Fans and management - are fans ever happy?
@flutterbymusic (46)
March 27, 2016 4:34pm CST
I've been involved in a few "fandoms" over the years and one of the things I've always noticed is that fans never seem to be happy with what is in front of them - its never enough. Blame is rarely set on the main players in the game - the lead actors, the band members etc, but rather those who are seen as the controllers. I closely followed the band McFly over the last 12 years, and even myself am guilty of continually complaining about things. Its quite hilarious looking back at when I was, say, 14 years old, writing angry posts on internet forums about how the band's management were making ridiculous mistakes - releasing the wrong songs as singles, designing silly music videos... yet they're still going this long later, so for every "mistake" there was clearly enough success.
It really interested me recently when I found myself looking into the One Direction fanbase. I think a lot of people suspect their main audience are a bunch of naive young girls who follow their every word - that the band can do no wrong. What I've actually found is that the ongoing joke is that nobody hates One Direction more than their own fans - except that's not strictly true - no blame falls on the remaining 4 members of the group. Its always Simon Cowell's fault, or other significant management members. Mistakes with single choices etc. are just the tip of the iceberg (you don't want to delve into the ever spiraling rabbit hole of conspiracy theories surrounding this group).
Just last year, a fan campaign to make "No Control" a single really set off. It started off as a few posts on tumblr, then by the time I woke up the next day, the song was playing on radio stations across the world - this is a fandom that, although very divided in some respects, knows exactly what it wants - and wants to manage the group themselves! I even heart booing when the management logo came up in the cinema a couple of years ago. Its quite a spectacular situation.
Yet, for a group that close fans believe is so poorly managed, they seem to have kept doing rather well, right?
This is definitely something that I have witnessed in other areas of fandom too. I was very interested in the TV series "Doctor Who" around 8 or 9 years ago, and there was always a lot of criticism thrown at the producer at the time, Russell T Davies, by the show's own fans. They stated that he had turned the show into a silly affair, ruining it episode by episode. Except the TV ratings were going up and up..
It leads me to question, are a TV show/ Band/ Singer/ Sporting team's own closest fans also their own worst enemies?
2 people like this
5 responses
@FourWalls (62571)
• United States
28 Mar 16
Holy loaded question, Batman!!! 
I have a number of takes on this. The devoted fans are a tiny minority when it comes to the larger listening population in general. I don't like the term "sell out" for someone who gets successful after years of struggling (a lot of R.E.M. fans said that when they broke through and achieved mainstream success). Some bands do radically change their sound for mainstream appeal, but not all of them (the only real difference in R.E.M. the "college rock" band and R.E.M. the "superstar" band was that Michael Stipe stopped mumbling the way he did on the first two albums. ). I bring that up for a reason: whether you're a musician or a mechanic, you work to make money. This nonsense of being a musician for the sake of the music is nonsense: there's not a musician out there who doesn't dream of his/her Grammy acceptance speech.
I said all of that to point out that appeasing the "loyal fan" and appeasing "the masses" are usually two complete different things. The music industry, as well as mainstream commercial radio, lives by the philosophy of "lowest common denominator": what is the least that can produce the most? The average person in the U.S., according to statistics from the record industry 2-3 years ago, spends less than $25 on music a year.. The loyal fanbase probably spends more than that a week on new imports, remix versions, etc. But, as bad as loyal fans don't want to hear this, bands don't get rich on them, then get rich on the masses who spend part of that $25 annual music purchasing budget on them.
I saw Warren Zevon 15 times over the course of his career. I distinctly remember a self-proclaimed "big fan" standing outside a club in Cincinnati, waiting for the doors to open for the show. When I asked Ms. Big Fan what her favorite song off the new album (which wasn't all that "new" by the time he'd made it to Cincinnati) was, she replied with a blank stare, "He has a new album out?" After just a little investigation, Ms. "Big Fan" only owned "big album" (in Zevon's case, 1978's Excitable Boy, which had his "big hit," "Werewolves of London"). Of course she'd never heard "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" or "Charlie's Medicine" or "Empty-Handed Heart," so her favorite song was "the big hit." Those are the people that the record companies live on.
As a result, when the record company (who is in the business to make money) and the management (who is in the business to make money) decide that what the loyal fans think is "the worst song on the album" (I always joke that "Werewolves of London" wasn't the best song on the 45! [And yes, that is grammatically incorrect, but hey, it's a joke! ]), it's not released for their benefit, it's released for the masses' benefit.
There's plenty more to say about this, but I have a three-hour drive to get home. Look for another massive comment later!
I have a number of takes on this. The devoted fans are a tiny minority when it comes to the larger listening population in general. I don't like the term "sell out" for someone who gets successful after years of struggling (a lot of R.E.M. fans said that when they broke through and achieved mainstream success). Some bands do radically change their sound for mainstream appeal, but not all of them (the only real difference in R.E.M. the "college rock" band and R.E.M. the "superstar" band was that Michael Stipe stopped mumbling the way he did on the first two albums. ). I bring that up for a reason: whether you're a musician or a mechanic, you work to make money. This nonsense of being a musician for the sake of the music is nonsense: there's not a musician out there who doesn't dream of his/her Grammy acceptance speech.
I said all of that to point out that appeasing the "loyal fan" and appeasing "the masses" are usually two complete different things. The music industry, as well as mainstream commercial radio, lives by the philosophy of "lowest common denominator": what is the least that can produce the most? The average person in the U.S., according to statistics from the record industry 2-3 years ago, spends less than $25 on music a year.. The loyal fanbase probably spends more than that a week on new imports, remix versions, etc. But, as bad as loyal fans don't want to hear this, bands don't get rich on them, then get rich on the masses who spend part of that $25 annual music purchasing budget on them.
I saw Warren Zevon 15 times over the course of his career. I distinctly remember a self-proclaimed "big fan" standing outside a club in Cincinnati, waiting for the doors to open for the show. When I asked Ms. Big Fan what her favorite song off the new album (which wasn't all that "new" by the time he'd made it to Cincinnati) was, she replied with a blank stare, "He has a new album out?" After just a little investigation, Ms. "Big Fan" only owned "big album" (in Zevon's case, 1978's Excitable Boy, which had his "big hit," "Werewolves of London"). Of course she'd never heard "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" or "Charlie's Medicine" or "Empty-Handed Heart," so her favorite song was "the big hit." Those are the people that the record companies live on.
As a result, when the record company (who is in the business to make money) and the management (who is in the business to make money) decide that what the loyal fans think is "the worst song on the album" (I always joke that "Werewolves of London" wasn't the best song on the 45! [And yes, that is grammatically incorrect, but hey, it's a joke! ]), it's not released for their benefit, it's released for the masses' benefit.
There's plenty more to say about this, but I have a three-hour drive to get home. Look for another massive comment later! 1 person likes this
@FourWalls (62571)
• United States
28 Mar 16
Now that I'm home, I'll continue.
The other side of the coin, to me, is that a real fan (as opposed to the teenybopper-types who answer "what's your favorite song" questions with "everything by [insert act here]") will listen more objectively. A musician knows that not everything he/she does is marvelous. I'm currently doing a series of discussions about my top ten favorite Elton John songs. He was my teenybopper idol, and 42 years later, I still love his music. I don't care for "Your Song," though, despite the fact that it's probably in most fans' (die-hards and casual alike) top ten lists. Does that make me a "bad fan" or "not really a fan"? No, it makes me an individual. I think that an artist would rather an honest assessment of their work than the gushy "it's the best thing ever" (which is the same thing the fans said about the last album).
One last thing that's an interesting notion in music, and something I'd truly like to know if there's been any psychological studies about: the notion of die-hard fans not wanting an act to get famous, I suppose out of fear of having to "share" them with a bigger audience. I think part of this is egocentrism, the notion of "that's my band, and nobody is a bigger fan or knew who they were before I did!" These types also tend to resent "newcomers" ("oh, you didn't hear about them until their third album? Hmmph!").
All of these things, I think, are unique to music because music is a unique art form. I think it was Dave Grohl who said, "You can sing a song to 10,000 people and they'll sing it back to you for 10,000 different reasons." That doesn't really happen with movies or books or TV shows. You referenced Doctor Who, and I know a lot of old fans who think there will never be a better Doctor than Tom Baker (and he was the Doctor when I watched the show in the late 70s). Some of that might be the aforementioned "I was a fan before you were" mentality. Other than that sort of argument (or who was a better Batman or James Bond), you don't tend to see similar arguments in music when it comes to TV shows or movies. I suppose that's because there's so many people behind the creation of a movie or a TV show, but one person can create and sing a song.
Thank you for a most excellent question!
@flutterbymusic (46)
•
28 Mar 16
Haha, I had been waiting for the rest of your response! Thank you for really thinking about this discussion. I really love the Dave Grohl quote.
I do think though, that although there is an element of "everyone loves this band for different reasons" across different fanbases, in the One Direction one I mentioned, there is a love of what I'd call "following the herd" and manipulation. I've noticed they had a lot of older online fans (including mothers with children the age of the group, and those claiming to be professionals such as lawyers) who have built up influence over younger fans. They've brought out some really interesting discussion (particularly about the business side of the group; where the money goes, when contracts are up etc.) and in that sense have really educated them, but it has gotten to the point where if one of these big and influential fans has an opinion, a lot of the fans agree with them and follow that same point of view until perhaps it is proven wrong, or becomes a large conspiracy. Therefore if they believe something is wrong, so do the herd so to speak. Like I mentioned, its a really odd situation to encounter.
The big issue the group has though, however, is the idea of entitlement. What I've witnessed is a fanbase ready for the present and future - its all about knowing EVERYTHING about their favourite people. What was once just an interested group of fans now includes multiple Twitter "update accounts" with very shady backgrounds, knowing exactly what flights the stars are getting on, which airports they're going to fly to, where they live, where they ate yesterday, what they ate, how much they spent... its frightening! But then you have the other side of the fanbase, who look at these accounts and have the mind to question how they are accessing this information. Then the conspiracies come up again - they're run by the bands own management, or they're being fed information from the inside... its all to do with the fans trying to protect the band, but it just gets more and more complicated. There will surely be books written about this new phenomenon in the future. This level of entitlement was surely not able to exist a decade ago, at least not to my knowledge having followed "McFly".
The Doctor Who point is very true - my brothers grew up watching Tom Baker too, and sometimes say the same. I'm guilty of it myself, as I haven't enjoyed Doctor Who since the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, took over. I actually haven't really enjoyed Doctor Who since Steven Moffatt started producing the show and made it over-complicated. I like the think I'm part of a larger group than just bitter old fans, however, as the ratings for the show have dropped considerably in recent years.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (62571)
• United States
28 Mar 16
@flutterbymusic -- the idea of knowing when someone in a group goes to the bathroom or whatever can be traced back to Elvis (such as the photos of him getting his haircut when he was inducted into the Army) and, to a much greater degree, the Beatles. The Internet era has made that explode to the nth degree. That concerns me because the "obsessed fans" can be the most dangerous ones (ask John Lennon, Selena, Rebecca Schaeffer, or Dimebag Darrell, all of whom were murdered by obsessed fans) plus the fact that we don't take mental illness seriously. But that's another kettle of fish altogether.
@luisadannointed (4171)
• Philippines
31 Mar 16
I think fans is dangerous and celebrity should go well with them. Because they can like them today and tomorrow not. I saw that in my cousins way bback in 90s.. They love NYsinc and then another band pop up and they said that NYsinc is not cool, etc etc!
I think fans are loyal at a longer period of time, but if they found a new one they can easily thrown those years except for a few who remains loyal and faithful.
@Wrestler1 (36)
•
27 Mar 16
you know I am fine as a fan with what comes from the people that I follow and media and such.
