Paris = Jarvis

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

i would've liked the song better had she done it i think (probably just something to do with expecting better of the Scissor Sisters and not expecting something of that nature from Paris)

this surely sold a lot more than Different Class overall.

funny, this is exactly what i realised the other day about...chris fucking martin. 'see it in a boy's eyes', 'should i go', 'all good things (come to an end)'...

Agreed, "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" sounded completely like the SS (see what I did there?) had just given up with the first single (the new one isn't any better)

But his lyrics work perfectly with Air's music and Gainsbourg's voice on 5:55 so maybe that's the way he needs to go in the future.