How a Musician is Perceived

I've been hearing a lot of complaints lately about how music is all about looks these days. That anyone who is popular is popular because they're good-looking and not because their music sucks. Great musicians who aren't good-looking are thrown under buses while not-so-great musicians who are good looking get thrown up on pedestals and treated like gods.

I completely disagree: Music isn't about music or looks. Instead, it's about the "persona" of the artist. The actual music an artist makes and the look he, she, or they has is only a part of the number one reason we like or dislike an artist: who we perceive them to be.

Let's take a look at Justin Bieber. Preteen girls love him. Moms love him. Girls in their late teens/early 20s hate him. But why? Justin Bieber's persona. He's been marketed as a sweet, cute, ideal boyfriend . . . for preteens. For moms? He's that sweet, cute, ideal boyfriend their daughter really likes. For teenagers? He's that annoying kid who thinks he's cool just because he's in Xth grade now and won't leave you alone. Maybe you even babysat him when he was younger, and now he thinks he's old enough to date you. Yeah, that kid.

Not everyone in each demographic agrees though, because not everyone agrees on who an "ideal" person is. The artists who are popular (besides luck and great marketing) are the ones who best fit into society's perceived idea of what "attractive" is, based on the persona (which includes image) that they convey.

Note that I say popular though, not successful. Popularity and success do not go hand and hand. Success requires good business, which is whole separate blog post entirely. Maybe I'll write about that later, when I actually have the right to talk about success.

Music is about who your fans perceive you as. Every lyric you write, every note you play, affects that. Every blog, Tweet, and picture you post affects that. As a musician, or any kind of public figure for that matter, everything you do that your potential fans can see is just as important as the music you make or how you dress. It is therefore your job to make yourself appear likable. The best musicians, I've found, are the ones who make their fans feel that by being a fan, they're part of a group of "cool" kids (even the dorky, "we're so uncool" kind of cool).

I could probably write an entire book (not that it'd be good) just on this, but I'll leave you with something my dad has told me over and over again my whole life:

"If you want friends, you have to be a friend."