Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music and musical topics I’ve been fixated on recently.
The first time I ever noticed that I was being sold to by the shadowy music industry in a way that didn’t feel genuine to me was with the arrival of a little superstar known as Avril Lavigne. She was the "anti-Britney." She was crass, rude, and punk. She wore a white tank top and cargo pants instead of tight spandex. She had Attitude™️.
It was a particularly cynical way to sell a new pop star, but these were particularly cynical times—and treating teenagers like they’re dumb is an effective marketing tactic. But once I knew enough about music and the music business to pick up the signs of artificiality, I could see them everywhere: in the phony rebellion of Good Charlotte to the fake cool of Bow Wow.
I didn’t have a word for it when I was a kid, but I was trying to identify what became known as The Industry Plant©️.
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