The inexplicable popularity of Hear’Say is a sad indictment of the modern music industry, with the emphasis very much on ’’industry’’ rather than ’’music’’. I genuinely find it impossible to understand the popularity of groups such as this. There are certain genres of music of which I could not call myself a great fan (Hip-Hop, for the sake of an example) and yet I can see why it might appeal to others. But the success of Hear’Say leaves me cold and slightly frustrated, wondering to what extent people actually do listen to the music that they purchase, and whether it is other factors which determine their selection.
It goes without saying that Hear’Say are not a talented group, not real artists in pursuit of some musically conceptual idea and not even grouped on basis of their abilities. We have all either seen or heard of the ’’Popstars’’ television series on ITV which followed the birth of Hear’Say, whittling away a group of several thousand musical hopefuls rejecting the more talented individuals on such mundane grounds as looks and instead bringing together not the five best but the five most marketable people to form Hear’Say, yet another manufactured clone of the Steps / S Club 7 / Spice Girls / Westlife / Boyzone mould.
It is fair to say that the success of the Popstars programme is responsible for the large part of the popularity of Hear’Say. It is worth bearing in mind that the Hear’Say concept and identity was created (or copied) before the five members even met each other, and so the actual Popstars programme was not so much a documentary as a massive publicity stunt for the new group - much like S Club 7’s children’s programme ’’Miami 7’’, but cleverly ’’Popstars’’ could reach a bigger audience.
It allowed their producers to create familiarity between them and the public before releasing the debut single and album onto a well-primed audience. In short, those who watched ’’Popstars’’ were doing nothing more than volunteering themselves to exposure to pop propaganda.
A more difficult question is that of why people are prepared to buy in huge numbers the processed work of a manufactured band. ’’Popstars’’ could not have made it any more clear that the component members of Hear’Say are not serious, credible artists and that they do not create music in line with an artistic vision, merely in line with potential sales opportunities. So how can people, in the knowledge of all this, still enter shops and purchase Hear’Say material. I will consider the three different possible answers as follows:
1) People actually like Hear’Says music.
I don’t dispute that there are people who actually like Hear’Say on grounds of their material - I am sure there are plenty of opinions in this section which testify to that. But the problem with this explanation is that Hear’Say are yet to produce anything which sets them apart from boy-bands, girl-bands and mixed bands dating back as far as New Kids On The Block.
This is saccharine-sweet, mindless, homogenous, manufactured rubbish which has been churned out for year after year. Therefore it is fair to say that anyone who is remotely fond of Hear’Says music is likely to be strongly influenced by the heavy marketing of Hear’Say. Indeed I suspect many of those who watched Popstars in the first place were probably already fans of S Club 7 et al. in the first place, and so liking Hear’Say in whatever way functions alongside the marketing impulses in making people buy the album.
2) People do not consider or reject the issue of manufactured music.
I find this explanation very tiresome, but there are those who insist, in spite of ’’Popstars’’ even, that Hear’Say are just as acceptable as an artistic group as any other band, and so these people merrily hop on the Hear’Say bandwagon while deluding themselves of the fact that Hear’Say are five random people of irrelevant talent so long as they look marketable and can sing adequately. More fool them.
3) People reject more innovative forms of music in favour of easily digestible pop music, to which they pay little attention anyway.
I find this explanation most convincing. Indeed it surprises me how often I’ve had a conversation with someone about music and hear a remark along the lines of ’’Oh, I don’t think lyrics are that important, ’’ to take an example. Those willing to pay attention to the lyrics of a number of pop groups will quickly recognise a series of key themes and phrases which recur with shocking frequency. How often do such pop groups as Hear’Say come out with such lines as:
’’I need you tonight’’ (next line ends with ’’right’’ to rhyme)
’’I want you baby, you drive me crazy’’
’’Put your hands in the air, like you just don’t care’’
etc...
This lyrical unoriginality is reflected in the same drum patterns, awkward key changes towards the end of a song or any number of startlingly obvious repetitions which, to my frequent amazement, many people fail to notice. ’’Pop’’ is, after all, an abbreviation of ’’popular’’, but how can so many people be satisfied to listen to such generic, homogenous rubbish all the time, differing only in the identity of the group performing it?
These three factors go some way towards explaining the popularity of Hear’Say and also why, with time, they will decline and a new group will replace them. Manufactured groups, after all, are generally products with short shelf lives because they are easily replaced. A new group and new identity can be formed with relative ease, and seeing as they all sing from essentially the same song sheet no real expense is required.
The same will ultimately happen to Hear’Say, regardless of the extents to which ITV plug them, even wasting time on the ITN news to report on their current activities (funny, you never see them on BBC or Sky news...). Yes, ’’Pure And Simple’’ (the single) and ’’Popstars’’ (the album) both went straight into number one in their respective charts, but this only reaffirms the fact that Hear’Say are merely yet another bland manufactured band.
Ordinarily I would focus my opinion on a certain band on the music they produce: but what is the point in doing this with Hear’Say? The music is nothing new, their is no merit to it whatsoever and the component members of the group had nothing to do with creating it anyway. Only with genuine artists does the artistic quality of their music have any bearing on how good they are.
It can only become more obvious with time the tiresome extent to which such bands as Hear’Say are generic copies of one another, but I can’t see it seriously denting their success. The general public are too indifferent, apathetic and uninterested in innovation to turn popular music into anything worth listening to.