Downfall of the Divas

[MiniMusic]

Recently all albums + their eras by very successful and famous divas have been underperforming largely. Why do you think this is? Is it just the lack of good management and bad single choices by all of them, is it that they are releasing bad music or is it because the age of the diva is wining down for now? Since late 2013 we have had MAJOR diva releases starting with Miley's Bangerz which started off HUGE with 2 massively successful singles but then "Adore You" underperformed largely and no other singles were released. I think we can pinpoint the problem to being a bad single choice and then for whatever reason, not continuing releasing singles. Her era seems to have been cut off when it could have been SO huge. Katy's PRISM album and its singles seem to be doing good but it seems even with her we have 2 HUGE singles but then 2 underperformers. Is "Birthday" just not that great of a song or is it that people are sick of divas? Gaga's ARTPOP album has been of the most mishandled albums of all time; "Do What U Want" is an amazing song and should have been #1 literally everywhere and I don't know why it wasn't. It was definitely a sizable hit but I feel in the past this would have zoomed to #1 so why now it hasn't and the album bombed massively? Britney's Britney Jean stopped after 2 singles, sold miserably but this could be due to major lack of promotion and just a not so good album in general. "Work Bitch" was a hit while "Perfume" was a flop and then they just stopped. Beyonce's album was poised to SLAY 2014 and yet again, the era seems to have been cut short by lack of singles and and no pop support. Then we had Shakira's album which was leaded off with a duet with Rihanna that scored HUGE vevo views and yet again an underperforming album with no active singles. Then to top it off we have Mariah and J.Lo who both released albums that had abysmal sales and Mariah has NO single out while J.Lo is promoting everywhere and anywhere to get her music out there yet nothing seems to stick.

So what is it? Is the ball in their court for their failures? Bad music? Bad single choices? No promotion? Or are people just sick of divas? What's going on here, we have had eight MAJOR releases by MAJOR female starts since fall of 2013 and yet here we are with almost all of those album cycles pretty much over before they even started (bar Katy who continues to push on).

[Ginger Spice]

A lot of the reason divas did so will in 2010-2012 was because radio trends aligned with the dance-pop/Dr. Luke sound, which pop stars could do easily, and do well. Pop radio seems to be in a transition phase right now (dance pop and EDM are being phased out, but not gone completely), and pop radio is all about keeping up with trends, so it's hard to keep up with trends if there's not a clear one at the moment. I mean, there are trends, like Pharrell's funky retro sound and Lorde's dark alternative pop, but nothing as major as the Dr. Luke dance-pop trend was a few years ago. I think once a new diva comes along and creates a new trend that others will want to follow, it will be easier to score an easy hit.

Of course, you also have to take it situation by situation. Katy and Gaga were both grossly overexposed at some point, to where they pretty much were starting to face some backlash. None of Katy's singles outright flopped and only one of Gaga's did - so I don't think it hurt them too much. The only place they showed to be weaker was album sales, which I think is more a sign of the times than a failing career (with the rise of Spotify, which is more prominent than it was in 2011). Britney didn't even try, so the fact she got to #12 with "Work Bitch" is actually kind of impressive. Her album sales were especially abysmal, which I think is part to do with lack of promotion, but mostly - a lot of people didn't like that album, including her fans. I don't think anyone was expecting much from Mariah or J.Lo. They both are artists who've made plenty of bank and at this point are probably just doing it because they enjoy it - but their ages clearly work against them in terms of pop radio. And Shakira, IDK, but I didn't like either of her two singles so maybe that had to do with the material?

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I think it just goes with the trends and right now, divas are on a downturn in much the same way that bands were down and out in the 2000s. Like look, style, and sound, the layout of an artist is another aspect that goes into their image. It's why there has been an influx of man/woman duos lately with the woman as lead vocal, and even some female-fronted bands again. The 'traditional' diva is becoming tired or overdone after 5 years of diva-lead hits so I think most major solo women with big personas will probably struggle on the mainstream front for a while.

[leonagwen]

Demi,Ariana and Cia are doing fine.

[Deleted]

There are obviously several factors as to why the divas are struggling now; it's something I've thought about a lot, actually, because I gravitate towards those diva vocalists, and always have.

*The major divas are getting older and have priorities outside of their careers (family life, or just wanting to slow down in general and do their own thing without the pressure of promotion and the general celebrity hoopla).

*Whitney Christina, Celine, etc all had a specific style that worked back in the 90's, obviously. But, it's harder to adapt that style and/or still capture the public's attention when you've been recording for a decade or more. The industry as a whole seems to be ignoring most of the Pop divas right now, because the public is gravitating towards artists like Katy, Rhianna, and Beyonce...the visual/performance/production seems to play a bigger role in garnering a hit at radio right now, which is not necessarily where the strength of the Pop divas/vocalist is.
*The sound that many of these women go for just doesn't seem to be what the public wants right now, which translates into poor airplay/performance in the long run.
*The quality of the material might play a role, but again, if the public interest/radio airplay isn't there because plenty of other ladies are overshadowing the older divas, all they can really do is make their own music and MAYBE hope for a hit if the right formula comes along (ex Beautiful, Moves Like Jagger, Say Something).
*Most of the current pop divas couldn't change it up to fit in with the younger women dominating the genre, and when they do it often hurts an artists image more than it helps. Mariah and Christina are Mom's who can't necessarily get away with what they did when they were younger, so now they have to balance to with keeping themselves relevant without turning off the general public. I'm sure many of the older artists go through similar transition phases, and things have changed so much it's really impossible to know what could potentially happen.
*A lot of the younger divas are involved in social media and interacting with fans,and I think that plays a big role in staying relevant in this day and age. A lot of the older artists might not have the time or interest to be fully engaged in the way that many artists have to be in order to keep their fans interested.

[Wolfy]

As for Shakira, I blame it all on her lack of commitment this era. Right now her #1 is her family. She wants to spend as much time as possible with Milan & Pique. If she capitalized on the Rihanna/Shakira duet hype by performing at the Grammy's, the era would have gone in a very different direction. They would have performed on a Sunday and the video would have been released the following Tuesday. That week it would have broken the 24 hr VEVO record and it would have gone top 5 on Billboard. After that, radio would have embraced "Empire." But, Shakira was not willing to promote CRTFY. She stayed in Spain till she was forced to come to the US to record The Voice. She started to promote the album when it started to under-perform, likely because Live Nation forced her to. If Shakira was fully behind this era, it would have gone in a very different direction.

The root of the problem for Shakira is that Pique can't leave Spain due to his soccer commitments. That means that everytime she has to spend significant time in the US she splits up Pique/Milan. That's what lead to all the problems. The album was finished in Spain. The Target & Activia commercials were filmed in Spain. "Empire" was also filmed in Spain. You can't get Shakira to leave Spain.

[irice22]

They're struggling because their material isn't up to snuff. It's quite simple. They'll be back bigger and better next time around. And maybe we have someone new just around the corner (Charli XCX?).

And just wait until Swift and Adele release later this year.

[Envoirment]

I feel it's a combination of the material not being up to par as a whole and bad management.

I don't think you should downplay Katy, Beyoncé and Miley's eras at all though. They all delivered.

P.S: The only true "Diva" releases have been Mariah & Beyoncé.

[Deleted]

The downfall of the divas began when you people started calling every female who steps on a stage a f**king DIVA and watered down the craft. A diva should be someone with immense talent and has accomplished ALOT and survived a long time before we label them with a prestigious award. Diva then icon and then legend, should be earned not given after one or two successful eras.

I really don't see a correlation in a industry wide slump in sales and and just a  diva thing. Miley, Katy, Beyonce and Rihanna and did their usual or better. Mariah is a diva but her struggles is that people did not listen to her album, falling down after 14 albums and 25 years in the industry is hardly a indication of diva's struggling, its just part of the fickle industry and views on women.

[surfy]

Katy - Ummm... the underperformers were just bad songs tbh... next.

Miley - Bad single choice (Adore You) and then after that I guess they took it as the world was sick of Miley (or just bad management) and stopped releasing singles and promoting (or it could be the tour...)

Gaga - She was pretty successful, but the lack of a video release for DWUW caused the era to lose hype... and many people just weren't interested in G.U.Y. (shame too... :'( )

Britney - Awful album. Awful songs. Awful production. And lazy vocals. No wonder this flopped. (will.i.am )

Beyonce - Amazing first couple of weeks, but the single releases were just a MESS! Drunk In Love not being released to pop officially I guess could be a reason why it underperformed as well... and XO just got shoved into the corner because of DIL's hype @ the Grammy's (a dual release WAS NOT necessary)

Shakira - CRTFY was a forgettable song that never got the public's interest (many thought it just wasn't a great song...) and the MV was a DESPERATE cry for views... and it worked (but really how long was this gonna last before it tumbled into the mess it deserved to be?) Then all hype was gone due to this...

Mariah - People lost interest in her a while ago (now it's only Pulse left...) A few moderate hits here and there, but practically irrelevant to the GP.

Jennifer - Well... the first single was just GOD AWFUL (And the public had already shown signs of waning interest in Jenny... stupid move) Then by the second single... all interest was just... gone. (Which didn't really surprise me tbh.)

So many were due to bad choices... and a few were just because of awful material... but one thing is for sure. They NEED better management!!!!

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Surf's post just above is interesting because in each of those examples, the mess-ups can be blamed on internal factors with the label or promotion or whatever. Yet many of them had legitimate hit songs and decent sales. Maybe, as someone mentioned near the top, we placed too much expectations on them to over-succeed when really, many of them are doing just fine, albeit not as great as some were doing a few years ago. Plus, the next set of "divas" or solo pop female singers are making their way in anyway. We'll see how they do.

[leonagwen]

I think Katy is doing just fine.Roar was a huge hit and Dark horse could be the #1 song of the year.Not every era is gonna be like the Teenage dream era.Beyonce made a great album and music videos.She didnt do great on the singles chart but the album is the best selling album of the year and she got nominated for 8 MTV video awards.Britney,Mariah Jennifer,and Shakira had huge dissapointments.Britney,Mariah and Shakira,didnt promote enough.Jeniffer ruined her era with a bad 1st single choice.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Not really sure how you can lump Katy, Beyoncé, or Miley in when they've all bad strong single performances and million plus selling albums. Mariah you can blame on the label and Mariah herself for continuously pushing the album back for no apparent reason. Had the album been released when it was supposed to have been in 2013 when beautiful was at its peak, it's numbers would have been very different IMO. Jennifer Lopez has had awful singles seemingly released at random. Shakira was a combination of bad material, lack of promo, and people in general just not caring. Had she not sold out all of her music to corporations to bump her release for her, I can't imagine how horrible her numbers would have been. Probably worse than the European sales have been

[Hefty Hanna]

Jul 16, 2014 21:33:19 GMT -5 irice22 said:

They're struggling because their material isn't up to snuff. It's quite simple.

Literally this.

[Deleted]

I'm more or less with Coco on this, I see all these names being thrown out and the only thing they all have in common is a vagina. Like, even putting the 'diva' thing aside, the disparity in how all these eras did is so much...Mariah's last album and Beyonce's last album are WORLDS apart in their level of success. I honestly have no idea why Bey is even part of this discussion, actually. It kills me that people try to chalk it up as not doing well. I guess she was supposed to release single after single and exhaust herself trying to get hot 100 #1s to be validated. For that matter I don't know how Katy or Miley got brought up either. Katy's singles have been very hit or miss this era and Miley's team aborted the mission as soon as Adore You flopped, but theirs are still two of the better selling albums overall.

I'm just having a hard time getting a grip on the original question posed because Mariah, Shakira, Gaga are all three very distinct flop situations (and Gaga's floppage is really only relative; I'm sure Mariah and Shakira's labels would have loved to have had Gaga's sales and singles performance from this era). And then Beyonce, Miley, and Katy are three very different situations at the other end of the sales spectrum. I can't say I agree that there is a 'diva downfall' at all.

[MiniMusic]

Aug 21, 2014 10:49:16 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

I'm more or less with Coco on this, I see all these names being thrown out and the only thing they all have in common is a vagina. Like, even putting the 'diva' thing aside, the disparity in how all these eras did is so much...Mariah's last album and Beyonce's last album are WORLDS apart in their level of success. I honestly have no idea why Bey is even part of this discussion, actually. It kills me that people try to chalk it up as not doing well. I guess she was supposed to release single after single and exhaust herself trying to get hot 100 #1s to be validated. For that matter I don't know how Katy or Miley got brought up either. Katy's singles have been very hit or miss this era and Miley's team aborted the mission as soon as Adore You flopped, but theirs are still two of the better selling albums overall.

I'm just having a hard time getting a grip on the original question posed because Mariah, Shakira, Gaga are all three very distinct flop situations (and Gaga's floppage is really only relative; I'm sure Mariah and Shakira's labels would have loved to have had Gaga's sales and singles performance from this era). And then Beyonce, Miley, and Katy are three very different situations at the other end of the sales spectrum. I can't say I agree that there is a 'diva downfall' at all.

I wasn't really saying they were all flopping or that they are flopping on the same levels. What I'm saying is that every album era by all the divas recently have not really been up to scratch how they used to be. If we go back to, say 2011, Beyonce + Brit + GaGa + Katy and pretty much every woman were having EVENTS as their eras, you know what I mean? The hype was there for all of them so much more than it is recently. I agree that Bey and Katy and Miley sold great and they had lots of success but just like with Miley, WHY must they cut the era so short? Why are all the divas giving me half-assed eras? I guess I definitely worded the question awkwardly but mainly I'm trying to say that not one female had an era that could match up to how much potential they did have to slay.

[Deleted]

Aug 21, 2014 11:15:50 GMT -5 MiniMusic said:

Aug 21, 2014 10:49:16 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

I'm more or less with Coco on this, I see all these names being thrown out and the only thing they all have in common is a vagina. Like, even putting the 'diva' thing aside, the disparity in how all these eras did is so much...Mariah's last album and Beyonce's last album are WORLDS apart in their level of success. I honestly have no idea why Bey is even part of this discussion, actually. It kills me that people try to chalk it up as not doing well. I guess she was supposed to release single after single and exhaust herself trying to get hot 100 #1s to be validated. For that matter I don't know how Katy or Miley got brought up either. Katy's singles have been very hit or miss this era and Miley's team aborted the mission as soon as Adore You flopped, but theirs are still two of the better selling albums overall.

I'm just having a hard time getting a grip on the original question posed because Mariah, Shakira, Gaga are all three very distinct flop situations (and Gaga's floppage is really only relative; I'm sure Mariah and Shakira's labels would have loved to have had Gaga's sales and singles performance from this era). And then Beyonce, Miley, and Katy are three very different situations at the other end of the sales spectrum. I can't say I agree that there is a 'diva downfall' at all.

I wasn't really saying they were all flopping or that they are flopping on the same levels. What I'm saying is that every album era by all the divas recently have not really been up to scratch how they used to be. If we go back to, say 2011, Beyonce + Brit + GaGa + Katy and pretty much every woman were having EVENTS as their eras, you know what I mean? The hype was there for all of them so much more than it is recently. I agree that Bey and Katy and Miley sold great and they had lots of success but just like with Miley, WHY must they cut the era so short? Why are all the divas giving me half-assed eras? I guess I definitely worded the question awkwardly but mainly I'm trying to say that not one female had an era that could match up to how much potential they did have to slay.

ok, I see what you mean now (I think). To that I would say...well, nothing lol. Every era can't be an event, you know? And I also think that we're conditioned in some ways to have such high expectations that almost nothing ever lives up to it. The biggest event albums are often unexpected so it's not something I think we can really look for, it just has to happen.

The thing with Beyonce is that the event was just the album in itself, the surprise element and the fact that even without the singles it could sell so well. Once it became apparent that she wasn't really going to put in a lot of promotion (or for that matter release more than one single to pop) that eventful feeling dissipated. Miley's era felt like an event for the first two singles, it just wore off once she got to Adore You and clearly had checked out. (I def. agree they could have moved on to a fourth single to keep this era going, I don't know why they chose not to). As for Katy, there was no way she was going to match Teenage Dream and I'm sure she and Capitol knew that. I feel the Prism era was more about maintaining status quo than anything else, that's really all it could be. And then there's the fact that these are all 2013 albums, so of course they are not going to feel like 'events' anymore in 2014. This has just been a very quiet year so far. The big releases are all being packed into the fourth quarter, which I find annoying.

[dbhmr]

I'm fine with the use of diva here because it's basically shorthand for "popular female singer with a strong Pulse following." And who doesn't love shorthand?

As for some decline in success/material, I think that has to do a bit with label/industry panic. Making money off albums is becoming harder and harder, so when such a diva experiences wild success--as basically all of Pulse's favorites have at one time or another--the need to do it again purely from a business standpoint probably robs a lot of the artistry and development that could have otherwise been seen in follow-up efforts. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that My December is a kind of record label cautionary tale (though I think that could go both ways--the way an artist can drop by changing the formula, and the way a label can hurt a project, and itself, with bad PR). Maybe, in the eyes of label businesspeople, pop females don't need to be seen as artistic to sell, and there have been enough examples of the opposite being true in the past, that funneling them into a certain kind of project and sound makes the most financial sense.

However, with the rise of social media and Spotify and all that, people have access to new, fresh acts (and their new, fresh sounds) constantly, and that ends up grabbing more attention than "Last Friday Night Pt. II." Maybe this will spark a change for the better, and labels will let the successful women on their roster explore more. Or belts and budgets will tighten further and the music will get more conservative, with an increased focus on buzz-worthy videos and radio deals.

[Deleted]

Britney's was self sabotage so she wouldn't be famous anymore so she doesn't count bye

[K.]

We've had a period of a few years in which pop diva music has not progressed very much. The divas are trying to figure out where it is going, without success. And the pressure to be commercial and support a whole label with their sales isn't helping.

There will probably be a little bit of a changing of the guard in the next few years. You already see it happening a little with artists with more interesting sounds like Ellie and Florence and Lana and Arianna gaining popularity while Katy and Rihanna and Gaga have started to feel tired.

[Deleted]

Aug 24, 2014 9:54:48 GMT -5 K. said:

We've had a period of a few years in which pop diva music has not progressed very much. The divas are trying to figure out where it is going, without success. And the pressure to be commercial and support a whole label with their sales isn't helping.

There will probably be a little bit of a changing of the guard in the next few years. You already see it happening a little with artists with more interesting sounds like Ellie and Florence and Lana and Arianna gaining popularity while Katy and Rihanna and Gaga have started to feel tired.

I also think there will be a change of the guards soon as well. I think this has more to do with Pop constantly changing trends and wanting to give people exactly what they're responding to.
I think there's still a chance if these ladies can adapt their style, but don't completely abandon it (ex- more " Say Something and less "Feel This Moment; one felt genuine the other basically followed the " hit" formula).
I think people can tell when something isn't 100% genuine; being able to find that and adapt to the current style is tricky.