The Atlantic Lizzo Story

"HOW LIZZO BECAME ONE OF POP CULTURE’S GREAT FLOPS - The singer is experiencing a new form of downward mobility—and she’s not alone." https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/07/music-flop-era/687785/?gift=z4iyOc-jH6hIY60qnBHAeC7Mr-2Q4_OvRZnQnftUxM8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://apple.news/Azih2aV8mT8adYQrTNHW5KA How many hard core fans does Lizzo have anyway? But what really interests me is the virality of this story. Despite being owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, "The Atlantic" has been fighting for attention for years, seemingly in an echo chamber, its reach and impact seem to be limited to the cognoscenti. Furthermore, there's a limit to free views of its articles online. Yet they write about music, and the internets are a-buzzin'. Then again, people love negative music news. The last few days we've been inundated with that Kalshi story: "Spotify Confirms Streaming Fraud After Kalshi Trader Cries Foul - One of Kalshi’s most prominent traders tells WIRED he’s swearing off Spotify-related markets until the issue is resolved." https://www.wired.com/story/spotify-streaming-manipulation-prediction-markets-polymarket-kalshi/ https://apple.news/Aw23U-mYtRsW7j6Q7tJpjAQ But the bottom line is the problem surfaced and Spotify took action. That's what keeps happening, the problems are addressed. Bad actors take action, get greedy and then the truth outs and the malfeasance is eradicated. Then again, no one likes a level playing field. Which is alluded to in this "Atlantic" article, how Taylor Swift sold multiple physical iterations of her last album to goose chart numbers. Now if you ask me, I'd say that the Lizzo backlash based on the lawsuit caused the drastic diminishment of the success of her new music. People love to pile up on a woman. Especially one who is up front and is unafraid of evidencing a strong personality. The accusations hit hard in an era where body-shaming and sexual harassment are up front issues, and of course the fact that Lizzo herself is a large woman... The truth is irrelevant in this case. This wouldn't be the case if Lizzo had more hard core fans. But the problem today is record companies conflate song success with career success. Then again, this has been the nature of pop music forever. It's only when the Beatles ushered in album rock and Jimi Hendrix and the rest of the album artists broke through on FM that the paradigm was different. People were truly fans of the band. Of course the music was important, but they were invested in the entire oeuvre of the act. Hits were just the cherry on top. Just ask Led Zeppelin. But then MTV came in as video Top 40 and the slow build album game was too slow for major record companies, never mind how few videos MTV actually played. And if they played them, the acts were internationally famous instantly. We learned that the faster you're rocketed into space the sooner you fall, but at this late date most people have forgotten the classic rock world which built this industry into a modern monolith and have focused once again on hit singles. But at least if you had a hit in the past people gave your follow-up a chance. Radio would play anything new by someone with previous success, at least long enough for stations to determine whether these new songs were embraced by listeners. But radio no longer has that power. And for all the ink about the Spotify Top 50, people are not fans of all the acts on that list, just a few here and there. There are not fans of the Spotify Top 50 like there were of the Top 40 stations of the sixties, never mind MTV. But labels are doubling-down. They're signing fewer artists in fewer genres hoping for moonshots. But the game has changed, no one has universal purchase. Everybody is niche. So the new release has an inherently smaller potential audience and you need more singles and doubles, because homers and grand slams are truly rare. Now with the disintermediation of the album on streaming services it has become harder to make listeners fans of more than the hit, because that's all they have to listen to, they don't have to endure an album side. But really, how much of the rest of the album is worth listening to? True fans always want to hear more, and if they like it they'll listen. But today, people are fans of music in general more than any specific act. This article laments the decline of hip-hop and its replacement by Bruno Mars and Olivia Dean. Well, Mars is an established star, but more interestingly, Dean appeals to a broader swath of the public than most of the Spotify Top 50. I could say the music business is up its own ass. Making more of the same while most people shrug and don't care. As for going to see music live... The game has changed there too. In the classic rock era you went to hear more than the hit, and you went every year to hear the new album. And production was limited. Now shows are akin to MTV videos, a lot can be on hard drive. It's like going to the theatre more than going to a concert. So you overpay for this experiencer infrequently. The desire to go to a bar to see an up and coming act... Now there is a club business of acts based more on the entirety of their output than any specific track, but it's even harder to spread the word on them, maybe over years they can grow, but maybe they can't, and the question is whether they deserve mass attention to begin with. Now in truth Lizzo and the rest of the Spotify Top 50 are competing with online influencers. And doing a bad job of it. Online influencers know that the identity is as important as the clip, if not more. People are showing up for the person who is purveying. Look at Rick Beato, he's a good example. But forget music, all the TikTokkers... They have identities, they have a relationship with the public and they're putting out a plethora of material. Sure, from time immemorial people have been fixated on stars, it completes their identity. But don't confuse this with Beatlemania, where the music came first. Just because a fan base is vocal, don't think that it's broad. So, to solve this problem, labels need to sign a broader palate of music and focus on the identity of the act. In other words, build career artists. But the three majors are public companies, they're not indies, they need profits now. And the indies, sans catalogs, have a hard time competing. Even the Rolling Stones are trying to goose attention, piggybacking on the mania of the World Cup: "Rolling Stones - Streaming World Cup": https://world-cup.rollingstones.com What I found most interesting here is I hadn't heard about this, I stumbled upon it. I mean if you don't even hear about the marketing stunt...forget about its potential impact. That's how desperate people are to get their new music noticed. But most people are just waiting for the hits to surface. That hard core attention to new releases... There are too many and too many are unpalatable. People are waiting for word of mouth, or the wisdom of the crowd, to reach them. In the late sixties to early seventies, the true classic rock era, hits were just icing on the cake. If a track crossed over to AM it goosed everything, but you didn't need that, you didn't have labels clamoring for a hit single. Then again, once AOR became so popular and so profitable in the mid-seventies, labels tried to game the system with corporate rock, and they did the same with hair band ballads on MTV at the end of the eighties. Extreme has faded, never mind the rest of the fake balladeers. However, Guns N' Roses still play stadiums. Because in addition to the music, Axl Rose is positively insane, unpredictable and not beholden to anybody. The public senses this. There's a danger involved. They want to live closer to the flame. It's not pure entertainment, it's more than that, it's a zap to the soul, feeling alive. You can exercise to a Lizzo hit, but does it touch your soul, make your life worth living? That's what you need on a broad basis for the business to be healthy. We've figured out how to monetize the entire world with streaming, but the music itself is in the doldrums. Although you can't say this, because then it would cause people like Lizzo to freak out and blame anybody but herself. Not that this is about Lizzo anyway. Like the article says, there are always acts that have hits and fade away. But in truth, did they ever have careers? More than a couple of peaks, did they have a catalog of music that fans devoured from beginning to end? No. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25