Within the last decade, pop music has been facing an identity crisis. When the modern pop audience saw how pop music sausage got made, things began becoming sanitized. It's not merely about how social media buzz has become a mutated, polymerized hybrid of a double-edged sword and the Sword of Damocles over the heads of the pop industry. This compounded with pop girls representing the bulk but also the brunt of the double standards, this hit them harder than you would expect. Everything became "fake" or "plant" when a new artist was presented.
Here's what makes it worse: given that the music industry learns the wrong lesson every time, all they learned to do was "just let it do what it do on TikTok" for the acts they already had while saying for trying to score new acts, "huh, that person is uh 'viral', let's give them money and attention." At least that's on the side of the industry itself. Some of the new chickens trying to roost certainly do it to themselves too.
Any newcomer/nugu trying to become a fly-girl (and it applies to boys too), that isn't already on the major label grind, has been subject to creative pathways with identity in the music they release. Pop music is not hard to make and neither is marketing it. But for some reason the "music business" becomes a potent oxymoron, even if they desperately need each other. But certain artists in the advent of the digital age, are saying one thing but posting another when it comes to their musical identity.
If they say pop music, they mean it from their perspective but also mystifyingly saying almost instantly, "I don't wanna be boxed in". This isn't as Kelis once said in a Sirius XM interview with Larry Flick about genres being applied to certain artists:
"You know, I never had a 'Hip-Hop audience' though. And I was never considered 'R&B'. I think honestly...and I love you, but it was radio that has to brand you and give you a title in order to put you on to play you."
"It's 'cause I'm black. If I wasn't black, what would you call it? You know; I could sing the same exact songs and you'd have to call it 'pop music'. They couldn't call it 'R&B' or 'Hip-Hop'."
"I really never cared what they called it, but I mean...you have to acknowledge why they're calling it that."
Granted, there are artists such as Madison Rose who took to Instagram in October of 2025 to put forth a rhetorical question to her audience and to social media:
"Show me a black music artist who came on to the scene as a pop music artist; POP MUSIC, and was genuinely given the space to flourish without first being subjugated into R&B or rap (correctly or INCORRECTLY); then having to become a juggernaut in those categories AND THEN being deemed a pop star. I'll wait."
But these scenarios present a unique conundrum that more or less...none of the artists in this post have to think about with their musical identity. Yet what the artists in this post will be analyzed over, is something that's endemic of the major label music industry and pop culture consumption from the 2010s to now.
From the major label side, the problems are the same: no interest in anyone who isn't "palatable", even if they get attention on, do well on or win their season of a show like The Voice. By " isn't palatable", I mean different and that means anyone who isn't as Vote For the Worst or VFTW put it, a White Guy With Guitar/WGWG. See also, "isn't palatable" meaning any pop song with an edge that doesn't match the preconceived image they want for the artist in question. Marketing falls squarely on the label to get the music out to radio stations and if all they're saying is "umm yeah no, we signed you because of that but now do this instead and make it a hit or else. Or else what, exactly.", then that's a failing on their end.
Audience/modern pop consumer landscape wise, there's a horrific case of recency bias and pop culture literacy being in the fucking doldrums. An example of recency bias and a terrifying lack of pop culture literacy is from when Ariana Grande's single "Yes (And)?" was released, and the comparisons made from listeners when sharing thoughts about the song were to both "Break My Soul" by Beyoncé and "Vogue" by Madonna. Yes, none of those songs sound a fucking thing like the other, but the first problem of recency bias was the fact "Break My Soul" came out in 2022 and was the only "big song" of recent memory to the pop audience.
The abysmal pop culture literacy comes when comparing "Yes (And)?" to "Vogue" which is so goddamn stupid on so many levels. Just because both are high energy dance tracks does not mean they're the same. "Yes (And)?" had a hint of dance flavored pop throughout and "Vogue" is ballroom culture in a pop song. Cute next to gorgeous, you know the rest. Some of you might not and that's on you, but I digress.
Artist wise, let's run it back to the not wanting to be pigeonholed or typecast in a certain genre of music. No T, No Shade, one has to get cast to be typecast. However, the pigeonholing leads to a malicious compliance style rebuttal known as reclamation; or "reclaiming that label" (basically reclaiming "x/y/z"), in a way that harkens to when pop acts c. Gaga or Ariana to now adopted and implemented third wave feminism into their overall identity.
Part of what Kelis said in that interview with Larry Flick ties into why she felt she had to acknowledge why she was given the "R&B" or "Hip-Hop" label:
"People who listen to me, I could care less what you call me."
"I don't care, I mean I take it. I am black and am happy to be so. I do love Hip-Hop and I love R&B."
See also, Madison Rose in September of 2025 on Instagram, before posting the aforementioned rhetorical question in October:
"I have been in so many meetings where people went: 'we know you would be better off if you were a rapper. you would be better off doing neo-soul.'"
"My latest album, I started experimenting with more sounds just to honestly to reclaim and have a good relationship with these things that were being forced upon me. And also prove myself I can literally fucking do anything."
Being able to do anything and everything is great in theory but gets lost in practice when the development isn't there. Something about Kelis and Madison Rose from those videos I gathered was that they were aware of who they were and had that part of themselves developed.
For Jade's debut album That's Showbiz, Baby, Kim Petras' 2026 release Detour and pop girl newcomer Adéla's debut full length album Prima, that much did not come across. Each album has highlights but each of these releases hones in on a unique problem for pop releases not dealing with being, as Kelis says on her song "Scream", "stuck in a race in the wrong line".
The fact Jade, Kim Petras and Adéla released albums at all is more of a highlight than the album itself. Their potential energy as it were, never really became kinetic across a full body of work.
First up, That's Showbiz, Baby. Released on September 12th, 2025, the album marked a long awaited solo debut from the most buzzed about member of the massively successful UK girl group Little Mix. Former members had already released solo material to abysmal to fairly solid results. However, it was Jade that had the most notoriety on her by the time TSB gets released.
Emphasis on "by the time TSB gets released", but more on that later.
Part of what Jade's solo endeavor entailed was living up to expectations from a fanbase that had been hankering for solo material from her. She was also up against not only former member releases, but against a system that she despised but also greatly benefitted from in having access to speak at her discretion on social issues and things that mattered to her. There was also conflicting elements about the album that suggested that there was a "Jade vs. genre" dynamic.
However, that was merely a construct that didn't actually exist. Above and below are how artists usually feel about any constraints placed upon themselves vs. what the audience usually sees. Not to discredit purported "original vision being scrapped" and versions of the album that never saw the light of day, but TSB presented someone finally releasing an album but not really having a complete vision to go with it.
Either that or the messy as fuck single release history really did this album in. About as much as an album that went to #3 behind Sabrina Carpenter's Man's Best Friend down from #1 that week and some Ed Sheeran thing called Play. Just looking at the singles history before the September release, here's the four singles release history:
"Angel of My Dreams", July 19th, 2024, peaked at #7 in the UK.
"Fantasy", October 18th, 2024 (almost 3 months after AOMD), peaked at #51 in the UK.
"FUFN (Fuck You For Now)", March 14th, 2025 (almost 5 MONTHS after "Fantasy"), amazingly peaked at #25 in the UK.
"Plastic Box", June 20th, 2025 (3 months after FUFN) somehow only peaked at #44 in the UK.
An absolute fucking mess of a release history and that's not even mentioning there were technically two more singles. Why they're not listed as official despite having campaigns and internet buzz and even charting positions, you ask? Because pop acts in the West get mulligans or do-overs with songs and with cases like the following, their low chart position has the act and co. say "uhh actually promo":
"Midnight Cowboy", September 25th, 2024 (2 months after AOMD) undeservedly flopped at #93 in the UK.
"IT Girl", January 10th, 2025 (almost 3 months after Fantasy) peaked at #44 in the UK.
The release history was something that Jade and co. were somewhat getting their ass kicked for in comment sections on the internet. However, a unique privilege that artists mentioned here have is the cult of personality keeping people interested and as importantly here on their side. With Jade, it was actually her label RCA* that was getting ire from the fans.
*NOTE: RCA in the U.S. is already among the most reviled labels to pop fans, but Jade is on RCA UK which according to fan rumblings is even worse than RCA in the States.
That's also not mentioning a post standard album release of "Unconditional" on October 3rd, 2025 which peaked at #51 in the UK, along with a single from the deluxe re-release both released on December 5th, 2025, "Church" which didn't land on the main singles chart in the UK. The cut and dry version of all this is "maybe don't scattershot release six songs from an album before releasing it."
However, this is where development took a hit because after "Angel of My Dream" became a Top 10 hit, Jade and co. (mostly co.) had no game plan for following up the success of the song. Essentially, what shortchanged Jade from an unquestionably successful debut era was a lack of communication between artist and label. The fact that no single, promo or not, was released two months later is unacceptable.
This compounded with the fact that even the sequencing on TSB wasn't to Jade's vision but rather RCA frontloading the singles (the 4 main and 2 promo) to the beginning of the album, made the era come off messier than it was. It's not like the album upon release helped any matters, because even if the sequencing wasn't absolutely appalling, the album was still emphasizing potential by way of breadth and not having the album itself be kinetic by way of depth.
Here's what I mean: breadth refers to a knowledge across a wide span of interests and topics, but not exploring anything beyond what's already there. Musically, this is when an artist shares the reference points or influences they drew from to make the singles and album. Depth refers to a specific kind of knowledge in one interest or topic, but able to explore every facet and nuance of said specific interest. Musically, depending on the artist, it refers to certain aspects of that reference point or influence that was drawn upon for the single(s)/album.
TSB in theory was the result of Jade wanting to make a statement as an artist. Application wise, something went haywire, which may have made things worse. Musically, it certainly did make an impression with AOMD as the lead single (give or take the beat switching on that and "IT Girl"; or a strong contrast between singing and a talk-singing that isn't quite rapping but is still shy of a "bitch track" from gay club music.) AOMD is a pop song that samples a 1960s Eurovision winning song "Puppet on a String", and basically says "fuck you Simon Cowell, this is ARTPOP!"
That much becomes clear when the following is sung (and you remember that Little Mix was initially signed to Simon Cowell's label SYCO Music upon winning The X Factor):
"Selling my soul to a psycho / they say I'm so lucky / Better act like you're lucky, hunny"
Never mind the fact that on "IT Girl", she sings the following:
"I'm not your thing / I'm not your baby doll / no puppet on a string / this bitch can't be controlled"
Then why the fuck did you sample "Puppet on a String"...I digress. This is partially the problem with TSB as an album. It suffers from creative pathways, which is the bad side of musical breadth. If there's no pathway taken, then there's no way to make the project cohesive. If anything, Jade's debut was trying to go alchemy instead of potential to kinetic by trying to make "organized chaos" a subgenre of pop.
Ultimately, while That's Showbiz, Baby is too frenetic and "organized chaos" for its own good, potential still shined through on tracks that are crunchy, groovy or outright pop music at its most energetic or kinetic.
Highlights:
- "Plastic Box"
- "Unconditional"
- "Before You Break My Heart"
- "Church"
- "This Is What We Dance For"
- "Use Me"
- "Frozen" (a Madonna cover that was stupidly an Apple Music exclusive at one point)
- "If My Heart Was a House"
There was something from AOMD that caught my attention in terms of visual identity...
Where have I seen this before even as a filthy casual doing research? Oh right:
It's Heaven and It's Hell, being Jade Thirlwall. Yes I know that reference is actually from Geri Halliwell's shitty second album, but the point remains. Visually, Jade gave fans visual feasts and even when the album cover was released, it did give off distinct if cluttered i.e. "organized chaos".
To end TSB commentary, I do present an interesting note from a screengrab a fan made from her Instagram stories celebrating one year of the album:
"Kinda funny that the very things I wrote about I got sucked back into and had to deal with all over again - this time on my own. It was a triggering and healing process and I will always look back at this debut as the album where I found myself."
Next up, not a left turn but a straight up chaotic scenic route...or Detour.
From 2017 to 2019, Kim Petras had begun making a name for herself as a pop phenom in the making. I specifically mention from 2017-2019 as 11 songs were released as singles but are listed as "non-album singles" on her Wikipedia page for her discography. That is until a compilation album called "The Summer I Couldn't Do It Better", but really Era 1, was released to streaming in 2022. None of that makes sense but neither does her release history from June of 2019 onward.
Over the course of six years, Petras has released three bodies of work that can be described as full length albums. Two of these get that distinction and the one that came first doesn't. That doesn't count her tone deaf releases of Slut Pop and Slut Pop: Miami and the kitschy Halloween fun of the Turn Out the Lights releases.
In order from release date, she has put forth:
- Clarity (2019), the one that doesn't get called an album but a mixtape.
- Feed the Beast (June 2023), the one that got called her debut album but was meant to be a follow-up to the next album...
- Problématique (September 2023), the one that was supposed to release first in 2021, was then scrapped but then released anyway because lolsies.
Keep in mind, there were also non-album singles and one collaboration that became a global sensation despite its unholy quality. Sorry, I meant six non-album singles which is weird given "Malibu" marked her American late night TV debut.
Development was in hell for a slightly more sinister take on artist vs. label.
Petras had been a pop discovery/new girl as discovered by a certain well known pop producer who I am not mentioning by name. Others have discussed him at length and that side of the developmental stunting is not the focus here. As for it being about business, Petras herself strongly implied that when not considering that side of her potential being stunted, the producer in question (and head of her label before going somewhat independent before Detour) had stalled Problématique entirely.
Despite the talent being there, Petras' chart luck had been pretty goddamn horrible. The first hit she gets goes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 but was the collaboration of unholy quality. If there's anything positive from this, that collaboration earned her a Grammy and had her become the first openly trans artist to win a Grammy at all, let alone one in a major category. That was followed by a lead...sort of, single that reaches #55 on the Hot 100 but involved another entirely unholy music presence. Oh yeah, there was also an initially Amazon Music exclusive, that housed a stellar cover of the famed Kate Bush song "Running Up that Hill" that inexplicably flopped at #100 in the UK. "You said Amazon Music exclusive and inexplicably-" well tell that to Ellie Goulding who got a cover on there to go #1 in the UK.
In all, her career was shambolic by 2025, until she goes independent...kind of. As it stands, she has her label BunHead with some distribution agreement with Amigo Records which is under Republic Records (who answers to Universal Music Group or UMG.) Then came three singles from June to October of 2025 with "Freak It", "Polo" and "I Like Ur Look" that was spelling a return to Clarity level music for the Petras dishes or whatever Kim Petras stans call themselves.
Cut to 2026 and the April release of "Need For Speed", which officially marked the return of the Kim Petras the internet liked. "Jeep" would come in May and the first 2:28 of that song was actually consistent before she fucked it up in the last minute. Then came May 29th, 2026 when both the music video for "Brutalist" and in turn, Detour was released. Commercially, the album did not impact many charts but only Feed the Beast managed to do anything significant with a #44 peak in the U.S. and #52 in the UK.
Despite the commercial lull, Detour wound up garnering favor with casuals and longtime fans alike for at least being more attuned to Kim Petras...give or take some of the direction of things not called "Brutalist".
First and fucking foremost, "Brutalist" is a career highlight that no one suspected Kim Petras of having within her. If you're wondering what I mean by that, let's be real, a lot of people liked the idea of Petras when she was a "fashion doll" or basically playing the "ditzy blonde" of pop. For fuck sake, "All She Wants" was the most Kim Petras song she had ever released, especially with a feature from another "ditzy blonde", Paris Hilton.
Then comes "Brutalist", which is about her trans identity through reminiscing about road trips with her architect dad through the German countryside to aide her transition and bonding over a brutalist post office they both thought looked cool. "Plot twist" the post office is torn down for an apartment building, but the fact a personal moment from her childhood beginning therapy to someday undergo gender affirmative care is an astounding groundwork for songwriting.
Her commentary about the song was put forth on her website but from "Brutalist", there's portions of her commentary that caught my attention:
"There was one building in particular which was a brutalist post office that we both agreed was really good. Next time we went to that same city, a few years later, the building had been knocked down and there were plans for a pretty run-of-the-mill apartment building that was gonna get built in the spot. My dad and I both agreed they ruined something perfect and beautiful for something very agreeable. We both felt like this had ruined the city, while people who live in that new apartment building probably think it’s the best thing."
"No matter how you flip it, me and my dad were also guilty of saying ‘they ruined it’ just like my grandma telling my dad that we are going on these drives to ruin my life (love you, grandma!).
This idea of ruining my life circles all around Detour, because ‘throwing it all away’ and ‘ruining my career’ was something people at the label felt about the choices I made. And I know some of my fans may feel like I’m ruining my career by walking away from this polished version of myself to make Detour."
While it's understandable that Petras feels like the album isn't necessarily "polished" compared to her previous works, that isn't really accurate. Especially when "Brutalist" alone is a battering ram of synth-pop with a ruthlessly efficient melody that just so happens to house the thematic giveaway lyric:
"Didn’t come back a man / I guess I ruined it"
Not to mention, "Need For Speed", "I Like Ur Look", "Freak It", "DTLA" and "101" gained favor with her fanbase for sounding like her previous
The moments where things don't seem polished is "Jeep" but even then, it's fine for 2:28 of its 3:28 runtime. This, and especially Adéla's album, are indicative of a quote that raging lunatic from fashion modeling Tyra Banks once said in the music video challenge judging to Angelea on the All-Stars cycle of America's Next Top Model. "These days, we hear music with our eyes."
There's a lot Petras and artists like her get right with visual packaging, but very rarely do both sides of the artists' brains come together on something distinctive yet cohesive. Detour is a mess once looking beneath the surface of the other songs presented. Not because it isn't polished, but because it's clashing with the pop sound she needs to regain her fanbase's attention with music she supposedly wants to "destroy" her pop career for.
Luckily, she may come to a place where she can have it both ways because "Need For Speed" and "Brutalist" made wading through the album worthwhile.
Now onto the newest chicken who's come to roost, the Slovakian native and fresh to the game Adéla and her full length debut album Prima.
Adéla first came to prominence as a contestant on the girl group competition series Dream Academy and its Netflix documentary Pop Star Academy: Katseye. She was a case of "stood out so much, let's not have her be in a group", which to viewers and her eventual budding fanbase made not one goddamn lick of sense at the time. That was before time was kinder to her efforts and the internet saying "Putting her in Katseye would've been like putting Lady Gaga in Fifth Harmony."
In late 2024, she began releasing solo music independently with "Homewrecked" and her breakout "SUPERSCAR". Then came the February 2025 and final release independently, "Machine Girl". May 2025 saw her then announce to her fans on social media...you know...her IG, Twitter and TikTok (hint hint), that she landed a major label record deal with Capitol Records.
That much did not sit well with fans who were still thinking of Sky Ferreira, who in a December 2024 interview with Stereogum confirmed she had finally been dropped by Capitol...after a two year internet campaign, the Free Sky Ferreira movement. Needless to say, her major label journey was already called into question given the label was not exactly seen in a positive light by fans.
Cut to her major label debut single "Death by Devotion" in July of 2025, before her August 2025 debut effort, the EP The Provocateur. The EP is seen as a welcome breath of fresh air, given a new pop act appeared to actually have personality and something underneath the pink hair. Something to note about that release visually was that the EP cover depicted Adéla urinating in a street.
There's a certain level of perceived trashiness that pop fans within the last half decade or so, gravitate to. It's derived from Kesha's early days in the pop limelight (fully looking like a pile of dirty clothes but covered in glitter, therefore equaling a good time) and a cultural reevaluation of said early days. It's why Adéla and other acts such as Slayyyter gained favor with an internet audience.
Here's the thing with Adéla. Her image and the music she makes is still fundamentally pop and not as trashy as the internet audience wants it to be. How, you wonder? One of the major things that her, Jade and Kim Petras struggle with or have not yet developed, is to how to sound like their influences in their own unique way. Adéla specifically cites Lady Gaga and Beyoncé as major influences in her music, but more on that later.
Visually, there's a lot these artists get right. Then again, visual cues are surface level influence. Bright pink hair and a decidedly edgier look and sound than say Tate McRae or some other pop tart without flair, does not reflect what the music sounds like. Prima suffers from growing pains like a lot of debut albums tend to, but something it got raked across the coals for was not living up to The Provocateur.
This is largely asinine of them, mainly because the only thing they seemingly liked about The Provocateur was that it was "dirty" or "in your face" in a way that falls under "popular girl humor" [the kind of humor that while hilarious to women, tends to piss off men, especially the kind of men who get made fun of in that comedic style.] If they have to shred Prima for anything, it can be for not bringing on any of the producers/songwriters who made songs like "SUPERSCAR" and "Homewrecked".
That would be the only thing worth bringing up, if again, focus on the material and not just the visuals was being discussed. Easily, the highlights of the album are "Hitachi", "Fantasize" especially, "Starving Artist" and the single of hers that charted at #57 on the Hot 100, "Ain't in LA". Again, there's growing pains on Prima that suggests potential, but did not develop anything as a cohesive body of work.
One minute she's a cuntnificent KGBitch on "KGB" while also noting that her "OG haterz" keep up with her social media and therefore lose to her. The other, she's yearning to a song called "Red Bottoms" before then noting the love interest doesn't even want to replace her "Hitachi" anymore. All that before getting her lights fucked out on "Starving Artist" and then being all "you know what, I'm my own hypeman. The baddest bitch is in the mirror and no baddest bitches are in LA anyway."
At worse, Prima is unintentionally faceless. Sure, songwriters like Ali Tamposi (had a hand in writing hits such as "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" by Kelly Clarkson, "Break My Heart" by Dua Lipa and "Gabriela" by Katseye just to name a few), Uffie, Livvi Franc, Caroline Ailin and Blake Slatkin are here. Then again, so are people like The Dare, Cashmere Cat, Dylan Brady who's apparently one half of 100 gecs and Julia Michaels. It's not entirely saying those songwriters are the problem with the album being faceless (especially Julia Michaels, who despite her songwriting helped bring "Hitachi" to life.)
The problem becomes that any of these producers are working on, have worked and are probably slated to work on other people's material. So aside from them being active as songwriters and producers in the commercial music industry by way of major label pop music, why are they here on Prima? It's faceless in name only, even if Adéla has songwriting credits on her debut album (werk diva.)
If the story isn't there, the material needs to be and frankly...aside from "Hitachi", "Fantasize", "Starving Artist" and "Ain't in LA", nothing really plays to her vocal ability. "Nicole Kidman" is coquettish and playful like any pop girl in the beginning of her career, but really all it does is play into a reference to the acclaimed actress and specifically, her participation in a commercial for the movie theater chain AMC.
What the internet decides to latch on to for meme content, I have no idea why and learning about "internet culture" feels like over examining an oxymoron. But something that's prominent across all three artists mentioned here is their audience engagement damn near shaped entirely because of social media. Aside from the movie theater chain commercial in her video, Adéla utilized 2010s lyric videos on YouTube that A) do not actually feel old and B) are appreciated almost ironically because of how bootleg or "raw" but fun the early days of the internet were (or seemed to be to most of her fanbase, given they're basically the same age as her.)
That in turn brings up the biggest problems with why development of these artists in particular (but really everyone) doesn't land all the way. Time and it not being understood for development nor for studying any cultural impact outside of whatever the internet perceives to be impactful. Of the former, it's really on all three to different degrees, meaning especially Adéla but Kim and Jade are guilty of it too. (The fact that Jade's main fanclub, endorsed by her, is known as The JADE Room, a play on the celebrity, trending topic and viral news site The Shade Room. The fact that Kim Petras frequently takes to that place that used to be Twitter, especially when airing out Problématique and its supposed scrapped limbo hellhole.)
Don't let these people's Wikipedia pages tell the whole story, but between Jade, Kim Petras and Adéla, the following artists were noted as having inspired their sound:
Diana Ross, Cher, Madonna, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Patti LaBelle, Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, Aretha Franklin, Imogen Heap and Ariana Grande.
Aside from most of these inspirations having no real noticeable presence on any of their songs, it's the fact that most of these people are still current and active. Well, concurrent is the word here but with regard to Gaga and Beyoncé especially, neither of them are at their peak and we don't yet understand their impact. So if impact isn't understood then and now, how can artists now be drawing inspiration from it?
Then, there's the pop music fan having heightened expectations and judgment for chickens trying to roost, be they destined for greatness or not. I'm guilty of this too, just scroll up anywhere else. However, the modern music landscape because of social media, exacerbates problems with development and identity in current pop. Anything that isn't an immediate slay, hitting the Hot 100 for 79 weeks or whatever is deemed a flop and unworthy of their time. Very few people get it right the first time and the audience who learned to see through manufactured stunt rivalries within pop music (especially between female artists) should be way more understanding that there are levels to this shit.
Those fans are also guiltier of making the problem worse by acting like (and having been fooled by) TikTok and social media being the bellwether or barometer for pending commercial success. All TikTok does is tell artists to not make songs longer than two minute and ten seconds at best, but to also focus on a stupid dance challenge that isn't even indicative of the song's true nature. Especially when TikTok makes some of the dumbest shit go viral for no real reason, like the internet cesspool it is. And double that, when trying to go viral doesn't work and that people's most out of character moment is the shit that goes viral anyway.
At least these new girls have touring experience to their name. Adéla being support for the 19 show running Demi Lovato tour (and a first proper headlining tour slated for 21 shows), Kim with three headlining tours totaling 96 shows between them and Jade, who remember was in Little Mix and there was her headlining solo tour which had 38 shows.
Overall, there's a litany of problems within the modern music and current pop landscapes (and these artists mentioned are fully aware of that, mostly against their will.) What could be done to rectify this would require immediate, albeit contrarian change to say "no more TikTok, let's develop artists again; ones that can actually do it and aren't just popular online." It'll take someone to go for broke against such a seemingly leviathan yet stagnant cultural landscape, but at some point, developments need to be made.
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