The Orlando Phenomenon – Boy bands and bad girls made to order (I)

Since the days of Sam Goody and long before – since the days of Gilbert and Sullivan, of Johann Sebastian Bach, of traveling minstrels, of the Greek theater – music has been a commodity as well as an art. For the professional musician, singer, or composer – or the wannabe – the trick has always been to find the balance of art and commerce that you can live with. It turns into a sort of yin-yang exercise.

There have always been musicians, too, who took no part in this balancing act, who either accepted their roles as products or were simply treated as such. However, as music became more and more commodified during the era of corporate co-option, the performer as product has become an increasingly common phenomenon. And in the future the pop-as-commodity will consume more and more musicians.

For example, in 2005, the London-based ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi set out to find a way of reaching people in their teen years and early 20s. It did this by creating its own all-woman hip-hop group, making them employees of the agency, and offering their services to advertisers as sort of human billboard. The client got to brand the group and have its products seen or used or worn on stage and in videos, and – for a few dollars more – mentioned in the song lyrics. TV marketing guru Cynthia Turner wrote:

The band made its first appearance last evening at Saatchi & Saatchi offices, and unless you knew any better, you’d never know it was a marketing device. The agency calls this Branded Entertainment, and finds masking advertising within entertainment is a better way to reach this tough young demo. Also coming… commissioned entertainment for other media including TV, film, cell phones, and video games.

The Saatchi and Saatchi idea builds on an even older record business warhorse, the made-to-order pop star. It dates back at least to the days of American Bandstand, when producers would take kids off the street and out of schools and turn them into stars. Bob Marcucci was the acknowledged expert during the 1950s and 1960s, the inspiration for the 1980 film The Idol-maker. His first project along these lines had taken trumpet prodigy Francis Avallone. He figured that if he’d done it once, he could do it again, and he did.

Marcucci recounted the experience:

I decided I needed a star like Presley. Frankie wasn’t that star. He didn’t have that kind of look. He wasn’t in that genre. Ricky Nelson was very hot. I did a search throughout the country. Big search. I had disc jockeys do promotions. I asked for people to send me pictures. But I couldn’t find him… One day, I’m driving home, and I go past the street where my best friend lives and there is a big… police ambulance in front of my friend’s house. Turns out the ambulance was for the house next door, and out walks Fabian. He had the look. I went up to my friend and asked him if he knew whether that guy could sing. My friend said he had no idea.

It turned out the ambulance was for the guy’s father. The guy, Fabiano Forte, picked up the story: “The strategy was for me to be a male teen performer… They said, ‘You’re going to have a pompadour, and… you’re going to dress in a certain shirt and pants.’ …Bob would say, ‘Move this way, move that way,’ until it became second nature.” Fabian had never even thought about being a performer until Marcucci approached him. He was molded in Marcucci’s musical image.

Thus the prefabricated pop star became something of an institution. Reviled by people who still think popular music should have some integrity and credibility (predominantly musicians, critics, and serious fans), the manufactured performer remains a fixture on the pop music landscape.