The realities of being a pop star
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Celebrity Culture
Music Industry
Pop Stardom
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Nov 22, 2025 at 12:47 PM EST
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Nov 22, 2025 at 7:01 PM EST
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Making music at any professional level is extremely hard work. Touring and dancing and hosting shows is even harder. It requires a substantial intellectual capacity and stamina to achieve. You either have these things yourself, or you are propped up entirely by others who have them and are invested in you for money's sake. Given Charli XCX's background, it's not actually surprising that she, in fact, has all the talent, skill, and intellect required to do this stuff herself.
Editing to add: Another place to look to learn that people with this skillset often have very very deep inner lives is Dua Lipa's book club podcast (https://www.service95.com/tag/book-club). As someone who used to run these kinds of in-depth interviews, I can say, she is damn good at it.
Considering cocaine is both illegal and has an obviously unethical supply chain, you'd think someone would try, you know, prosecuting her or something.
More likely you’ll face a fine or a strong talking to if you get caught at the airport with some small quantity of pot.
They're going to imprison or kill you.
Of course, that isn’t a shallow opinion so perhaps someone unfamiliar to her would think otherwise
I’m not saying she is or isn’t intelligent, and either way she clearly is talented in some area of music, just wondering if she is a singer or singer/songwriter :)
> Does she write her own lyrics? Or does someone else write those for her?
Even when a singer is performing a song they didn't write, they're often doing that because the song appeals to them.
Charli XCX, like nearly all popstars, was propped up by the producers and writers who shaped her sound and composed large parts of the music. Producers have been there the whole way. In particular, her blowing up was highly influenced by the stylistic direction, composition, production and sound engineering of people associated with the PC Music record label. The statement that she had good enough taste to have been around these people is rather unfair -- she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.
The most common refrain is that popstars often write their music. This is misleading: they write the lyrics, suggest a general vibe, and some rough melodies or chords. And even this is a stretch many times. They are not composing or producing the music in any larger sense, and this is the pivotal part of actually making music.
One famous exception that comes to mind is Grimes, who largely actually /makes/ her own music. She rarely seems to get credit for this.
This is not to say that vocalist popstars don't bring a lot to the table. They do. But what they bring to the table is incredible performance skill and charisma. I think poptimism has gone too far, to the point that we think the product was responsible for creating itself.
To be fair, if they write the lyrics, define the vibe/feel of the song, and compose the melody and chord progression, then that does sound like the vast majority of the song. What's left - I guess some additional instrumentation, the percussion, production? To me it does sound fair to credit the popstar with having composed the music in this case.
If you're writing for a guitar and voice, then you've basically got a song, but pop music is built on sometimes hundreds of different instruments and effects.
You could argue that Harrison and Starr always deserved some of the writing credit, since they often determined their parts, and I wouldn't actually disagree with that -- though Lennon and McCartney were kinda control freaks, so I'm not sure how much leeway was actually given. When they started bringing in extra instruments, again, there is arguably some extra credit to be given to Martin and others, but Lennon and McCartney were still strongly directing what was to be played.
For what it's worth -- and this is going to get me hated even more than my popstar-skepticism -- I don't really like the Beatles that much. But it's transparent that they did more than Taylor Swift because they were specifically and precisely writing the melodies for the instruments being played.
If you gave Lennon and McCartney a couple of guitars, a few days of studio time, a good mood, and no other help you'd probably get a hit. Or at least an interesting song.
If you gave Taylor Swift the same you'd get a demo, maybe. You might get an unassisted hit, but the odds are much lower.
Charli XCX - even more so. Give her a laptop and microphone and some plugins and no producer, and I doubt you'd get much.
Not to say that what she and Dua Lipa do is easy. But they're fundamentally performers and brands for a music production operation.
Creative agency isn't a binary. It's on a spectrum. Some people have very little. Some have a lot. Some have taste that defines the product, even though they're mostly curating other people's work.
Michael Jackson was notorious for this. He was a phenomenal dancer, an ok vocalist, not much of a practical musician. But he had a strong sense of what he wanted, and he had a theatricality that pulled the whole thing together.
Charli XCX is a version of that. I don't think her appeal is as strong or as universal, and I doubt she has as much agency as Jackson did. But it's the same idea - shape, curate, perform.
No, if anything Charli XCX was the one that put PC Music on the map. She has been a fairly big name since 2012
> she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.
Sophie didn’t pioneer the sound of PC Music any more than e.g. AG Cook, QT, Hannah Diamond, Danny L Harle, 100 gecs, or any of the other many artists involved, including Charli XCX
You’re talking as if PC Music is some huge label with a lot of help, when it’s mostly just AG Cook. He and Charli XCX collaborated on tracks for a couple of Charli’s albums
Sophie was an example. I didn't see it necessary to talk about all the artists involved in PC Music to make the point that the producers on the label pioneered the sound.
Look at the credits for her albums. She had producers and writers credited on every single song. This IS a lot of help. You're acting like she just did a couple of collabs with AG Cook and that's it. She had many different people helping her on the actual composition and production of every single song.
This is the point being refuted -- that the popstars are geniuses responsible for carrying the burden of their rise. It's mythology. The reality is that they bring performance skills and charisma to the table, some non-awful lyrical skill, and then the lion's share of actually making the music work is done by producers and writers. They would be nowhere without the producers. The producers would be nowhere without the popstars. But it's the most common poptimist mistake to confuse the popstar's charisma for the producer's mastery.
I think in the modern day, due to Internet, access to DAWs, etc, a lot of pop stars actually do/did much more of their own writing and production, see Billie & Finneas or Chappel Roan. It's just much more accessible, there's lots of pretty faces on social media so to really break out, you either need some real connections or real chops.
Nah it's nothing to do with women, it's simple jealousy. Everyone wants to be successful. If they can dismiss successful people as lucky or whatever (tbf some are) then it makes them feel better about their own failure to be successful (they are just as good; they just weren't as lucky).
A natural human tendency. Look at all the people saying Elon Musk isn't really an engineer. Yeah right, he definitely is heavily involved in the high level technical decisions. Yes he's an arsehole and moderately racist and probably quite lucky too but he is good at his job.
He fell off when he lost his egirl and became a drug addict.
- “(Scoffs). You’re an engineer? Yeah, right. What about that Challenger explosion? And how come you don’t put anyone on the Moon for 50 years? Engineer…”
That’s how your comment reads.
As for Musk... tbh I think as the vast majority of us want things from other people we temper our behaviour.
But when you have enough fame and money to do what you want the filters can come off and we can be the selfish nasty people we really are. And some people obviously like to play on that too to get air time or just prove a point.
So one can be a massive piece of shit as long as they're good at their job?
Many of us here probably have worked with people like that. It's not a good environment to work in.
On the same note here. It's quite interesting what women are quick to attribute any negative behaviour or feeling against them as a sexism and maybe this is a result of some popular culture behaviour.
The deliberate irony is that contrary to the servicemen's belief that rock stars live a life of ease, the life of a musician can be grueling. You have to spend years mastering your instrument(s) and then win the record-deal lottery; after which your time is pretty much divided between being in the studio recording, on tour performing and promoting the album on a round-the-clock schedule, and with the rise of MTV shooting music videos. It's no wonder rock stars are prone to hedonism; they probably think they have to drink deeply of relaxation and pleasure while they have the opportunity, in order to reset and be ready for the next album, the next concert tour, the next press event...
They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
Baby, don't you cry for me It's an illusion, just an illusion
BZN - Just An Illusion https://genius.com/Bzn-just-an-illusion-lyrics
Ed Sheeran gives off what i suspect is a very carefully managed vibe of ordinariness. If it's not curated it's very well done.
I assume roughly half of pop stars are male, give or take. Or, given the quote and speaking in generalities, at least roughly half of successful people are male. I’m sure we can all name wildly successful males who garner the same hate she is speaking about.
I don’t think it’s patriarchy, I think it’s simply jealously, insecurity, and judgmental feelings all wrapped up into a big ball of hate.
Or it’s the patriarchy. Just doesn’t make sense for the point trying to be made.
I'd question that assumption. My gut feel says there are way more women pop stars?
I did a very quick bit of research, and maybe we're both wrong.
https://wealthygorilla.com/richest-singers-world/
Splits up as 31 men to 19 women on their top 50 richest singers list. So closer to 2/3rds men that half.
I did realise while counting, that my gut feel wouldn't have included a lot of those men as "pop stars", in retrospect probably because my interpretation of "pop music" leans heavily towards women, and rightly or wrongly I'd label at least half the men on that list as "rock stars" instead (and very few of the women).
"Pop stars" contained a lot of boy/girl bands or solo artists who "don't write their own songs/music" (among many other accusations of not being "real musicians").
Point being, I think it's likely this person is one of the last pop stars.
Actually, as I'm writing this, I realized that probably the music being produced by this person is actually done by a computer. So, maybe she's in the first wave of totally artificial pop stars.
These are some that I like from various albums:
Her main collaborator, co-creator and producer of many years is the artist AG Cook, who founded the label PC Music. He appears often in her music videos and gets mentioned in her lyrics. His own solo work plays a lot with pairing the artificial and the organic, taking the "slick" aesthetics of electronic pop to abrasive extremes and placing it next to vulnerability and gentleness.
This is my favourite piece of his work (both the song and the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH2wQ5speuU
Charli's work or his might not suit your taste! But these are real people doing interesting stuff and playing with the form. It's not fake.
My dad flew 32 missions over Germany. He watched men die. 80% of his cohort did not return. He expected to die and made his peace with it. He told me once that when he returned home, he was struck by the trivial problems people had and obsessed over. After all, they weren't flying a mission tomorrow with near certain death.
He said whenever he felt down, he'd recall the men that never had a chance to grow old, and his problems would melt away.
I can imagine resistance when you are invaded (and still, you need to weigh your real chances). Sending someone to Africa from France to protect some interests there, well not that much.
My comment was general - I am French and we send our army mostly to Africa to secure our sources of various minerals. Or to Asia in the 70s. We did not go to Iraq but that would have been another fight for oil (this time).
Western countries have not been attacked since WW2, but it also have been busy (same as the US)
And I always respond with, yes, not everyone risked death, and they do have a right to complain about rent. You did it because of your own free choice.
Another aspect of this silly stance is that if we always compare with death, nothing ever gets done. It is perfectly reasonable to have everything, and still aim towards other goals. If one is not risking life, you are well justified in complaining about the traffic jam.
Not much. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t voluntarily faced death or consciously experienced the threat of it.
I respect both views. I guess it takes some Janusian thinking skills [1], for me at least, but both perspectives are worth it.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creative-exploration...
I've never wanted to transfer my brain into a machine. Isn't it wonderful to feel the floor under your feet? To smell the air? To taste a steak? To hear the bees? To see the leaves? To hold your partner?
Every day is an opportunity to enjoy your life.
I don't really know what kind of a man I am, because I have never volunteered to face death.
Since when is getting drafted a free choice? Over 60% of US soldiers in WWWI had no choice whatsoever.
All the B-17 crews were volunteers.
I always feel put in a position when I'm in an interview and they ask about handling pressure in the workplace.
The cereal aisle scene from Hurt Locker always did it for me
At best, it allows "celebrities" to hop into any domain of their choosing without any real qualification or having earned their way in that particular field.
That's a strange characterization; he was famous across the country before there was even a concept of "reality TV".
I added it’s a word way to put it. He became more famous generally but he was already known to NY and powerful people.
That's how most people function. People work their asses off so that they can do something fun two weeks a year.
> Another thing about being a pop star is that you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid.
Because even though people clearly have different levels of intelligence, saying this out loud goes against values of the society, and keeping the society together is more important than being truthful. This is one of those things that "normies" understand subconsciously but never articulate, while autists rarely understand because it's never articulated.
> Another thing about being a pop star is that you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid
Pop star gets successful by playing a role of a stupid person. Some people think she's actually stupid. It doesn't take a degree in social sciences to connect the dots.
> I’ve always wondered why someone else’s success triggers such rage and anger
Jealously has existed since the dawn of time. Various cultures have sayings along "nothing makes one happier than someone else's misery".
> the patriarchal society
I've noticed that many people who see themselves as oppressed get tunnel vision and attribute lots of unrelated problems to said oppression. This is one of those subconscious biases that exist because having them gives you massive social advantage because you can get all the pity you want.
> Over recent years some people seem to have developed a connection between fame and moral responsibility that I’ve never really understood.
Rich and famous people have power. They're expected to use that power for good regardless of how they got the power.
I did 100% business travel for a couple of a years, and it was pretty grueling despite mostly being stationed with the same customer for a couple of months. At the Charli XCX level, you may be doing 4 gigs in 4 different cities in 3 days:
I think there has to be a balance, personally. If you spend your life trying to be as interesting as possible, it gets very spiritually depleting. If you do take an honest interest in others, though, the pop-star factor gets multiplied.
So many times I’ve seen fans congregate around a star, struck as they were, to be regaled with that stars new interesting thing, or entertaining acts. Sure, they walk away with the experience. But, whenever the pop star turns it around and takes more of an interest in the other person - wow! The fan factor multiplies significantly. (Incidentally, this works not just for pop stars but also anyone at all, actually.)
That said, I don’t think being a pop star is a particularly healthy activity. The exhaustion levels once the green room door is closed are pretty obvious, and the means of healing from weeks, or months and months of continuous, daily, “being interesting” takes a huge toll.
The pop stars I’ve known, intimately, who have a strong family that just treat them like regular people, are usually the healthiest. The few stars I consider friends, as in we could call each other just to hang out and chat now and then, are really the ones who find this balance early in their life.
I also have a somewhat famous actress in my family, and she is an extremely tiring person to be around, even though she has millions of adoring fans, because there is a continual vibe of being as interesting as possible, no matter the circumstances, and this is exhausting for those of us who live with her on a regular basis. Inter-family gossip always takes note of her attention levels.
But even regular people try too hard to be interesting sometimes. Attention is a currency in our culture; its too often traded poorly.
2025 example: Chappell Roan - I have no idea if she is genuine or is this a very cleverly manufactured brand. Outbursts at fans, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc.
Needless to say, the pop industry is all about creating a facsimile of a thing, if not the thing itself. You're not buying bread from these stars - you're buying a picture of life.
Sure, any public figure will be the target of hatred, negative projection, ridicule. And doubtless that's doubly true for female celebrities. But much of this is driven by envy - envy fuelled by the gilded age level of inequality we're currently experiencing. By the performative nature of conspicuous consumption by pop stars. By their ubiquity and elevation to celestial rather than mere celebrity status.
There's another factor she fails to recognise. Charlie XCX's music is woeful. 'Pop' in the sense of ephemeral, unoriginal, commercial, rather than merely popular. That, combined with her pretension to art makes her vast wealth and celebrity irksome in a way that the success of more original, avant garde or obviously 'artistic' musicians from David Bowie to Imogen Heap is not.
It's as much a part of being human as love or work or dance or any other culturally universal meaningful activity. And making art is significantly more important for our personal development and wellbeing than consuming entertainment.
> We all want some sort of excitement or maybe magic, and these superstars give it to us.
You're not describing magic, you're describing succour. The avoidance of pain. It's not worthless by any means, but it's low down on the pyramid of needs. It's a testament to the diminished expectations and value inversions of our culture that we misperceive fluff as worthwhile, and sincere creative expression as 'taking yourself too seriously'.
I really don’t see this. Female singers seem to be enjoying about as much freedom to do and act in whatever way they please as it’s possible without basically letting them get away with criminal behavior… and even then many openly talk about doing drugs and other stuff that would get anyone else in trouble. Is it possible I am blind to some patriarchal society traits that make us “hate” women and she’s right about that?? If not, why some women still believe that??
Look at top 20 male and female popular artists on Spotify and try to think how many of them are agreeable and objectively good looking.
https://kworb.net/spotify/listeners.html
I don't know know if this answers your question. I also might have a huge blind spot, open to talking about this.
It just looks like pretty people are in general a lot more successful, which is unsurprising. The attempt to apply a sexist lens to it is a bit tortured.
the difference is even bigger when I look at agreeability - this is more difficult to measure.
Female privilege can be used to bend men to a woman's will. It's kind of like a resource curse like oil exports. You can cheaply import anything and pay for it by exporting oil. This means your country doesn't have to develop independent production, which makes it dependent on the imports of another country. When things are going wrong internally, you can always point at an external locust of power. The problem is that your trade partners are no longer exporting their products to you and they obviously know that this will hurt your country. They are making a calculated decision against you. You are powerless and it's because the other countries have been hoarding/accumulating power and are using this power to keep you powerless. The classic communist excuse that it's the capitalist sanctions that are the problem.
As I said, the problem is a lack of an internal locust of control. The externalisation, no matter how convincing, is a way to distract from the actual problem. The fact that there are gender specific boogiemen doesn't really change anything.
Normal people despise being lectured by celebrities about social or political issues.
Edit: Actually that link is incomplete, this is also important: https://youtu.be/YJEvZHN9E6s
There’s nothing in there that I couldn’t capture with a very basic imagination.
While I appreciate how women face misogyny, we have made great progress where women are showing better progression than men in income and career achievement. I am a father to a young woman and feel our social group is full of very successful and inspiring women that we all appreciate to be around.
The author does women a disservice, instead of being inspiring with her climb to success, she’s venting that the world is just not good enough.
To become a pop star comes from pure luck and what is marketable in the moment. For this case, the observations are more of a cliche than anything interesting.
I see a lot of other figures in pop culture echo this sentiment. The need to downplay the effort involved because the payoff is disproportionate to the effort/payoff ratio of most other jobs. In a job where mass public perception dictates success I can see why she would feel the need to include this, but I hope she doesn't truly believe it. A globally recognized chef who gets paid millions for their work isn't downplaying his effort because of how disproportionately valued it is, so neither should a pop star.
> patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all
I'm not totally subscribed to this "patriarchy" narrative. I think any "brainwashing" (or establishment of cultural norms) is from a mix of figures from both genders alike. I don't think it's a symptom of the perceived problem of higher positions mainly holding men in power. I do agree with her assessment with there being people postured to give an excessive amount of hate to women who don't fit their societal expectations vs. men who don't, so I'll give her that.
With that said, this was still a good read. I'm not too familiar with Charli XCX but I have a lot of respect for her using her free time to share her experiences. I hope to see more from her in the future.
The locals there will try to pin which celebrity you are or if they have seen you before on the television.
It's not a 100% thing, maybe a 10% thing, of course.
But the more remote you are, the higher the hit rate.
It's because they know they are remote and off the paths, so they think that the only reason that an American is there is because they are filming something. Note this doesn't work with French speaking areas.
Is this limited to females or even those in pop? I think any star is at risk here. I'd argue male athletes are targets at least as often. See: public discourse on Travis Kelce.
It happened from time to time that people recognized me when at the groceries or some other place. I always had found that very awkward. These people have an image of you, they know a bit about you, they like you but on the other hand you absolutely don't know them. I did my best to be welcoming and had genuine interest in who they were but the asymetry was very awkward to me.
Also, people close to your friends also know you are "on tv" and then you can feel they look at you differently. It's subtle (after all, I was just a verrrrrrrrrryy minor figure) but it's there.
But what I've learned a lot is that once you see the TV and some famous people from the inside, you realize that they are much more normal than what you thought. Sure they've got some talent you sure don't have, but for the rest they're human: some are cool, some are not, some funny some boring, etc.
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