Music Marketing: The Creation, Curation, and Evolution of an Artist’s Image
In today’s digital age, perception and persona are of the utmost importance to anyone who makes their mark online. So the conclusion that social media and public image largely functions as a highlight reel shouldn’t surprise us. We don’t see each other’s breakdowns, struggles, failures and setbacks unless we choose to share them. And in some cases, even the “real life” behind the curtain, the casual and uncommitted approach of shitposting, photo dumps and memes can become its own aesthetic.
With celebrities, I’d argue that it’s an entirely different game, that their approach and use of social media is completely unlike our own. Unlike ordinary people, their feeds may feature sponsored posts, glamorous photoshoots, promotions of their latest creative or financial venture. Even more so, their private life is liable to be discussed in magazines, tabloids, and Twitter, all of which can either perpetuate or destroy their reputation among the ordinary public. Everything, everything, is about image.
The same, of course, could be said of musicians. But no matter the genre or skillset or size of the fanbase, whether they’re up-and-coming or established in the industry, musicians and their image are controlled more than any other kind of public figure. Whether I’m hyper-aware of it or whether it’s actually true, I’ve found the control that music managements have over their clients impossibly heavy-handed. No aspect of how they look is an accident—what they wear in their visuals, social media posts, everyday street looks, paparazzi photos. From the hair color and style to the type of shoes to the earrings they sport (even whether they match or not) is designed to say something to their audience. So one has to ask: is any of it even real?
In recent memory, Olivia Rodrigo has been an example of one of the most dramatic image switches. There are a lot of reasons to talk about her when it comes to this arena (including the way Sabrina Carpenter has since emerged from the love triangle scandal an unexpected hero) but it’s hard to notice how much she’s changed since the release of her third single from Sour, “good 4 u.”
Before that, when “drivers license” first released, Olivia was being marketed as the “every girl.” Still only known for her starring role in her Disney show and singing a song about the relatable emotion of heartbreak, she was made to look like the average teen both in the music video and her social media. Minimal make-up, tank tops and jeans, overalls, oversized shirts, simple dresses and cardigans, Converse—simple, often cottagecore, outfits that any girl her age could easily recreate and see themselves in her.
But after “good 4 u,” a song that channeled early 2000s pop-rock and angsty, rebellious teen energy, the likes of Miley Cyrus’s Breakout and Demi Lovato’s Don’t Forget albums; her management jumped on the unprecedented success and took it to the highest extreme.
Suddenly, Olivia was being offered up as a modern 90s rock chick, posing on magazine covers and on her social media in chokers, layers of silver jewelry, fishnets, big, tall, chunky black boots to match her almost entirely black ensembles. Meanwhile, at award shows, she was in low-cut gowns, baring her chest and midriff in provocative ways she never had before, as if told to mature her wardrobe by a few years ahead of schedule.
There’s nothing wrong with her embracing the new style and in fact, I’m really impressed by it. Artists–especially those her age–should change and evolve over time as they grow. But what made the switch so unusual is that it seemed to have been against her will. Not to mention that it happened in the middle of the album release timeline, which is almost never done.
That’s where “eras” come in: the aesthetics, color palettes and imagery carefully curated and promoted alongside an artist’s album or EP release. Most commonly found in pop music, eras serve as distinct chunks of time where the artist dresses, acts, and performs for the public in a certain way.
Take Ariana Grande in her Yours Truly versus Positions eras. In the former, she sported baby doll dresses, auburn hair, half-up-half-down hair, flowery imagery, overall a conservative 50s style aesthetic in the vein of one of her early fashion influences Audrey Hepburn. In the most recent, she’s embraced mint green, 60s flipped hair and high ponytails, chunky heels, French pedicures, headbands, sleek and polished outfit looks. She’s today’s modern, sexy pop princess and every move she makes further earns her that distinction.
But Taylor Swift is probably the master of this more than anyone, known for channeling and championing a range of styles depending on her most recent album. In her Red era, the color red was a backdrop to her bowler hats, striped shirts, preppy flannel outfits, and Keds. During Reputation, it was all about a dark red or black lip, dark ensembles, tightly coiled short hair, heavy make-up, and glitter everywhere. If I didn’t know any better, I’d see the concept of eras started with her.
For every modern pop album, you can name what made the era but the same cannot be said for the likes of Sour.
Of course, whether Olivia had switched to her grunge aesthetic before, during or after her debut album, if she had intentionally introduced it as her new era, who’s to say that it would’ve made it any more “real?” Who’s to say that eras of any kind are genuine representations of who an artist really is and not just a tried-and-true marketing tactic to sell their music?
Maybe this is an indication of the pitfalls of celebrity culture overall and how fans, despite what we do to bring about their credibility and success, are not owed our idols’ “real” selves. A curated image is not entirely a bad thing as long as we don’t take it at face value and that celebrities, just like us, only show the best and most palatable of who they are, that they are not our friends, that taking parasocial relationships to the extreme helps no one. Who are we to say what’s real in the first place? Certainly, it’s also an indication of a larger conversation about creative control, exploitation in the industry, and why we’re so obsessed with the idea of image anyway–creating it for ourselves, and then wanting to find the truth in others’ despite its inherent nature to be at least a little false.
But after all, isn’t that what we’re all looking for? To be seen, heard, perceived, at least on our own terms.