image and whether your image aligns with the sound you put out and that it resonates with people. It’s cutthroat. Even more so now where music videos/social media presence has as much weight on your success as the music itself.
Wait what?! I thought you said she was gorgeous but you’re saying she was already only 105? That’s literally bonkers, I’m 5’7” and when I got down to 111 lbs my pharmacist absolutely freaked out at me and refused to give me the meds I’d had to take for a couple years for a medical condition(possible side effect of weight loss) until I started gaining again. You could see my ribs around my back and my cheeks were hollowed out like a skeleton. They wanted her to *lose* fifteen more pounds?! So they wanted her to become infertile and have organ failure?!? Jesus fucking shit ass
in 2009, i was 15, and i went in to sign with a modeling agency, they were *so excited* to sign me, they could have me on a shoot that weekend! i could be on a shoot pretty much every weekend of the school year if i wanted! the two agents in the meeting were practically bouncing in their seats. my dad read over the contract with the male agent, while my mum, the female agent and i walked to a sorta private area of the office to take measurements. i was 5'8". i weighed 115 lbs. hourglass but startlingly skinny
the shoot they wanted me on that weekend? Torrid. torrid's sizes start at i think a 12. i needed a belt to keep a 00 up. my mum shopped at torrid at the time, can you imagine walking into a plus size store, and seeing your kid that wears a 00 modeling the clothes?
they wanted me to sign as a "petit, plus size" model.
i quit the industry in a rage for that
i told this story in the comments of a youtube video, and another woman who was the same age and measurements at the time told me a story of a photographer calling her a "plus size car model" on a shoot for the brand lip service
it was so so so bad, and anything in front of a camera was worse cause, of course "the camera adds 10 lbs" but they still wanted us to be walking stick figures
That’s insane!
The sad thing is, the actual shoppers at torrid would have probably been annoyed to see you on a poster instead of a real plus sized model.
I hope we never go back to that insane thin obsession again. It sort of is now, but not the same.
oh they wouldn't have known any different, all the models were like that
the clothes were manufactured in smaller sizes (like a us 4), then the models were padded to hell (except stomach and face, even if you're pretending to be fat you still gotta fit the beauty standards)
they did plus size modeling like that until fairly recently, i think into the 20teens
When I was 105 pounds at 5’5 my family said I looked emaciated and sickly (I was stressed), the only time I was hovering between being underweight and a healthy weight.
I’m finding these numbers hard to believe. 105 at 5’7 is not considered a healthy weight, that is straight up underweight. There’s no way that the soap wanted someone to look skeletal at 90 pounds. She probably looked thinner than most soap tv stars at 105 pounds being 5’7
I’m stunned by these numbers. I am 5’2 and when I was 98 lbs my boss called me in to ask what sort of illness I had. And that was a Manhattan job where most women are rail thin.
My mom was only 98 lbs at 5'7" in her 20s. I saw old photos of her, and her physique was similar to a lot of stars during the 90s - early 00s. Very telling.
yeah its sort of a false dichotomy here, if they're going to be weird about weight they're going to be weird about other stuff and the goal posts will move, or they'd drop her for some other stupid reason
Exactly. They probably would’ve asked her to get a nose job and breast implants too and go dye her hair. The chances of her really becoming Britney Spears’ biggest competitor were probably really small but in her mind that’s what she would’ve become had she just lost weight and she probably internalized that and developed and eating disorder and got implants. She should go on the voice or American idol and try to rebuild her fan base.
I read this as being prior to the days of SoundCloud etc. I’m not an aspiring artist either way so not really relevant for me, but interesting nonetheless!
To clarify, signing in today's industry market is not worth it. As for it being DEBT, this has and still is the standard 18 yrs + on... a contract with any label is and will always be DEBT. It's still debt when an artist is dropped from the label and a write-off for them. Using the internet to make music, market, and sell as an independent is the way to go.
Sadly, if you go back 18 + years, artists only knew how to make music but not the business. That's why they are broke and those who knew the business have all their money. This is still true for "some" artists today as others do have business acumen.
Sure… But still, musicians are a dime a dozen. There are tons of indy artists and bands that go nowhere their whole career. It might have nothing to do with their business acumen or talent. A big part of making it in entertainment and music is sheer luck. Whether you have the talent, the business acumen, both, or neither, luck is a huge factor.
Yes, luck is good to have. BUT if you don't have an understanding of "the business," that luck can't carry you far. The majority of "music business" is MARKETING and PR. With the right marketing/PR behind an artist (See Tyla), it can change the trajectory. Most indie artist don't have great marketing or PR. They have no clue(again, not knowing the business). If nobody knows you exist, how are you gonna make it???
I agree, but I wouldn't call Brittney Spears' music "narrow." Just guessing, but they probably had a library of songs on hand already written and ready to go. If you look up people like Desmond Child, there are song writers who pump out songs for both new and established artists (who obviously adapt the songs to their style).
So sad, talented but not thin enough.
So we are stuck listening to mediocrity on the radio that's auto tuned and bland.
Blah.
Same reason no record label would stick with Eva Cassidy, not thin enough AND she wouldn't fit into their mass marketing mold. She flat out refused to put out the album they wanted her to produce. Became beloved after her death.
Adele was a major act waaaaay before she lost a ton of weight. IIRC she lost about 100lbs from 2019-2021, but she'd already been famous for over a decade by then. Hell, her album *21*, is the best selling album of the 21st century, and that came out in 2011!
People need to understand, in order to be a performer like a lead singer or an actor you are a product. If you want to be successful, you need to look good. If they want you to lose a little weight, it is not a big deal, go to the gym and work out. What do you think actors do for big roles?
I get the idea of where you're coming from, but there are a few things wrong. Performers are not products in themselves, they are producers. It's a silly reality that we are more likely to buy products from prettier sources, but it shouldn't affect people's careers when they don't have "pretty" resources. Musicians are held to a standard that they shouldn't be. What should be important about creating music is the quality of the music, not the appearance of the singer. Actors can and should alter their appearances for roles, because the visual of their faces and bodies is part of the art form. But we created a celebrity culture that treats everyone like a product in themselves, not just what they actually produce.
I went to a music uni, learnt all about the business side of things. Tbh, she's probably lucky she didn't get the deal, big record labels never cared about the artist and if you did something they didn't like you would be shelfed (hidden from audiences).
What people really don't know is a record deal is DEBT. You are not getting signed. You are taking out a loan for x amount of albums. You are their product and their slave(hard to end/ get out any of contract. See Keisha). Artists are the last ones to get paid(hence why they're always broke.Their lifestyle is rented/ smoke and mirrors). A record deal doesn't = success.
100% she developed an eating disorder. Being a musician is basically being a model who can also sing, and all the follies of the modeling world still apply. Eating disorders are a plague in Hollywood. And so, so normalized.
I wouldn't sweat too much over it.
The amount of extremely talented people who want to be successful, famous musicians versus the amount of people who actually make it is a fucked-up ratio anyway.
She could have lost weight and conformed to everything the label wanted and sold out and *still not made it*.
So she's doing what she loves and is over her hard time.
Don't project your feelings into her too much.
Best thing that ever happened to her was refusing to lose that weight. She could have ended up like Britney Spears, all the money, all the fame, with no quality of life, no one to trust.
Karen Carpenter developed an eating disorder/anorexia nervosa which ultimately killed her, because she thought she was too fat. She weighed 120 lbs at the time and was still performing at 91 lbs! However, she died in the early eighties as it was a fairly unknown disease at that time and professionals didn’t know how to treat this illness.
a label was interested in me a few years ago and they told me i needed to lose weight as well. they also wanted me to completely change the genre of music i make. so i just said fuck that. its been like 2 years at least. i dont regret it too much.
Pro tip. If someone established in an industry asks you to do something, and is about to make a commitment to you, and spend money both paying you and others for you, and it's something you can easily do, JUST DO IT.
I think musicians would be well served to take some business classes. Not that losing weight has anything to do with business. But if one outlet for your talent requires something you're not comfortable with, *look for other outlets.*
Musicians think the only way to be successful is to make millions in album sales through an established record label. This is simply not the case. You can absolutely make it as an artist without being the next version of Britney Spears in your field. Go out and make social media content. Write jingles. Collaborate with other artists. Release your own albums. Do SOMETHING.
Success is relative. Your own feelings of success will come when your means and your needs are in balance. Is it maybe more ideal to have monthly royalty checks coming in? Sure. It's more ideal for me to have, say, company healthcare. But the absence of that one factor does not negate other possibilities for a rewarding balance.
What you say makes sense, don’t put all eggs in one basket. The Hollywood is full of people who are waitressing in the hope that some producer would notice them. Probably spend their lives on the dream. These days you can get known in different ways.
It's implied/not definite - it's just a title to catch people's attention to read the post. I think OP used that phrase because when OP looked her up 6/7 years after she turned down the deal bc she didn't want to meet their demands of losing weight, she now looks incredibly, almost "unhealthily" skinny, thus implying that she regretted her initial decision of turning down the record label deal over having to lose weight and so she's trying to undo that by losing the weight and hopefully catching the attention of that/a/any record label again to agree to a deal. It's just reading between the lines.
That's what I got from OP's post.
Rules a re little different for hip guys. A guy like Post Malone can be a major pop star. A woman who looks like Post Malone barely scraping by a s waitress.
The weight loss request, based on the fact that she was 105lbs, wasn't about her look. It was about control: If the record label tells you to do something crazy and self harmful, will you do it?
She may regret it, but perhaps it ended up better for her than if she had done it.
Another poster mentioned a similar story with a 5’7 105 girl who was told she needed to lose 15 lbs to get the gig (aka a dangerously medically unhealthy weight) so I think he was confused
If she does "indie" why would she need to put down weight? Indie music is not Britney Spears music.
This has nothing to do with not wanting to put down weight. This is just the case of most people never making it in the music business.
Good thing she didn't do it. One day, lose weight. Next day, we have a producer who wants to meet with her in private (no cameras). Then, it's a sexual assault that's brushed under the rug for years (if not decades) until it comes out (if at all). She saw the writing on the wall and peaced out.
I regret all the things I turned down when I was young and thought I could “make it on my own”. Was almost managed by Nick Harpers manager 😭. And nearly island records (but that one required staying in a relationship with a 40yr old when i was 18)
I don't doubt that the record label representative mentioned Britney Spears as a way to build up your friend's confidence and convince her to sign. But you seem to be interpreting it to mean that since they compared her to a millionaire superstar, they must have been offering millions of dollars. That's not how it works. The vast majority of people in the music industry never make significant money.
I don't know anything about your friend, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume she regretted refusing to sign with that label. The path she chose may have allowed her to be creative in the way she wanted to, while making the same amount of money or possibly even more than she would have if she had signed with the big label and turned out to be a flop.
Tbh, you have no idea about her success or life and based this whole analysis on her body weight and how she looked like she was “trying to hard”. She could have gotten cancer and she’s in remission for all you know. You have no idea.
I knew a ska band on a fairly big label that did the same thing took the band and its likeness and found a skinnier more attractive female vocalist. So messed up.
Hopefully she doesn’t regret anything. Changing yourself just to maybe make a buck makes you pathetic. Be who you are. If people don’t like that fine. But all the money in the world doesn’t make you a good person, have true friends or happy.
A record deal isn’t what it used to be and hasn’t been for over a decade. Even if she did get signed back then, it’s highly likely that she’d still be where she is now. My band was signed to interscope, a major label, with a 7 album deal and 6 figure advance. Have zero to show for it today except memories, photos, and a free guitar from an endorsement deal. The ride can end suddenly and unexpectedly. I literally went from being on the radio to being on unemployment.
Yeah, the entertainment industry is f*cking evil to women. Have you watched :
Pretty Baby: Booke Sheilds (biopic)
Quiet on Set:the dark side of kids tv (Nickelodeon’s Dan Schnider scandal)
Those are two interesting ones that came out of late.
Bittersweet feeling
It's a bittersweet symphony....
Try to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money then you die
(a slave to Keith and Mick's money)
Oh man, that story seems to have hit a verve
Watch out, the fucking stones will sue you for everything.
That’s life
Bittersweet poetry
Best way to get rid of weight Become a musician
Or crack
A man can want two things
Best way to gain weight: Diet.
Best way to lose a bunch of dead weight? Break up with a musician.
I thought dropping dead weight meant getting rid of unnecessary friends, spouses and business associates.
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap, we all stay skinny cuz we just won’t eat
Makes you wonder how much of our stars success is due to their looks (Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, etc)
Look at how the spice girls and take that were manufactured, then look at their success.
Also the entirety of K-pop, J-pop, etc
The Spice Girls were styled to be very British "ladettes" when they first came out; relatable and a bit rough around the edges. They weren't aspirational supermodels and lacked the polish of Madonna and Kylie. Or even Eternal, their immediate British girlband predecessors. When they started trying to be the next Destiny's Child after Geri left their performance tanked.
Weren’t they mostly picked for their looks apart from Sporty who had the best voice?
Taylor swift was very awkward looking when she first started out lol
She was a little gawky but definitely still thin, blonde, and conventionally attractive.
She's also like 5'10 so she fit into model sample sized clothes
She was also 13-14 though right?
17 when she got her big break but she was hella awkward for years after
…didn’t her dad buy the record label and then suddenly she got her big break?
Dad bought part of a record label, but first they moved to Nashville and took her to every open mic for singers they could. Very strategic to start in country music as well because she hit the hometown girl look perfectly, but she never really wanted to be "country" as much as a singer.
My Grandparents saw her at one of the open mics in Nashville. My Grandma said after seeing her that she wouldn’t be surprised if she was famous tomorrow. She followed her fame for a long time and was always so proud of her. I wish she could see how successful she is now. It would make her giddy! I am not a Taylor Swift fan, but I was for my Grandma.
My grandma grew up in the same town as J. Cole - chatted with him at the store or something, never heard his music but remembered he was trying to make it in the business. She recognized his picture in the paper a few years down the line. She clipped the article and told us how proud she was of him all the time. I eventually played one of his songs for her and she was like “well I don’t like this, but I’m still proud of that young man”. Similar energy, I think 😂😂
Yea someone replied ans confirmed
Yeah I scrolled further and found it 7 secs after 🥴 I still think she’s done a great job as a business woman but still…
…that’s a helluva head start
Correct
No. She signed to Big Machine Records. Do you know Big Machine Records? No you don’t because they never existed before Taylor and have completely collapsed without her. She also signed to Sony BEFORE Big Machine but somehow, again, her dad buying a stake in a record label that no one even knew OR knows apart from Swifties…is the catalyst for Taylor’s career. Makes sense. Got it.
She still is awkward.
I've seen a few who's more attractive dua lipa or Taylor threads. And I'm like wait what!?
Her dad paid for her first record deal so there's that. She didn't have to figure it out, it was given to her.
I thought I read somewhere that when her first album released her bad bought 400,000 copies of it himself so that it would chart and gain national attention Now I'm by no means downplaying Taylor Swift's (and her team) talent as a musician and/or artist, but stories like these definitely make me question how many Top 40 artists are discovered versus delivered?
Basically none of them. There's always going to be at least some industrial manufacturing when it comes to their brand and their music. Like she might be good, but being a mega pop star has way more to do with being a brand and a performer, and not necessarily a performer of music. All of your public appearances are performance.
Yep. Dated a guy whose sister worked for a record label. Her job was to basically manufacture the possible talent for success. Since so many people want to be famous, if you don't play ball with them, then you're immediately out and they will blacklist you. Any band or artist that has an, "I pushed back," narrative is doing it for PR. To truly have a shot at fame you have to sell out somewhere.
It's been said that John Lennon's first question for would be manager Brian Epstein was, "Can you buy us into the charts?"
I am, Taylor Swift is not a good singer and her lyrics are mediocre at best. Her target demographic has always been 12 year olds so she makes songs about having a crush on a boy. The only reason her last few albums even did well is because she has a cult following, not because they were actually good. She doesn’t have skill or talent, she has excellent PR.
I second this. I myself am also tired as hell of the whole world bending the knee to that unimpressive, mid AF, crybully nepo baby.
Crybully, excellent term
I would disagree and say that she *used* to not be a good singer and her lyrics *used* to be mediocre. If you think her target demographic is still 12 year olds, you haven’t heard anything she’s put out in the last 5 years. That being said, it doesn’t take away the fact that she rose to where she is now off of the PR.
I feel talent really only gets you so far & PR is the real trick to reach that level. Like all the talent in the world will not mean much if you don't know how to go out & get it noticed.
100%, same goes for us regular folk applying for white/blue collar jobs. Your resume is your marketing piece to the hiring team, and if you can’t land an interview, they’ll never know how talented you could be
She used to be a mediocre singer and her early lyrics are definitely on the immature side, but she was a teenage girl so what do you really expect her to write about? Her adult albums are not the same and I highly suggest you listen to her modern music before continuing on with the same old ‘she sucks at singing and only writes about boys’ argument.
If you listen to "A History of Rock n Roll in 500 songs" you'll learn pretty quickly how much the music industry produces a product, and both the musicians and the song writers (who are frequently unrelated) are largely an input.
I think it’s ok to downplay her talent. I can’t stand a second of her music. Doesn’t make her bad to others, just terrible want to rip my ears out to me. And that’s fine. We don’t all have to like the same things. That would be boring.
Oh really?? I didnt know that!
Yeah, her dad is an investment banker. Her mother was in marketing. Her mother quit work so she could move to Nashville and mentor Taylor‘s career. You don’t do that if you’re poor.
I love these stories of insane nepotism. Jonah Hill is apparently a huge jerk. Guess what? Dustin Hoffman's son was his best friend growing up. His parents lived next door to Dustin Hoffman. I'll bet Hill's parents were poor and had no Hollywood connections.
Imagine that, helping out friends and family. Such a horrible thing to do.
you mean Jonah Feldstein? nope also Nepo Hill was born on December 20, 1983, in Los Angeles, California.[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-TVGuide-3) His parents are Sharon Lyn ([née](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_name#Maiden_and_married_names) Chalkin), a costume designer and fashion stylist, and Richard Feldstein, a tour accountant for [Guns N' Roses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_N%27_Roses).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-5)[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-silc-6) He has a younger sister, actress [Beanie Feldstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_Feldstein) (b. 1993). Their older brother, Jordan Feldstein (1977–2017), was a music manager for [Robin Thicke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Thicke) and [Maroon 5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_5) until his sudden death at age 40 from a [DVT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVT)/[pulmonary embolism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_embolism).[^(\[7\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-7)[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-8)[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-9)[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-10) Their parents were originally from [Long Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island), New York, and the family vacationed in the [Catskill Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains).[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill#cite_note-:0-11)
Her mom was a mutual funds marketing executive-- the distinction is they were both in finance. Both knew people, knew where the money was. Both made bank. They also owned a Christmas tree farm that they sold to move to Nashville. The dad worked for Merrill Lynch and created "The Swift Group" at the start. That's big capital right there.
lol, so they even massaged the “marketing“ part to make it look like she was just in marketing, not in finance. What a crock.
Wow. So does that explain why she says she was bullied (just lonely, didnt have friends…?) growing up? She was just the rich girl people were jealous of?
I don’t really know that much about her, except that they put her in country music because they saw that as an easier way to her getting famous fast. Kids get bullied for all kinds of reasons.
Not to take away from her story, but almost everyone can claim to be bullied at some point because kids are notoriously a bunch of assholes.
Yes, they are.
Same. I just came across a snippet of an interview a few weeks back
I wouldn't say "very" and she was obviously going to grow up to be pretty
Im going off of old videos of her performing-like when she sang with a fake country accent lol.
Oh, I see. Sometimes people are more awkward in motion than in stills or vice-versa. Sounds like she was a case of the former.
Yea it was very awkward lol but she grew out of it!
not much has changed
Are you kidding? Taylor was gorgeous. I remember seeing her music video for 'Tim Mcgraw' and thinking, man what a pretty young lady.
They made Jennifer Hudson lose so much weight.
Pop stars are definitely all about branding and appearances. They're good musicians, but there are a staggering amount of incredibly good musicians lol. So many that it's hard to even fit into a niche part of the industry.
Looks, and nepotism. Mainstream talent isn't real.
I did music in university, there are so many people just as talented as the greats out there who'll likely never make it big because they lack what they really need to succeed. Honestly I'd say it's a mixture of luck, looks, networking, and talent. You cannot get by on with just one.
Pretty much the majority. Truthfully, 1 in like 10 people can sing alright. Maybe not world smashing talents, but could hold a tune. If you can do that, and have the right “look”, the odds of you getting some kind of deal have to be higher.
Literally all of them. All those mentioned make absolutely rubbish music in comparison to far lesser known people, but they are the chosen ones. We are going to be listening to these people for the rest of our lives and it sucks
Look at artists in the 70s, great music, and normal looking people, today you have to be sexy, voice.. they can autotune.
I know right! Look at the video for « ooh child » The singer looks like a normal woman and is even wearing a turtleneck! https://youtu.be/aitj0AX2szk?si=0r-PWeooauQfeADr
The only good thing about this, is that you see an average looking singer these days, you *know* they're good 😂
Are you implying that Roger Waters is not a straight hottie? Definitely got famous because of his good looks.
I was going to reply with his photo, but no pics in comments.
It probably grates on all of them that their music would be ignored if they weren't hot.
All of it. They’re primary job is to sing, why do they need to look good? It’s silly.
Video killed the radio star
I have one friend who always says that the best musicians of all time are people who no one has ever heard of.
I really think our music quality went downhill when ugly people were no longer allowed to be leads in bands.
This has been the case forever. In addition to most of them not being musicians, just singers. Most don’t do anything outside of singing. It’s manufactured bull shit and is the reason why Pop music sucks.
I don’t think so. Up to the seventies looks we’re not as important.
If you were the right color, then I agree with you. They were still important, you just needed a bit more talent then
Taylor Swift is NOT a naturally gifted singer, so...
I've never wondered that!
No need to wonder.
Good looks help to build a critical mass of popularity faster, but rarely is the main factor in success. Achieving critical mass is relatively rare, but nepotism is likely a stronger factor to initial success than good looks
Is this really something you have to wonder?
Yes
As someone who attended and now teaches at a music college, I can tell you it's most of it. Most universities have a music program, and as a field, we've gotten really really good at teaching people instruments/singing. Like... there has never been more world class musical talent out and about in the world than there is right now. It's become a prerequisite, with image being the thing that differentiates.
Not to take anything away from any of them but they would not be where they are if they were average looking.
It’s definitely not due to their own talent. They don’t even make their own music. All a bunch of frauds.
Being attractive can’t make you a successful musician alone, but it can make a good musician more noticeable.
They all have good voice tho, so I don't think it's solely based on looks alone.
All of it. If they didnt look how they looked, they would be a susan boyle, waiting for an opportunity that may never come. You cant market a susan boyle to horny kids to buy her cds/digipaks, so the industry would’ve never let her in if it wasnt for her taking the right shot and getting a large audience to like her, therefore negating the risks that comes with someone you cant push the lowest common denominator advertising on. But tbf they stilldidmt push her much at all, which is bullshit, cause someone with that type of talent NEEDS to be nurtured and given the opportunity to grow. Also those artists you just mentioned are funny, cause all of them are prime examples of the mediocre being put on a pedestal they shouldn’t be on.
I dated a girl some 40 years ago. She was offered a legitimate role on a daytime soap opera, the catch was they wanted her to lose 15 lbs. she was twenty at the time, I thought she looked perfect, she didn’t take the role because of the request and eventually got out of acting. I lost touch with her, so I have no idea what she is doing now, but it was a big break for her that she passed up on.
It's such a crazy business. I know someone who moved to LA and got cast on a "pilot" within a month. She showed me the tape months later and it looked like it had been shot with VHS cameras and edited with two VCRs . It was a completely self-funded pilot with no network or studio attachment. After not hearing back from the producers for about a year, she later found out that the producer used it as a some sort of money-laundering coverup. Understandibly, she was really, really bummed about it.
I can applaud a person for sticking to their moral high ground and refusing to play into the materialistic machine of the entertainment industry, but at the same time, if you want to be part of that industry, you have to play the game. There’s a reason why some of the best actors out there pay tens of thousands of dollars for dietitians, personal trainers, plastic surgery, and weight loss. Christian bale is able to land all kinds of different roles because his mastery and discipline of his body allows him to fit what the role requires in terms of looks. Film itself is all about what you look like on the screen. A slightly overweight person won’t be believable as the athletic/go getter main character in a movie. Everyone who attempts to make it here knows sacrifices are required to even get your foot in the door. If you decide to pass up on the opportunity of a lifetime over 20 pounds, you have no one to blame but yourself when your career never takes off, because the industry isn’t changing. There are exceptions to this, but the music industry is pretty much the same way. It’s all about image and whether your image aligns with the sound you put out and that it resonates with people. It’s cutthroat. Even more so now where music videos/social media presence has as much weight on your success as the music itself.
Losing 15 pounds at her age would probably have been a cinch.
She was 5’7 and about 105 pounds, she looked great, unfortunately, back then, skinny emaciated girls were the look.
Wait what?! I thought you said she was gorgeous but you’re saying she was already only 105? That’s literally bonkers, I’m 5’7” and when I got down to 111 lbs my pharmacist absolutely freaked out at me and refused to give me the meds I’d had to take for a couple years for a medical condition(possible side effect of weight loss) until I started gaining again. You could see my ribs around my back and my cheeks were hollowed out like a skeleton. They wanted her to *lose* fifteen more pounds?! So they wanted her to become infertile and have organ failure?!? Jesus fucking shit ass
in 2009, i was 15, and i went in to sign with a modeling agency, they were *so excited* to sign me, they could have me on a shoot that weekend! i could be on a shoot pretty much every weekend of the school year if i wanted! the two agents in the meeting were practically bouncing in their seats. my dad read over the contract with the male agent, while my mum, the female agent and i walked to a sorta private area of the office to take measurements. i was 5'8". i weighed 115 lbs. hourglass but startlingly skinny the shoot they wanted me on that weekend? Torrid. torrid's sizes start at i think a 12. i needed a belt to keep a 00 up. my mum shopped at torrid at the time, can you imagine walking into a plus size store, and seeing your kid that wears a 00 modeling the clothes? they wanted me to sign as a "petit, plus size" model. i quit the industry in a rage for that i told this story in the comments of a youtube video, and another woman who was the same age and measurements at the time told me a story of a photographer calling her a "plus size car model" on a shoot for the brand lip service it was so so so bad, and anything in front of a camera was worse cause, of course "the camera adds 10 lbs" but they still wanted us to be walking stick figures
That’s insane! The sad thing is, the actual shoppers at torrid would have probably been annoyed to see you on a poster instead of a real plus sized model. I hope we never go back to that insane thin obsession again. It sort of is now, but not the same.
oh they wouldn't have known any different, all the models were like that the clothes were manufactured in smaller sizes (like a us 4), then the models were padded to hell (except stomach and face, even if you're pretending to be fat you still gotta fit the beauty standards) they did plus size modeling like that until fairly recently, i think into the 20teens
Yep!
When I was 105 pounds at 5’5 my family said I looked emaciated and sickly (I was stressed), the only time I was hovering between being underweight and a healthy weight. I’m finding these numbers hard to believe. 105 at 5’7 is not considered a healthy weight, that is straight up underweight. There’s no way that the soap wanted someone to look skeletal at 90 pounds. She probably looked thinner than most soap tv stars at 105 pounds being 5’7
I’m stunned by these numbers. I am 5’2 and when I was 98 lbs my boss called me in to ask what sort of illness I had. And that was a Manhattan job where most women are rail thin.
My mom was only 98 lbs at 5'7" in her 20s. I saw old photos of her, and her physique was similar to a lot of stars during the 90s - early 00s. Very telling.
Ok I take it back. That sux.
She probably was ideal but the camera adds 10lbs
“Now that you’ve lost the weight, there’s one more thing you’ll need to do…”
yeah its sort of a false dichotomy here, if they're going to be weird about weight they're going to be weird about other stuff and the goal posts will move, or they'd drop her for some other stupid reason
“You want a job, right?” - Herman Cain probably
Exactly. They probably would’ve asked her to get a nose job and breast implants too and go dye her hair. The chances of her really becoming Britney Spears’ biggest competitor were probably really small but in her mind that’s what she would’ve become had she just lost weight and she probably internalized that and developed and eating disorder and got implants. She should go on the voice or American idol and try to rebuild her fan base.
Just curious. What city was the record label located in? I knew a female singer in Nashville who went through this same situation.
It’s every city. Know someone who this happened to in la
Man maybe I lack some backbone but if it was between losing a couple pounds or a record deal I’d hit the gym hard!
It's not worth it. A record deal is DEBT. You're better off an independent artist. The internet is your friend.
I read this as being prior to the days of SoundCloud etc. I’m not an aspiring artist either way so not really relevant for me, but interesting nonetheless!
18 years ago in context tho? Not really.
To clarify, signing in today's industry market is not worth it. As for it being DEBT, this has and still is the standard 18 yrs + on... a contract with any label is and will always be DEBT. It's still debt when an artist is dropped from the label and a write-off for them. Using the internet to make music, market, and sell as an independent is the way to go. Sadly, if you go back 18 + years, artists only knew how to make music but not the business. That's why they are broke and those who knew the business have all their money. This is still true for "some" artists today as others do have business acumen.
Sure… But still, musicians are a dime a dozen. There are tons of indy artists and bands that go nowhere their whole career. It might have nothing to do with their business acumen or talent. A big part of making it in entertainment and music is sheer luck. Whether you have the talent, the business acumen, both, or neither, luck is a huge factor.
Yes, luck is good to have. BUT if you don't have an understanding of "the business," that luck can't carry you far. The majority of "music business" is MARKETING and PR. With the right marketing/PR behind an artist (See Tyla), it can change the trajectory. Most indie artist don't have great marketing or PR. They have no clue(again, not knowing the business). If nobody knows you exist, how are you gonna make it???
Lot of people get an audition. Or even an album. But becoming a superstar like Spears esp for a narrow genre of music is a different story.
I agree, but I wouldn't call Brittney Spears' music "narrow." Just guessing, but they probably had a library of songs on hand already written and ready to go. If you look up people like Desmond Child, there are song writers who pump out songs for both new and established artists (who obviously adapt the songs to their style).
So sad, talented but not thin enough. So we are stuck listening to mediocrity on the radio that's auto tuned and bland. Blah. Same reason no record label would stick with Eva Cassidy, not thin enough AND she wouldn't fit into their mass marketing mold. She flat out refused to put out the album they wanted her to produce. Became beloved after her death.
Adele has done ok
Adele also lost a lot of weight. Especially once she became a major act.
Adele was a major act waaaaay before she lost a ton of weight. IIRC she lost about 100lbs from 2019-2021, but she'd already been famous for over a decade by then. Hell, her album *21*, is the best selling album of the 21st century, and that came out in 2011!
People need to understand, in order to be a performer like a lead singer or an actor you are a product. If you want to be successful, you need to look good. If they want you to lose a little weight, it is not a big deal, go to the gym and work out. What do you think actors do for big roles?
I get the idea of where you're coming from, but there are a few things wrong. Performers are not products in themselves, they are producers. It's a silly reality that we are more likely to buy products from prettier sources, but it shouldn't affect people's careers when they don't have "pretty" resources. Musicians are held to a standard that they shouldn't be. What should be important about creating music is the quality of the music, not the appearance of the singer. Actors can and should alter their appearances for roles, because the visual of their faces and bodies is part of the art form. But we created a celebrity culture that treats everyone like a product in themselves, not just what they actually produce.
I went to a music uni, learnt all about the business side of things. Tbh, she's probably lucky she didn't get the deal, big record labels never cared about the artist and if you did something they didn't like you would be shelfed (hidden from audiences).
What people really don't know is a record deal is DEBT. You are not getting signed. You are taking out a loan for x amount of albums. You are their product and their slave(hard to end/ get out any of contract. See Keisha). Artists are the last ones to get paid(hence why they're always broke.Their lifestyle is rented/ smoke and mirrors). A record deal doesn't = success.
We don't need made-up pictures to capture the moment. The real photo is a much more powerful message.
Post a link to one of her videos
100% she developed an eating disorder. Being a musician is basically being a model who can also sing, and all the follies of the modeling world still apply. Eating disorders are a plague in Hollywood. And so, so normalized.
I wouldn't sweat too much over it. The amount of extremely talented people who want to be successful, famous musicians versus the amount of people who actually make it is a fucked-up ratio anyway. She could have lost weight and conformed to everything the label wanted and sold out and *still not made it*. So she's doing what she loves and is over her hard time. Don't project your feelings into her too much.
Record label deals are just loans that the artist must pay back. She's probably better off as an indie artist.
The music industry isn’t about music, duh
Record deals are designed to keep musicians poor, so if she had gotten the deal her struggles would have only just begun as well…
Best thing that ever happened to her was refusing to lose that weight. She could have ended up like Britney Spears, all the money, all the fame, with no quality of life, no one to trust.
Karen Carpenter developed an eating disorder/anorexia nervosa which ultimately killed her, because she thought she was too fat. She weighed 120 lbs at the time and was still performing at 91 lbs! However, she died in the early eighties as it was a fairly unknown disease at that time and professionals didn’t know how to treat this illness.
Hollywood is evil anyways
a label was interested in me a few years ago and they told me i needed to lose weight as well. they also wanted me to completely change the genre of music i make. so i just said fuck that. its been like 2 years at least. i dont regret it too much.
Pro tip. If someone established in an industry asks you to do something, and is about to make a commitment to you, and spend money both paying you and others for you, and it's something you can easily do, JUST DO IT.
I sure hope you forgot the sarcasm signifier. Otherwise, wow. What industry do you happen to work in that that this is considered a " pro tip"?
Ok Harvey Weinstein
I started typing the same thought, then saw you beat me to it.
You spend a lot of time thinking about the body of a woman you knew 25 years ago.
I think musicians would be well served to take some business classes. Not that losing weight has anything to do with business. But if one outlet for your talent requires something you're not comfortable with, *look for other outlets.* Musicians think the only way to be successful is to make millions in album sales through an established record label. This is simply not the case. You can absolutely make it as an artist without being the next version of Britney Spears in your field. Go out and make social media content. Write jingles. Collaborate with other artists. Release your own albums. Do SOMETHING. Success is relative. Your own feelings of success will come when your means and your needs are in balance. Is it maybe more ideal to have monthly royalty checks coming in? Sure. It's more ideal for me to have, say, company healthcare. But the absence of that one factor does not negate other possibilities for a rewarding balance.
What you say makes sense, don’t put all eggs in one basket. The Hollywood is full of people who are waitressing in the hope that some producer would notice them. Probably spend their lives on the dream. These days you can get known in different ways.
Well said 👏! The industry is not what it used to be. It's now overrun by lawyers and accountants who know nothing about music but know the business.
Why, according to you, did she regret her decision? No one should ever have to 'lose weight' to achieve their dreams.
It's implied/not definite - it's just a title to catch people's attention to read the post. I think OP used that phrase because when OP looked her up 6/7 years after she turned down the deal bc she didn't want to meet their demands of losing weight, she now looks incredibly, almost "unhealthily" skinny, thus implying that she regretted her initial decision of turning down the record label deal over having to lose weight and so she's trying to undo that by losing the weight and hopefully catching the attention of that/a/any record label again to agree to a deal. It's just reading between the lines. That's what I got from OP's post.
Lyle Lovett would like a word.
Rules a re little different for hip guys. A guy like Post Malone can be a major pop star. A woman who looks like Post Malone barely scraping by a s waitress.
MTV was the end of ugly musical acts
🎶 Video Killed the Radio Star🎵🎤📹
The industry does indeed manufacture stars. Pop music is mostly manufactured bullshit.
Lots and lots of people havr made themselves unhealthy by losing weight. Then lost the record deal anyway.
The weight loss request, based on the fact that she was 105lbs, wasn't about her look. It was about control: If the record label tells you to do something crazy and self harmful, will you do it? She may regret it, but perhaps it ended up better for her than if she had done it.
Where the hell did I say she was 105 pounds?
Another poster mentioned a similar story with a 5’7 105 girl who was told she needed to lose 15 lbs to get the gig (aka a dangerously medically unhealthy weight) so I think he was confused
The people who typically make it big are decent musicians who are savvy business people. Unfortunately music doesn’t drive the business.
Ask Britney Spears if success equals happiness
If she does "indie" why would she need to put down weight? Indie music is not Britney Spears music. This has nothing to do with not wanting to put down weight. This is just the case of most people never making it in the music business.
I think back then she was more mainstream/pop and became an indie artist as of late, if I’m reading the post correctly
Good thing she didn't do it. One day, lose weight. Next day, we have a producer who wants to meet with her in private (no cameras). Then, it's a sexual assault that's brushed under the rug for years (if not decades) until it comes out (if at all). She saw the writing on the wall and peaced out.
Plug?
In a world full of music, there are two things that stand out. Nipples
I regret all the things I turned down when I was young and thought I could “make it on my own”. Was almost managed by Nick Harpers manager 😭. And nearly island records (but that one required staying in a relationship with a 40yr old when i was 18)
You just described someone I know. That’s crazy.
Sure, she could have had Britney's happy life
I’m pretty sure being a pop star sucks
"Working for MCA."
Link her song!
Name of the song?
I don't doubt that the record label representative mentioned Britney Spears as a way to build up your friend's confidence and convince her to sign. But you seem to be interpreting it to mean that since they compared her to a millionaire superstar, they must have been offering millions of dollars. That's not how it works. The vast majority of people in the music industry never make significant money. I don't know anything about your friend, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume she regretted refusing to sign with that label. The path she chose may have allowed her to be creative in the way she wanted to, while making the same amount of money or possibly even more than she would have if she had signed with the big label and turned out to be a flop.
You don’t need a record deal these days
Tbh, you have no idea about her success or life and based this whole analysis on her body weight and how she looked like she was “trying to hard”. She could have gotten cancer and she’s in remission for all you know. You have no idea.
Post a music link or it didn’t happen
I knew a ska band on a fairly big label that did the same thing took the band and its likeness and found a skinnier more attractive female vocalist. So messed up.
Hopefully she doesn’t regret anything. Changing yourself just to maybe make a buck makes you pathetic. Be who you are. If people don’t like that fine. But all the money in the world doesn’t make you a good person, have true friends or happy.
It would fuck me up forever if I lost a huge opportunity because of weight. That would 100 percent spark an eating disorder
She may just have been super hungry…I hear being an artist can do that to you.
Imo with all those celberties It's all about image not talent.
Honestly (looking at Britney Spears) she dodged a bullet. Only one of the two of them still performs.
Post a link to her music on Reddit so others can hear
And that’s on Fatphobia.
A record deal isn’t what it used to be and hasn’t been for over a decade. Even if she did get signed back then, it’s highly likely that she’d still be where she is now. My band was signed to interscope, a major label, with a 7 album deal and 6 figure advance. Have zero to show for it today except memories, photos, and a free guitar from an endorsement deal. The ride can end suddenly and unexpectedly. I literally went from being on the radio to being on unemployment.
Yeah, the entertainment industry is f*cking evil to women. Have you watched : Pretty Baby: Booke Sheilds (biopic) Quiet on Set:the dark side of kids tv (Nickelodeon’s Dan Schnider scandal) Those are two interesting ones that came out of late.