In the article “How the internet killed Carly Rae Jepsen” on MTV hive, the author explains how Carly’s new album is (relatively) a flop. Is that contradictory with our recent post on her incredible viral summer success ‘Call me maybe?’ (“Done! The Fourth Revolution put the music industry upside-down!“?)
I would like to argue that it is not because her album has a slow start start it does not mean that she will not succeed on the long term as a noticeable artist. Anyway she is now geared to participate to Justin Bieber’s concerts for the next few months. She is releasing videos and continuing promoting her work.
But the most important thing is that the internet / social network age is all about tribes, and not necessarily mass consumption. Stardom in the industrial age was necessarily at the level of the entire population, of an entire country: you could not so much have several products competing for different sections of the population. Following country-level sales made sense. With the Fourth Revolution, this kind of stardom is doomed to extinction, or will at least be less important. Stars will be stars of smaller global tribes of a few million people scattered over the world. These tribes will often not be defined geographically but more by taste and lifestyle. A star’s influence can be greater through a tighter connection will less people than with a looser connection to everybody.
In any case Carly sold more than 100,000 albums – how many would-be singers would kill to achieve that? She might not be on the road to become a global star, but she certainly is building a strong base for success, within a certain tribe on which she will have a great influence. Will she manage to establish herself as a star for her tribe? Time will tell!
Hat tip to Laurent Riesterer for the link to the MTV hive article.
