How to survive a flop

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Is it just me, or does it feel like a lot of music artists are in their flop era? Think about it. Nothing was the same since Kendrick knocked out Drake. Embarrassing! Katy Perry, not really giving firework right now. They ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it because they would never understand. And there was once a point in time where I couldn't step foot. In a workout class without hearing Lizzo. What's up, Peloton? It's Lizzo. Get on your bikes, because I'm definitely on mine. But her latest album made no noise. I hurt my own feelings, and I was really stressed and I was really sad because I just was like, wait a minute, this is like some of my best stuff. I'm Jonquan Hill, and this week on Explain It To Me from Vox, what can we all learn from those failures? Why is it so hard to strike gold twice? Essentially, what the flop is going on? I think it's mostly about ambition not meeting reality. That's Spencer Kornhaber. He writes about music and pop culture at The Atlantic. It's when someone sets out to do something with sort of grand goals, whether that's have hits like a pop star is supposed to have, or even connect with the same fan base that listened to your last album as an indie artist. It creates the conditions where the public might notice, that you didn't meet those goals, especially if you're kind of open about them. And when there's a disconnect, that's when the F word starts coming around. Is this new? Have we always talked about stardom this way? Or is this, I don't know, Stan brain taking over for all of us? Stan brain is taking over for all of us. The idea of a flop is one of the oldest storylines or tropes in entertainment history and Hollywood. You know, it could refer to silent movie stars when Hollywood, made the turn to talkies and suddenly this whole generation of icons looked washed up. There's nothing you could have done differently. There's nothing you can do. Your time has run out. Used to be in silent pictures. Used to be big. I am big. It's the pictures that got small. It could refer to the Bee Gees. After the public turned on disco and all of a sudden their music isn't selling like it used to. Or it could refer to someone like Lizzo who suddenly puts out an album and realizes it isn't the, you know, Oh So Woke 2010s anymore. True Perks needed something more exciting. Bum bum be dum be dum bum be. Why are we all flopping around right now? I think that something is going on where the machinery of popularity has changed under our feet and we don't really know why or what it means. You know, it was about 10 years ago that TikTok came on the scene and really upended the entire internet attention economy. Like immediately, as soon as you open up the app, it's like, gotcha, here's another one. Here's another one. Here's another one. Next thing you know, an hour's gone by and you've wasted it. No wonder the hugely popular social media app has more than a billion users. And created a world where short form videos, memes, you know, quirky jokes, lots of personality, facial tics, catchphrases. These were sort of the coin of the realm and drove what popularity was for a long time. And I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but to me, it feels like a lot of that landscape is starting to become stale, crusty, old, janky. People don't really know how to work its levers in the way they once did. And so a lot of artists and entertainers and public figures who once seemed like bankable commodities are starting to seem less reliable. You know, it used to be that if someone caused their fans to go out and buy their new single at the store, those sales would be totaled and we would have a very clear sense of how popular that single was in relation to other things that were on sale that week. Now it's more about how often something is listened to on Spotify or for how long someone listens to it. And it's all these different kind of metrics that aren't even always measuring what you might think of as traditional popularity. Someone can have very high streaming numbers because they put out a lot of short songs that their fans all listen to over and over again. Even if another artist has a larger fan base, that would kind of traditionally mean that they're more broadly popular. So it's created this sort of confusion about what popularity even means. Why does it seem like one bad movie or one bad album can end a career now? Was there once more room for artists to fail? I don't want to be too romantic about how things used to be. We all know that the tabloids and media critics of previous decades, whether that's the 2000s, the 90s, the 30s, were quite vicious, quite gleeful about the failures of famous people. We all know how much downfalls can be glorified. We all know how much schadenfreude over and over runs our culture. I don't think any of that is new. I think that there's just this kind of feeling like their failure is our failure. There's been a collapsing between the sort of normal civilian individual and the celebrity. That's partly because we all live our lives online and on social media. We have to curate our image and think about how we're coming across to strangers who we'll never meet in a way that people not too long ago would have found totally weird. And so that's put us in this sort of celebrity mindset where we all have arcs and narratives and brands. You know, we see how many people commented on our latest Instagram post, how many likes we got. So I think there's a kind of almost an odd empathy for celebrities when they flop now. Is it possible for a flop to be good for an artist? I think 100% a flop era can set up a really fun redemption arc for an artist, and we've seen a lot of them lately. You know, Madonna just put out this album, Confessions 2, that fans are saying is her best album in decades. And it's sort of, you can tell listening to it, that it comes from a desire to sort of reclaim something that a lot of people felt like she lost, which was this sense of owning the dance floor. And so that was kind of like a flop to heroism story that has made for some really fun music. I'd also point to someone like the artist Slater. I kind of hate your fraud It doesn't matter She's like this pop singer who all my friends are obsessed with right now. She put out this really crazy, noisy album that is just finally starting to break through and rack up some chart numbers for her after years of trying. And she said that she recorded it when she was kind of at the end of her rope and about to quit the music industry because she put out a couple albums that were flops. And, you know, it kind of creatively freed her up to kind of do what pleased her. I think that hope springs eternal in a way that like maybe didn't exist before. And so for an artist like Lizzo, I would bet money that she's taking notes. She's thinking very hard and she's plotting her comeback and I wouldn't necessarily bet against her. Okay, so it is possible to claw your way back from a flop. But how do you avoid one in the first place? That's next. Support for the show comes from Talkiatry. If you've been looking into mental health support, therapy can definitely help. But sometimes it's not the whole answer. Psychiatric care is a whole other side of the mental health equation, but the process of getting that care isn't always clear or easy. That's why Talkiatry is here to help. Talkiatry is here to help. Talkiatry exists. Talkiatry is a 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, and more. 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My name is Tom Bryan, and I am the executive editor at Stereogum, the music website. Tom, you have spent years studying the songs that reach number one on the Billboard charts. Yes, ma'am. So, what makes a song not succeed? So, the whole idea of a flop is relative, right? Like, there's a million songs on Spotify that nobody will ever hear. Those songs are not necessarily flops because they did not necessarily come with expectations. When a major artist, someone who is expected to succeed, comes out and does not reach whatever benchmark that they or their fans or their label expect for them, then it can be embarrassing. And the internet, being what it is, people love to seize upon that embarrassment and, you know, take off running with it. Are the songs that flop bad? Is that why they're flopping? In some cases, yeah. You can definitely pick out a few and be like, oh, like, that wasn't the one. A lot of it is just timing and luck. And sometimes an artist comes along at the exact right moment and builds up goodwill and puts out the right song for them in that time. And then sometimes they misread the room in sort of howlingly, clangingly obvious ways, and they end up not doing well. You know, it happens. It's happened to plenty of great people. Plenty of stars have bounced back from having flops, but it, you know, it does happen. Yeah. What are some really good songs that have flopped? Oh, well, geez. I guess as an online indie music critic, my sort of prototypical example is Emotion by Carly Rae Jepsen. Not the song, the whole album. She had had this gigantic global breakout smash with the song "Call Me Maybe." And then the album that she put out after this is this, like, brilliant layered, excellent pop record that became, I would say, influential upon the idea that you could be a pop star who was a cult artist, like an indie rock band or an underground rapper or something. But it didn't sell. It didn't do numbers. And so, in its moment, it was a critically beloved flop. This is crazy! How much of "Becoming a Hit" is about the music itself? And how much of it, if you can even measure that, is about stuff like virality, marketing? Well, those things, they're so bound up with each other. And so, you know, especially a lot of the time, artists are making songs that are somehow engineered to go viral, or they're making songs that comment on their own public perception and, in effect, market themselves. And so, when something like Lizzo comes along and puts out a record that doesn't do well, it becomes a bigger story than just, "Oh, people weren't feeling this song." It becomes like, "Oh, people don't like this person," or, "This person has run out of their goodwill," or whatever. And because, like, a Lizzo song, you hear her persona jumping through the speaker, whether the song does well or not. So, the song and the artist become inextricable from each other. The song and the marketing become inextricable. There is another example of an artist who has gone from really high highs to very low flops that I would love to get into. And that's Katie. Katie Perry. I feel like we've come a long way from Left Shark at the Super Bowl. Like, what happened there? Katie Perry has had the career that pop stars used to have, where they have a crazy, dominant stretch, where they're knocking out hit after hit after hit, and they're unstoppable. According to Billboard, Perry is the first woman and second artist ever in the 53-year history of the Hot 100 to have five songs from one album hit number one on the chart. Katie Perry sure has something to roar about. The new song is officially her eighth number one single. And then everything kind of tails off over time. And one album has five number one hits. Next album has two number one hits. Next has no significant hits at all, but like a couple top tens. And it goes like that. You know, she put out an album right in the beginning of the pandemic. And so, you can say, well, that one didn't do well, and that's not her fault. And then she spent a long time on American Idol as a judge. She spent a long time playing Las Vegas, Residencies. And then she was like, that's it. I'm quitting American Idol. I'm coming back. I'm being the pop star that you all want me to be. And she did a couple of things. She made a bad album, is one thing. She also reunited with Dr. Luke, who was the co-writer and producer of lots of her big hits, but who in the time since she stopped working with him, you know, all this unsavory stuff about him, accusations were made. Kesha, who was friends with Katie Perry when she came up, was the person making those accusations. And so, for her to get back with him while bringing this message of like, it's a woman's world, something like that was the lead single. "It's a woman's world and you're looking to be living in it." Oh, yeah. "Sexy confident." Yeah, I remember. Yeah. So, that's how a song goes from being a bad song to just a notorious flop. When not only does the song not perform, it doesn't get radio airplay and streams and all that stuff. It actually, like, burns up a lot of the goodwill that this person has had and it happens. Wow. Do you ever feel like a plastic bag floating in the wind? Yeah, we all do. That's the power of it. Are there examples of songs that critics maybe hated initially and then over time it's like, "Oh, this is actually a classic." So many. The songs that were hits and were universally regarded as irritating, in their time, they have a great hit rate. You know, people were annoyed by "Mbop" by Hanson. Or "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. Oh, it's so good, though. Yeah, those songs are fantastic. Like, "Abba." Like, they were, I would say, widely regarded as a punchline and now that is just an impeccable, beautiful, influential pop catalog. Like, a song like the Quad City DJ's "Come On and Ride It," "The Train." Like, that's not a song that critics were really lining up to praise in the 1990s. But as a person who was a child then, I can tell you that song goes so hard and, like, never stopped going hard. Oh, my God. You talk about middle school dance. Like, even when I was growing up, listen, we're all gonna form a choo-choo. Get your hands on my shoulders. We are making a train around this gym. Absolutely. How do artists tend to respond if they've entered a flop era? Well, there's a grand, beautiful history of artists, one-hit wonders, or people who never quite connected for whatever reason, who instead of trying the same thing over and over again, they become behind-the-scenes figures. They write songs for other people, or they produce, or they become managers. Max Martin, who is now ahead of John Lennon but behind Paul McCartney in terms of, like, songwriters with number one hits, like, the sheer number of them. to feel my face when I'm with you. It's gonna be me. Like he was the lead singer for a Swedish band in the 80s that was trying to be Bon Jovi and they never caught on. I didn't know that. Oh yeah. His band was called It's Alive. You can look their songs up online. They're not that great but he wound up making all these incredible records with all these different people. There's a lot of that. That has happened many many times throughout pop history that it is certainly one way to deal with the flop problem. Coming up we talk with an artist who found a new way to make a hit record. Support for the show comes from Eleven Labs. Life is pain says Eleven Labs or that's what you might think when you're in a lengthy customer service call with no end in sight. Well Eleven Labs says they have a solution. It's called Eleven Agents. 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They've got some really cool classes from amazing chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller and they have some really really great chefs teaching knife skills and fundamental cooking methods. Things that are basics but are good to brush up on. Masterclass keeps adding new classes so there's never been a better time to get in. Right now as a listener of this show you get a chance to learn more about Masterclass. I'm Claire White and I'll see you next time. At least 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash explain it. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash explain it. Head to masterclass.com slash explain it to see the latest offer. It's explain it to me. I'm JQ. My name is Dan Wilson. I'm a singer, and songwriter, and record producer. When people hear your name there's probably one song in particular they think of. What is it? I guess it's probably Closing Time by my band Semisonic. Take me back to when the song came out. How did it come about and what was the response like? My wife and I were expecting our first child and I was at the same time kind of writing songs for a new album. I was writing songs for a new album. I was writing songs for a new semi-sonic album and that was one of about 60 songs that I wrote to show the guys, John and Jake. And I had gotten the impression from the guys in the band that no this was not going to be the Dan becomes a dad album. So I kind of covertly wrote Closing Time. About four lines into writing it I was like oh this kind of sounds like it's about bar time but also being born. When we finally recorded it I was like oh this kind of sounds like it's about it was so kind of blazingly exciting to listen to that it had sort of, for us, kind of risen to the top of the pile. Pretty soon a whole bunch of crazy stuff happened. It got added to K-Rock in LA and that started this kind of domino effect of all the radio stations in the country playing it. Yeah, and then it sort of took on this crazy life that strangely has not faded. It's still happening. Is that the song that you want to be known for? How does it feel that that kind of is the signature song? I mean, awesome. I think it's a great song. You know, when I listen to "Closing Time," I just hear me and all my intentions and flaws and, you know, strengths, whatever. But I actually, like, some things that I've written with other people, I've felt more, like, I feel like when I listen to "Someone Like You" that I did with Adele, I feel like there's a song that feels like a kind of a songwriting trademark or, like, calling card or whatever. And I think there's something there. There's something more gratifying to write something that someone else covers and then you can hear it and have an experience that's not connected to your own, like, ego and self-image and so on. How did that transition come about? Because I think for some people, having the big hit song, being the one singing it, having your face out there, that is the ultimate success. And you're very successful, but it maybe looks different from what people would imagine that looks like. Let's say if everything had gone according to plan in life, I probably would have kept being on tour and kept making semisonic records. I think that's a good thing. Yeah. beautiful or alarming or scary or fun things with your brilliant friends. And yet I kind of feel like if you can somehow learn, like if you can remind yourself almost that like the things that look like success don't feel like success when they're happening. The thing that feels like success in music is being in a session with other musicians or even alone and making something and going, well, that stands on its own. There's nothing more for me to do. Wow. And I love it. That's way more gratifying than taking the same song and playing it on a huge stage. When someone like you was climbing up the charts, I was just worried the whole time. Like I just worried that it would stop climbing and it was going to go back down. I literally spent more time on it than I did on the music. And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm hoping it wouldn't start going down the chart again. Then I did saying, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for this thing that's happening. That's it for us this week. We're working on an episode all about the art of throwing the perfect party. We want to know. What's the best party you've ever gone to or hosted? What made it unforgettable? Send us an email to askvox at vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545. And if you find yourself at one this weekend, you can even call us from there. If you enjoyed this show, consider becoming a Vox member. Members get cool stuff like listening to this podcast ad free. Head over to vox.com to learn more. And now it's credits time. Credits time, time to say goodbye and also tell you who made the show. Produced by Hadi Mawak, defect checked by Melissa Hirsch, didn't you know? Thanks so much for subscribing and listening. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins, your app gives you a unique pin. Just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start. Hey, what's your pin? 2538. That way, you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger. Make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at $50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. 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