Did the algorithm kill the pop star? What Chappell Roan, Charli XCX and 'Brat' tell us.

One day my roommate at the time barged into my room and began performing some version of a line dance. Confused, I asked her what she was doing and she informed me that she was doing a dance that had been all over her TikTok For You page.

When she showed me videos of girls donning cowboy boots and "Daisy Duke" shorts, stomping along to “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” by Dasha, I was shocked to be so out of the know.

Ten years ago this interaction would look completely different. We probably would have been listening to the same music and engaging with the same media. But now, it’s like the internet has placed us in separate worlds.

The advent of streaming and social media has fundamentally altered the way we consume and engage with music. Moments of cultural ubiquity seem to be few and far between. We are now beholden to internet algorithms that force us into echo chambers. The culture has been fractured – arguably beyond repair. And the schisms created often prevent the large cultural moments that we can all take part in and share from happening.

This presents a conundrum for the music industry, which has struggled to find footing in the streaming and digital age. With the internet bridging the gap between artist and fan, the hallmarks of the past used to define a “pop star” – or any type of musician in the upper echelons of the industry – are eroding. So much of the artists’ success now is based on measures too fickle and sporadic to replicate, and the definition of mass success itself is getting even murkier.

It’s clear that record label executives are stuck on how to retake the reins in an industry that doesn’t seem to know where it’s heading.

TikTok killed the MTV star?

Monoculture is a “culture dominated by a single element: a prevailing culture marked by homogeneity,” per Merriam-Webster. Think of the pop stars who were once ‒ and still are ‒ cultural icons: Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, etc. They were pillars of cultural hegemony who were larger than life in an era where the limited venues we had (MTV, VH1, BET, "106 & Park") made our world seem smaller. 

Now, monoculture has seemingly flown the coop; the digital age has hatched its eggs. Streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have become the primary ways people consume music. Their algorithm-driven models create hyperpersonalized user experiences from uberspecific Daylists to song and artist recommendations based on data collected from user behavior.

“Spotify knows you in and out. It can present to you a whole bunch of stuff just automatically that they think that you might like that you would not have sought out yourself,” said Rolling Stone reporter Mankaprr Conteh. “What they present to you might be completely different than what they present to your best friend.”

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This specificity, though beneficial for music discovery, makes it harder to grab consumer attention en masse. There's so much being created, yet very little reaches the commercial and cultural peaks of the past.

This oversaturation is a result of how the internet has democratized music. Anyone from anywhere can post a song online and promote it through social media. The success of that, though, is based on opaque algorithms that propel things into virality almost randomly. This is a new frontier for an industry that relies on formulaic paths to success for artists and their music, such as radio, televised performances and daytime/nighttime talk show appearances.

“The industry for a long time has tried to work in the realm of predictability. So that's why they look at social media analytics, streaming numbers, etc.” Conteh said. “What’s popular on the internet changes all the time. The thing that you can’t really predict is what might resonate with people because of pure taste.”

What do Kamala Harris and Charli XCX have in common? 'BRAT.'

When things become popular in certain spheres of the internet, they rarely reach the point of cultural ubiquity. Take, for example, Charli XCX’s album “BRAT.” Since its release, its signature lime-green cover with its slightly blurred typography have taken over my corner of the internet. The album has spawned countless memes and injected phrases into our pop culture lexicon (“brat summer,” “work it out on the remix,” “bumpin’ that”).

When Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden in the presidential race last month, Charli XCX fatefully posted “kamala IS brat” on X, formerly Twitter. Harris’ campaign took advantage of this tongue-in-cheek co-sign to stay relevant with the youths; this led to segments on CNN, CBS and other major news outlets decoding what this whole “brat” thing means for people with mortgages and healthy relationships with social media.

'kamala IS brat':Harris' 'brat summer' has captured Gen Z's attention. It only works if they vote for her.

Even though “BRAT” had entered the public consciousness through mass media platforms, there’s still a certain unknowableness to it. Only those who exist in a specific corner of the internet will be able to fully grasp it. 

“Virality now tends to happen in these very intense silos and very rarely do we get a moment or a person or a song on the album or a piece of work that cuts through every single silo and is waking everybody up,” said Billboard writer Kyle Denis. “Some things make it, but it's so hard to stay at that zenith of pop culture for longer than a week or two at a time – no matter how big you are.”

Chappell Roan is a case study in internet virality

Regardless, successful artists are still breaking through. Chappell Roan is the name on everyone’s lips right now – and rightfully so. A Missouri native, Roan signed with Atlantic Records and released her first single in 2017, but she was dropped in 2020 due to “underperforming” music, according to Vox.

Three years later, she would release her debut record, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.” The album would fail to appear on the charts initially but would prove to be a sleeper hit.

Opening on tour for Olivia Rodrigo and attention garnered through online chatter and viral performance clips would catapult her into the star we recognize now. “Midwest Princess” is sitting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart, just behind Taylor Swift.

Roan has seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including her latest single, “Good Luck, Babe!” at No. 7. 

Roan’s slow burn to success reveals an inconvenient truth about the industry’s refusal to see songs through – that a song is a failure if it doesn’t top the charts immediately. The internet at large has given consumers the power to lift virtually anyone into superstardom as long as they feel connected to the music and the artist, and feel compelled to buy into an artist's rise.

“We're moving past this era where we wanted to relate to the artist. We want to at least feel like we have had a hand in their come-up story, and when people don't come up with their story we can smell the fishiness,” Denis said.

This need for authenticity makes attempts at manufacturing virality – artists creating TikTok dances or songs made specifically for the internet – feel so painfully contrived. The more time we spend online, the more aware we become of tactics artists use to promote their songs. There's no greater crime on the internet than being seen trying.

Want to go be a pop star in 2024? Good luck, babe.

The closing gap between the artist and the public isn’t a net negative, but it goes against the elusive nature of our traditional understandings of pop stardom. Stars are supposed to be larger than life. Social media brings them back to earth a bit. The freedom and power that we as consumers have now to name who can be a pop star has shifted what the term means and all it entails, Denis said. 

In the past," he said, "a label or the industry would tell you who the stars of tomorrow are – and we buy in or they’d flop so badly they put someone else up. But right now, we can kind of make anybody a pop star.”

The model has turned on its head. Instead of labels spending time and money developing artists, they keep their ears to the internet streets, pluck out artists who have built a following online but discard them if their success isn’t immediate enough. The charts seem like a revolving door of hot internet moments – sans the songs boosted by radio play – not a time capsule of stars’ lasting legacies. 

Simply put, the way we engage with music in the present isn't conducive to creating pop stars like those of the past. The industry, and the world, has changed too much. The music industry’s future, and the way we engage with it, can’t be fueled by nostalgia and archaic strictures. Regardless, great music will always be made.

To be a pop star in 2024 is to be connected to audiences in ways we haven’t seen before. And just as consumers have the power to lift people from the internet into stardom, we have the power to bring them back down. 

Kofi Mframa is a columnist and digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network.