Music Industry Stunts and why they happen
Stunts are a big part of the music industry, you may not know it, but they are. The purpose of stunts is to push a certain narrative to the general public. Now this could mean many different things, PR relationship; coverups; or to peak the publics interest. Why? You may ask, why would the artist do this, why wouldn’t they just be truthful? Well, many don’t have a choice, the music industry is a place that I wish no one would have to be in, it is a cruel and awful place to be if you don’t know how to get around it, or if you don’t have the correct connections. In the past (and still now), many big brand music industries, such as Sony Music and Warner Music have controlled artists immensely.
George Michael
As a legend in the music industry, George Michael is a well-known name in the average household. From his time in the hit duo “Wham!”, Michael’s music was distributed through CBS, but in 1987 Sony took over and that’s when things went downhill. Michael reveled in the popularity of his hit album “Faith” in 1987, and so did Sony, because he was earning them money.
But that ended quickly with the news of his next album “Listen Without Prejudice” in 1990, Sony refused to promote the album and appear in the music videos for it. Michael in turn, disputed his contract with Sony, but he could not do close to anything, because Sony possessed the power of approval over everything that he put out. Meaning, George Michael could not release music without it going through the board of Sony, and if he did, he could get sued and fired.
(Sony is a whole other world of fucked up, they fucked MJ up so badly, Sony Kills)
During this whole time, George came clean, saying that the board of Sony, used many different homophobic slurs against him, and wouldn’t let him release any music that seemed to allude to the fact that he was gay.
George Michael brought Sony to court in 1993, claiming that between 1987-1992, he had made worldwide profits of £7.35 million ($9.8 million) compared to Sony making £52.45 million ($70 million). Ultimately, the case lasted till June 1994, and Michael had lost, the judge claiming that it was fair. Michael retaliated saying how Sony is “Professional Slavery”.
Suzanne Kessler, Entertainment attorney at Bone McAllester Norton and former in-house attorney at A&M Records and Universal Music Group stated, “There are two sides to this tale,” she said. “The music business is a relationship business, and he was uneasy with what was happening. A label often wants an artist to continue to trade on their established brand with the public. But after “Faith” Michael was trying for a new direction, to be taken more seriously as an artist instead of just as a pop star sex symbol.”
This brings me to my next point,
Closeting in the Industry
(Now I could go on for day about closeting in the music industry, but I will only give you the basis and then I will link another post that goes further in depth.)
Closeting is not a rare thing in the music industry, it in fact happens more than you might think. Many different artists have come forward, saying how their management said they should remain closeted to the general public, in order to maintain the brand that has been established. A popular example of this would be Sam Smith, they were offered multiple times by their management to have a beard. More closeting in the industry comes from Colton Haynes, who has been open about how his management closeted him because he “could not be gay and work in the industry”.
Colton link
Beard: A woman or man who fake dates a person of the LQBTQ+ Community, to hide their real sexual orientation or identity
The Types of Stunts and Stunt Songs
“Pap Pics”
Stunts are common, we all should know that. From the amount of staged paparazzi pictures and videos that get posted to twitter on the daily it is not surprising that stunts happen. One of the main reasons stunts happen is for publicity, I can tell you now, living in LA for as long as I did, the paparazzi aren’t at every corner just waiting for a celebrity to walk past. They are called to meet at a place where the celebrity is going to be, in order to get pictures. This call is made by the artists management normally, and many times it is done against the artists will.
“Relation-shit”
These types of stunts are the relationship stunts, normally it is two popular celebrities dating to gain publicity for a movie or song that they are doing. A popular reference to this would be Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato, Joe was approached by a head of Disney, who asked him to date, at the time, co-star Demi Lovato. This stunt was to push the new Disney movie that both were starring in, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. Now at the time Demi was unaware that Joe was approached to do this, so when Joe and hid dad approached her about it… wow that must have hurt.
Another example of a relation-shit would be Shawmilla. Now before you attack me for this, let’s look at all the facts. Everything that relationship has done has been staged, let’s look at the timeline.
August 2015
- the first time they publicly hung out (at the 2015 VMA’s), sparking rumors of them dating
September 2015
- pictured together at the iHeart Radio Festival, sparking rumors of Camila branching off of Fifth Harmony
November 2015
- “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was released and performed many different times, Camila was still in Fifth Harmony at the time
June 2016
- Shawn and Camila win an award for IKWYDLS and accepted together
- Camilla ultimately starts her solo career
December 2017
- Shawn is pictured with Hailey Baldwin (Bieber)
February 2018
- Camila is in a serious relationship with Matthew Hussey, confirmed by a trip to Mexico together
April 2018
- Shawn and Hailey go to the Met Gala together (Iconic)
December 2018
- Camila hints at music between her and Shawn on twitter (6 months before Senorita)
https://twitter.com/Camila_Cabello/status/1070381510740598785?s=20
May 2019
- Matthew and Camila last spotted together, returning from a vacation in Italy
- Met her family on May 14th
June 20th, 2019
- Senorita is released, now this had been in the works for over 6 MONTHS, so this was all very planned out
- On release day, the Senorita music video was also released, which is literally soft porn, I do not know how it is still on the internet, gross
- But, Camila? Aren’t you still dating Matthew? Why would you release this very VERY touchy music video with Shawn, if you are still dating Matthew?
June 21st, 2019
- Shawn and Camila in V Magazine, still very touchy
June 26th, 2019
- Breakup articles about Matthew and Camilla, Weird since he met her family only a month before.
July 3rd, 2019
- Staged photos of Shawn and Camila out and about
4th
- more staged pics
5th
- Camila at Shawn’s Concert
6th
- Shawn denies that him and Camila are dating
https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1147700409919778816?s=20
7th
- Shawmila in San Francisco all day
12th
- That god awful making out pics that shook the entire internet
- More pics in SF
Ok you get the point, they are pictured together only when one of them has music to promote, In this case its Senorita. Now for more recent proofs of this entire relationship being a sham. Shawn just released an album called “Wonder” and guess what we wonder Shawn? Why do you not post any pictures of Camila until you have an album to promote? And now you have a puppy? Pulling an Elounor are we?
Senorita is a total stunt song to “prove” to the public that they are together.
“Style”
Now this type of stunt gets its name from the queen of stunt songs herself, Ms. Taylor Swift. The notorious song Style, supposedly about “Ex” Harry Styles, is probably one of the most stunty stunt songs I have ever heard. Like come on! “James Dean Daydream look in your eyes” if you didn’t know, here is a short recap on the icon himself James Dean.
Taylor has time and time again written amazing songs, I would be lying if I did not call her one of the greatest lyricists on the 21st century, the woman can write extremely well. So why would she put a nod to James Dean, a famous actor, who was a closeted, RAGING bisexual in a song so clearly about Harry Styles? She knows what she is doing.
Talking more about the “Haylor” stunt, can we please end that? It was a 3-month PR stunt that happened 5 years ago, please just get over it, they never really dated. And to the hardcore Haylor fans, there is no chemistry between them.
Haylor; The Stunt
“I hate you because I’m getting paid to!”
Now I do not go into this one much, but basically it is when you see two artists publicly fighting and releasing diss tracks. A popular example of this would be, Machine Gun Kelley and Eminem, with their songs called “Rap Devil” and “Killshot”. Their “beef” was totally staged to boost views on both sides, its even more prominent because they have the same record label, INTERSCOPE.
Eminem v. MGK
I will be adding to this the more things happens, but it you have and questions feel free to ask them!
