Paris = Jarvis

I quite enjoy it when the record-buyers and the pop media (or broadsheet media trying to cover pop) are so fundamentally out of joint with one another? like how often Rachel Stevens would appear on totp/saturday morning kids' tv when those were dwindling: it was the only place she could really do promo, but her record sales didn't quite justify the presence she had. I think it's a manifestation of the same thing - this is how broadsheet media can connect to popular music, by dealing with people as Intellectual Survivor of Pop Life (jarvis) or Walking Symptom of Modern Culture (paris) -- but then it just isn't reflected by the pop markets, which don't follow those rules.

also, srsly, Just cos mans want to otm each other about how pulp are not the smiths (well done! no-one disagrees with you! have a cookie!) doesn't mean the original point doesn't stand.

xposts, obv

i also haven't noticed nearly as much press for jarvis' album as for paris'. neither in the context of this year have been that prominent anyway; joanna newsom and even My Chemical Romance have outstripped both in terms of publicity.

kind of why i listed them (as paul was talking about underperforming albums) - though cf american life for madge. also throw eminem in there too. i didn't think back to basics had underperformed though.

of course jarvis is a caricature. as much as he fights against it he'll always be to 95% of britain that funny bloke with glasses who wiggled his bum at michael jackson!

Jarvis on his own merits as a fantastic songwriter, Paris as a sort of reflexive 'Why do people pay any attention to this talentless waste of space? WHY??? Oh, whoops, we're paying her attention. Why are we paying attention to this...' vicious circle of doom. I can't make the leap!

oh, maybe he is a caricature to some (really, not as much as you say though!), but to us lot, who (hopefully) know our music, he'd be regarded as something rather more than that.

Back To Basics hasn't sold that well in the UK; there were already £4 copies going in MVE the week it went in at number one.

Thing about Rachel S is that her TV promos/interviews actually worked against the album because she came across as so blase and uninterested that the public shrugged their shoulders and wondered why they should bother. Which is a shame because Come And Get It >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any other album mentioned here thus far.

but doesn't this happen all the time? and is actually quite natural when you consider that a great deal of press coverage is pre-release; i don't think it was implausibly silly to think that paris and jarvis might sell quite a bit (same with rachel), and it wouldn't invalidate the coverage if it turned out that they didn't. it's like when people say "omg critics must feel so silly after jizzing over rachel's album which tanked" - well no, it's still a good album!

isn't this true of virtually all famous people or artists though? from the reference point of the wider population, most artists/celebrities/whatever will only known for one or two key moments in their career.

i can only assume this is because you are not familiar with his excellent side work as an actor - the pinnacle of which being the recent adverts for Kellogg's All Bran Bran Flakes Yoghurty.

when it comes to column inches/publicity, it doesn't matter if someone's a Personality because they're widely respected by kids shackled to old indie or a Personality because they were on a tv show that was popular in recent memory or a Personality because they're a paraplegic or a Personality because they are unquestionably a genius. All that matters is that they have a hook, any hook, to get people to read papers/maybe even buy records. Take up Lex's list of names: what sets Paris aside from them is that her previous fame contained no music career. But none of those are famous just for music: they're also famous for all this external stuff, for drugs and divaisms and who knows what else.

What sort of bugged me to sadness was the "Jarvis, yeah nice bloke but hey he's no Morrissey,is he?"

Louis, I don't think it is plainly unhelpful! There's a set of critera we haven't worked out yet which determine what kind of coverage a celebrity gets - Katie Melua and Keira Knightly get, I think, a much more run-of-the-mill treatment than either Paris or Jarvis did.

yes but the way the jarvis album was treated it seemed to be being billed as a "you are the quarry", "aerial" type first week unit shifter but the fraction of the population who consider a worthwhile artist to shell out a tenner on is far far smaller than though. lex is probably right that jarvis is not a "national figure of fun" but he isn't primarily known for his music to a lot of people thou!

cis and nick s are repectively both really onto something upthread

no artist on this thread has written as great a song a motivation by sum 41

so you have to be a caricature to qualify.

okay, paris=jarvis=chris evans=gary neville :P

keira knightley = bambi-eyed skeletal pirate moll

everyone's a caricature.

it's not so far-fetched to think it might be one of these though, i mean i have no interest in it but i would have thought that if those shifted what they did then jarvis could too. i don't really know why it didn't but that's a different question surely?

both of those albums were preceded by singles that annocued "i'm back" maybe.

Rachel Stevens is an interesting case because there's a disconnect between the media that care about her (lads mag press essentially), the people who actually buy her records (handful of people off the internet who like 80s-influenced pop) and the people its aimed at (the Kylie market). It's a combination of poor marketing and a complete lack of interest in the personality.

Katie Melhua neither says nor does anything interesting, looks quite pretty, but lacks the persona to get any editor particularly excited and sells more records than all of them put together. Because it's this very LACK of personality that appeals to the All About The Music crew (see also Dido, Snow Patrol).

(Marcello that's all well and good but I very much doubt you tallied with 'the public' even in your day)

"Jarvis" had a d/l, a year previous (or so it seemed) and no single on the radio.

that's why it wasn't a big hit.

The "PulpHits" was a flop as 1) Everyone had the tracks they liked best already 2) No extra anything (a live disc and/or rarities/bsides or DVD would have been mandatory thesedays)

3) Pulp were never quite crossover enough for whatever reason for these things not to matter (there must be countless big-selling no frills best ofs out there).

I don't think this was much of a factor. How well do you think 'Stop The Clocks' will sell despite everyone already owning everything on it?

xposts