I recently was talking to someone who grew up in India about Michael Jackson. He said he (and most of his friends) were crazy about Michael...he had posters on his walls and followed everything he did. For him Michael Jackson represented America and what America could offer. I would argue that Michael Jackson (or MJ as he referred to him) might be the last global superstar. From India to Europe and the US Michael was an icon. To date no musician has captured the global stage the way Michael did. As evidence, Thriller sold over 100 million copies and the next highest selling album if only 45 million (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_worldwide).
Why did Michael Jackson succeed so successfully? Yes he is very talented, but he also was at the right place at the right time. He appeared on the music world when video and MTV were just getting started. He revolutionized music videos and provided a whole new way for people to engage with him. He did this in a period of time when the mass market of video was still, well a mass market.
Today, the new media is the Internet. However, no music icon has emerged to dominate the Internet the way Michael dominated video. Ok there are people like Paul Potts - who has 19 million views of their youtube video - but that is still tiny compared to Michael selling 100 million album sales. Is this because no one yet has taken advantage of the benefits of the Internet the way Michael took advantage of video? Or is this because the Internet is fundamentally not a focused mass medium? What I mean by this is that everyone can post creating the equivalent of millions and millions of channels. So while the Internet is a mass medium it isn't focused, resulting in interest and attention being fragmented.
Is there no music superstar in the Internet age because no one has the talent or because the Internet is a fragmented medium by its nature making a global superstar much harder to happen? Only time will tell - I tend to think that it is a combination of both of these.
Monday, July 6, 2009
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1 comments:
I really think that someone will figure this out. I was amazed when a guy in Ontario, CA, put up a video lip syncing a song by Moose Butter and got millions of hits in a few months. In that case, it took one group making the song and another to make the popular video. MJ really had a knack for business that not many others have and you need to remember that. When a real genius comes along who understands the market and marketing to social media, I think we will have our new generation MJ, I just wouldn't be surprised if the new international superstar comes from somewhere other than the US.
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