How the Internet reinvented the “Pop Star”
Charli XCX is probably the most prominent figure in this new underground pop-landscape, hence why she’s the cover of this article, so lets talk about her for a second. Charli XCX, born Charlotte Emma Aitchison, started out, as most electronic music figureheads did, on MySpace in 2008, where she was discovered, and started playing raves around London. After the release of her first record True Romance, she released the song Boom Clap, her first international success and her only major solo hit to this day, and the song I Love it, with the Swedish duo, Icona Pop which was also internationally successful (and also big in Germany might I add). After her album Sucker came out to mild success, she did the hook on Fancy by Iggy Azalea, which launched both artists into the mainstream. Fancy was both Charli and Iggys first and only Number 1 single to this day, and both were destined for one hit wonder status.
The year was 2015, a group of experimental musicians who go by the moniker “PC Music” are putting out these weird, hyperpop experiments that sound like they came straight out of a post-capitalist hellscape, where corporations rule above all else, and that was the point. PC Music wanted to play with the idea of what would happen if you took the corporatization of pop, and turned it up to 11. One musician from the PC Music camp stood out in particular, and that artist is SOPHIE, who wasn’t exactly signed to the PC Music pseudo-label, but worked with a lot of artists who were, A.G. Cook is one of the artists that SOPHIE collaborated with often. The two worked on a piece by visual artist Hayden Dunham called QT, which was a fictitious, robotic pop star who’s only song was called “Hey QT”, and who’s music video, was an ad for a fake energy drink called QT. This is PC Music in its prime, an allegory for capitalism on crack. Charli XCX caught wind of SOPHIE and in turn, PC Music, and became enthralled in that world, the product was the 4 track, SOPHIE produced EP titled Vroom Vroom. Vroom Vroom served as the first step into Charli’s evolution into an experimental pop starlet, and also served as the first step towards the creation of the subversive pop landscape that Charli XCX rules over.
While Charli was working on her follow up to Vroom Vroom, a rich fan community started to form on Twitter, most if not all members of the LGBT Community. While this community was forming on Twitter, some artists who also took inspiration from Charli XCX and PC Music started to pop up, most notably Ayesha Erotica, and Slayyyter, who worked together to create Slayyyter’s debut single “BFF” featuring Ayesha Erotica. This was a turning point in the Stan twitter scene, as it marked the first time where a member of Stan twitter was able to launch a music career, Slayyyter was getting coverage in i-D, Fader, etc. and managed to embark on a tour a year after her first single came out.
Slayyyter’s DIY stardom, combined with Charli’s metamorphosis into becoming the underground pop scenes liaison into the mainstream pop world caused a multitude of other artists to flourish in the Stan Twitter community, myself included, some successful and talented, and some not so much, but the point is, this fantasy of pop-stardom has been brought back down to earth by the internets ability to bring people together in a way that is unprecedented.
Nobody really knows about the future of Stan Twitter as a breeding ground for forward thinking pop music, but as of right now, nobody has been able to replicate the success that Slayyyter has achieved, that could easily change however. That is probably one of the greatest things about the internet, the fact that it is truly unpredictable, nobody two years ago would have been able to predict the massive success of a music genre founded on Y2K nostalgia, and over the top sexuality, but here we are. Slayyyter’s influence on internet culture has been felt on every corner of the internet in one way or another, the question is if anybody will be able to recreate that.
