Sam and Harry Are Boring
In 1977, David Bowie turned thirty and released “Heroes”, the second of three albums recorded while living in Europe, to which he had returned to get away from LA’s drug culture.
Bowie was a controversial musician. The early seventies saw him in his Ziggy Stardust phase, with fiery dyed hair, crazy makeup and glittering jumpsuits. He said outrageous things (“Hitler was one of the first rock stars”), which he later attributed to a serious cocaine problem. Bowie’s Berlin era, that produced “Heroes” as well as Low and Lodger, was a period of transition that would give us the dapper David Bowie of the 1980s.
Bowie wasn’t the only player in the theatricality game. Elton John’s performance wear grew more outlandish with every appearance.
We had KISS in clown makeup. Liberace in floor-length fur. Madonna in lingerie and a crucifix. Prince in purple velvet with puffy sleeves. Cyndi Lauper. Boy George. Twisted Sister. Marilyn Manson. GWAR.
I would rather do anything than watch the Grammys, so I didn’t. But I’ve been entertained by the predictable and intended reactions to the costumefest.
First we were treated to the lead-in by 30-year-old Sam Smith: his latest music video that depicts the portly singer acting out raunchy stuff with a bunch of dancers in lingerie. Sam arrived at the Grammy Awards ceremony with Kim Petras, 30, and a harem of backup performers, the whole group dressed head to toe in bright red. And then their big move: Sam and Kim’s devil worship-themed performance of the song “Unholy”.
On cue, the Twittersphere was alight with outrage.
“This Sam Smith dude is a devil worshipper. This is why I said if you buy this fool’s garbage music you are an ungodly person who is against GOD. Hollywood is pure satanic garbage,” tweeted one account.
“This is some illuminati devil worshipping bullshit at the Grammys that Sam Smith prick he needs to be put down!!!” tweeted another.
Charlie Kirk tweeted, “BREAKING: Sam Smith stages SATANIC Grammy performance with strippers, devil horns Petras danced in a cage, Smith wore devil horns while dancers in long red robes with long straight hair fawned around him in a ritual circle.”
Well played, Sam.
Not to be ignored, 29-year-old Harry Styles created a small stir by dressing in a Bowie-esque jumpsuit. Styles has obviously settled on an amalgam of Bowie and Mick Jagger as his public image. This has been visible for years. Even so, the tweets flew.
“This is not sexy. It’s not flattering to his physique. It’s not edgy or brave or cool. It’s not artsy. It’s not avant-garde. It’s not feminine. It’s not masculine. It’s not non-binary when it’s trying to be both. It’s just ugly, unflattering, and reeks of trying-too-hard,” tweeted one critic.
And all of that is true. Harry’s onesie was indeed unflattering and unoriginal. It doesn’t matter, because it produced the intended reaction: Harry Styles will be talked about for several days because he wore a silly jumpsuit. He likes to make little hints about gender and sexuality, just like pop stars have done for decades. Harry’s publicists aren’t dumb. This is sophisticated marketing and brand development. All media coverage is good for the brand. Fans and critics will read into every little detail what they want to see there.
For at least fifty years, flamboyant pop stars have used the same formula to gain popularity, and sell music and tickets. True, they might have dressed a little more conservatively for an awards ceremony, but those lines blurred forty years ago. It’s been done to death. There is nothing novel or creative happening today. The music isn’t even good. Autotune and formulaic song “writing” has crushed the soul of most popular music.
Sam Smith had huge success in 2014. His debut album In The Lonely Hour sold over nine million copies. His second album The Thrill Of It All, released in 2017, sold a little over two million copies. In 2020 Sam released his third album Love Goes, which had sold 1,000,000 copies by 2022. Streaming numbers are not included here and those are significant, but it’s safe to say that even going from nine million to two million in album sales reflects a decline in interest after a strong debut.
First Sam was gay, then he was non-binary and gender queer. Now he’s made queerness his whole identity and it’s working for him because the media is primed for it. Take this cloying, badly written article by Daisy Jones for Rolling Stone:
“Fast-forward to now, however, and Smith has undergone a kind of renaissance — personally, publicly, musically. In the video for recent viral bop, ‘Unholy’, featuring US popstar Kim Petras, they dance seductively on stage in a BDSM-style harness and sparkling gloves. “Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot / At the body shop, doing something unholy,” they sing in a snappy, gospel-flecked chorus that you must know by now if you’ve spent any time on TikTok. Within days of the track dropping, young girls, queer kids and rap boys alike were remixing and emulating its infectious, rhythmic, feel-yourself choreography. Christian TikTok had a field day, dubbing the song “demonic”. Meanwhile, the comments beneath live clips were what you’d expect when a queer artist dares to step into their sex appeal. “Bruh what happened?” read comments from disgruntled straight boys with 10 followers and square haircuts. “Slaaaayyyyy” and “QUEEN” were among the messages from elated young fans hooked on this shiny new banger.”
Yes, you read that right: “…when a queer artist dares to step into their sex appeal.”
‘Music isn’t the same today’ is what everyone who has aged out of the top 40 says. Maybe so, but there’s something dead inside about 2020s popular culture that transcends generational grumpiness. On CBS This Morning, Sam Smith was asked what risks he took recording his new album Gloria. “The element of sex,” he said in his mushy voice. He knows perfectly well this is a lie, because nothing about sex in music is risky. Just two years ago Lil Nas X did the gay sex with the devil thing. Even Satanic sex has already been done, Sam. Did no one read Rosemary’s Baby?
It’s all a put-on. Curated identities with no substance behind them. If music forty years ago was a kid’s craft project, music today is a monthly activity box subscription.