If you want to be successful, do you have to dress up?

[xilddx]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhRz2oTTa-c[/media]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wegUjYXIp8M

Edited December 27, 2013 by xilddx

[gjones]

It's all showbiz. Wearing sunglasses at night is in the contract.

My niece has recently got herself a record contract. She's touring the states in Feb and things seem to be going well. Hopefully she'll be a success. The one bit of advice I gave her was to make sure, when journalists interview her, to lie through her teeth about everything. The public don't want to know that she was working in a call centre 6 months ago and that her mum and dad live in a council flat. They want to think that she was brought up by wolves or found, as a baby, in a spaceship buried deep below the Antartic ice, by Russian explorers in 1925.

[Judo Chop]

That was really interesting, he has a lot to say and I agree with him

[Dad3353]

To be meaningful, you'll maybe have to define the signification of 'success'..? In pop music terms, one of the keys is, surely, the term itself: 'show business', and 'pop', derived from 'popular'. No surprises there, surely..? Many are called; few are chosen. It would be strange if all who aspire to 'success' in these terms actually became so. Are there enough concert halls, or TV channels..? I doubt it.

[Dingus]

If you want to be successful do you have to dress up? Yes, in most walks of life you do, in one way or another, but particulaly in show business. That is no great revelation.

Do I believe that the reason that Francis Dunnery ( or Alan Holdsworth, for that matter) isn't more commercially successful is because he refuses to dress up? No , that is complete bollocks. Short of a miracle, regardless of whatever he does now, relatively few people will ever be interested in him or his music.

[xilddx]

To put it in perspective, here's the eponymous video from his new album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRjpTlkmv5w

[tauzero]

Presumably he puts a lot of thought into dressing up so that it looks like he hasn't dressed up. Imagine how many fans he'd lose if he went from being "black T-shirt man" to "white T-shirt man", and becoming "colourful T-shirt man" would completely wreck his career.

[Lozz196]

Showbusiness - which is what music essentially is a part of - means putting on a show, dressing for the part, and playing the role. The same way as being a banker or estate agent means wearing a suit. I don`t think you get famous by a look though, you have to have something there that people want to hear, the visuals are part of the entertainment side but without the music to back it up, well yes some have managed it but there has to be something there.

[dincz]

If only the music could speak for itself. Or would that be boring?

[JapanAxe]

I love dressing up. It gives you permission to be a different person.

[Grangur]

In one way he's right. If you're selling any product the punters need to have confidence that they know what they're getting. If One Direction went on stage displaying tattoos, greasy hair and somehow managed to put on a heavy metal act, they could be finished. Their "success" could be over.

If The Rolling Stones went on in "Boy Band" gear, they'd capture the front page of every paper in the country.

[size=4]David Jones proves Mr Dunnery wrong though, or maybe he proves him right too in a perverse way. In the 70s he invented a character and played that character on every album. Yet he re-invented that character on every album. On the other hand maybe his "thing" was that "David Bowie" changed all the time?[/size]

[Dad3353]

[quote name='dincz' timestamp='1388177823' post='2319267']
If only the music could speak for itself. Or would that be boring?
[/quote]

No. That's Schubert.

[seymourfluid]

No.

[thisnameistaken]

Well every job is like that, it's just in most jobs less people are looking at you while you're doing it. You turn up, look the part, and they pay you for it.

I can't fake enjoying music so I have to do a 'proper job'. And I don't have Dunnery's talent either to be Frank.

[discreet]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1388185163' post='2319352']
I don't have Dunnery's talent either to be Frank.
[/quote]

I see what you did there. You'll just have to be Kev instead.

[lurksalot]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1388186566' post='2319371']
I see what you did there. You'll just have to be Kev instead.
[/quote]

So will I

[paulconnolly]

He's been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and shrunk it in the wash. He don't need to do it again

[chrismuzz]

It's like any job, you have a role. Some people create one, some people naturally have that persona. But it's very rare that watching an interview with a famous band/musician will show them exactly as they behave onstage.

[BobVbass]

[quote]Showbusiness - which is what music essentially is a part of - means putting on a show, dressing for the part, and playing the role. The same way as being a banker or estate agent means wearing a suit. I don`t think you get famous by a look though, you have to have something there that people want to hear, the visuals are part of the entertainment side but without the music to back it up, well yes some have managed it but there has to be something there.
[/quote]

Exactly this -people like to see a show if they pay good money (including club owners here) not just some blokes who wandered in off the street

[quote]I love dressing up. It gives you permission to be a different person. [/quote]

Yep -it's brilliant!

Edited December 28, 2013 by BobVbass

[White Cloud]

Define successful.............and how can we know if Francis Dunnery hasn't achieved success as dictated by his own personal definition.

[steve-bbb]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1388174938' post='2319214']
To put it in perspective, here's the eponymous video from his new album.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRjpTlkmv5w[/media]
[/quote]

i like this ... well done NIge

[mrtcat]

Never made us a success although I doubt the dressing up would be enough to polish our musical turd.

[chriswareham]

"Never underestimate the power of standing on stage, dressed in black and holding a guitar." - Attribution unknown

[Woodinblack]

Did you see the 'Gay as pop' program yesterday? When deciding how to sell boy groups such as take that, they had to appeal to the only two groups that bought singles, teenage girls and gay men and dress the part.
Luckily, it is the same image

[SteveK]

Sounds like the ramblings of a man whose phone doesn't ring as often as it used to.