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Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviousl
by LanceH 3y ago
Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviously a standard other than musical quality in play.
Today, it's mostly true that everything is available. The music that reaches the masses, though, is defined by production over musical quality.
Would we even see or hear from Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, or Patsy Cline today? Producers would choose someone other than Patsy Cline for Crazy and twist Willie Nelson's arm to make him a ghostwriter on the song so the hot, autotuned, woman could claim she wrote it herself.
There is more to it than just getting older.
- sspiff 3y agoThis is nothing new though, this has been true since the rise of TV and things like top of the pops. Because guess what? People prefer pretty people. Once artists became visible, this was inevitable. The pretty people were going to become popular regardless of whether the music industry got involved or not.
- agumonkey 3y agoA french singer contest saw a normal/chubby girl winning by a wide margin. The tour after te tv show bombed horribly. There's a reflex in crowds to seek for some traits and physical "beauty" seems one of them. The rest seems the exception (and those singers have either very special skills or a super solid persona)
- blowski 3y agoLewis Capaldi, Adele, Meghan Trainor, Jay Z, Drake. I don’t believe any of them made it because of their looks. On the other hand, the Beatles, The Stones, The Monkees, Stevie Nicks, Olivia Newton John - their looks were very much part of their appeal. Same as it ever was. Face it - you’re old.
- rz2k 3y agoI don't agree at all. I've found the YouTube algorithms as good for discovering new singer-songwriters as when I used to see live music a few times a week in New York decades ago. Many, or even most, of the women that come up in my feed are no more conventionally beautiful than the people you cite. How mainstream was someone like Janis Joplin? She was on the radio, but she was also somewhat counter culture. The women (who don't deserve to be written about as evidence of success without beauty) have hundreds of thousands of subscribers just on youtube, many millions of listens, and I hear their music in stores, commercials and coffee shops. In addition to there being many more avenues for reaching a large audience outside of record labels, there are also quite a few mainstream performers who aren't conventionally attractive who became famous through pseudo-grassroot paths like television contests.
- DropInIn 3y agoTake a look at which artists get traction on YouTube.... It's extremely biased by beauty, as the algorithm rewards engagement and if nothing else all the creeps wanking while watching on repeat drive the ladies up the figurative charts.... Really.... how have you not noticed?
- rz2k 3y agoI'm sure that has something to do with the music industry. People who work in things like professional modelling or professional sports makes many times more than they made decades ago. Even well-known musicians who made their mark decades ago remain not that rich.
- libraryatnight 3y agoThey'd have a youtube channel and 8 million followers, whether or not you'd hear about them is debatable. Mac Demarco is not a handsome man. Lady Gaga isn't winning any pageants, Adele was mocked for her weight,and then her weight loss, Lizzo's whole thing is self love because she gets harassed for her weight. There will always be beautiful people produced and controlled for sale, and there will always be the talented, the weird, the outrageous that rise to public conscious - and some from all camps that do not.
- DropInIn 3y ago"Lady Gaga isn't winning any pageants" How does she look in her breakout hit? (Poker face) Yea... that's right, she definitely looks "good".
- amalcon 3y agoMilli Vanilli was 30 years ago now. That act literally replaced the singers with better looking people for marketing reasons. A baby born the day The Monkees formed would be retiring now. That wildly popular band was literally created for a TV show. This problem has been going on for a long time.
- bazoom42 3y agoNothing new though - Elvis never wrote a song either, but he had the look. Performative art is biased towards beauty and charismatic artists. Also true in opera since forever.