While Greg was swanning around dodgy warehouses in deepest, darkest LA, hanging out with all manner of pop stars, I was feeling ten years older watching Teenage Fanclub (with short hair) at the Concorde 2 in Brighton. My voice was too distinctly absent to politely whoop after their series of new tunes and greatest hits after a Saturday night 5am bout with SingStar Party (apologies neighbours) and so I spent my time thinking about "pop" and how entertainment has changed since I saw the TF a decade ago for 99p in a basement club in Glasgow.
In that bizarre new environment, surrounded by others of a similar age and musical proclivity (i.e., no longer teenagers and not such big fans), it dawned on me that the rise to chart fame could conceivably change with the profiling systems in place with the next-gen connectivity of the forthcoming consoles.
Forget Stock Aitken & Waterman, Sony have established a new pop academy/boot camp paradigm. Once celebrated for broadening the market by giving the teenyboppers the "fame" they wanted with a PS2, a couple of microphones and an EyeToy, the PS3 might be their greatest recruiting tool for their music label. I wait with a combination of horror and fascination to see the first pop product released on the market fully trained by a combination of SingStar, Dancing Stage Euro Mix and EyeToy (for pouting practice). Who knows; my stellar performance to the Scissor Sisters' Take Your Mama could in future be automatically beamed back to Sony Corp (dance moves and all) for vetting by the A&R guys.
At the minute, not a lot is being made of the access Microsoft and Sony have to the profiles that the future consoles will keep at floating points (and potentially HQ) about players. If anything, it's being celebrated from a consumer and - most definitely - a marketing perspective. Certainly the information and the community functions of the Xbox 360 - from language preference to how others perceive you - are great for building up a sense of belonging, but how do we know we're not being watched? Sure, my supermarket card follows me around and tells Brand Name X that I use their toilet tissue and watch these DVDs, but it doesn't have a camera on it.
I used to joke that when I was playing Shenmue on Sega's dearly departed internet-enabled Dreamcast, shifting boxes for my virtual daily bread, I was actually linked to Sega Corp and was performing some kind of encrypted function that was keeping their employee overheads low. Obviously mine and others' "productivity" was such that the console went down regardless. I read too many dystopias when I was younger, but maybe that bulky envelope in the post from Sony is my new record contract. Wouldn't that be a surprise.
The pop star phenomenon could conceivably happen in the short term, without any Big Brother antics, particularly if it becomes possible to upload one's performance to a community access page. Like a cross-between Am I Hot Or Not and viral marketing campaigns, an underground burn might grab the attention of the powers that be and the rest could be chart history. This could be the end of desperate reality dirge like Pop Idol. One reality check, though: the current products are limited in their jukebox and won't immediately offer John Peel-like innovation.
Media where you really are the star. I can see this really taking off. Once again, a point for games and nada for television.
