Generic Media Puff Piece for a Musical Performer

Radio/Media 33 Comments


Tiny raindrops make magical little prisms on my windshield as I frustratingly attempt to parallel park in a gentrifying portion of East Nashville. Luckily, it’s not raining too hard, and my learner’s permit training finally kicks in as I squeeze into an available spot, putting me right on time for my anticipated interview with a musical performer.

I dart into the coffee shop with quaffs of fair trade aroma tickling and enticing the inner membranes of my nose as I scan the booths and tables searching for my interview subject—the specificity of my observances, and the boiler plate pseudo poetic opening of my article signaling to readers they’re in store for a painstakingly ornate, subservient, and obsequious puff piece that sings the praises of a music artist without any scrutiny, cynicism, let alone objectivity, as I lavishly swab my tongue square across their ass.

“I really hate American consumerism,” the artist barks, and I interject this non sequitur quote early into the piece to signal to my target demographic that they can be comfortable continuing because the article will affirm their world views, and they’ll be in familiar company for the five to seven minute read. Though this feature-length article is found in a music publication, this really is more of a lifestyle piece meant to indulge the superiority complex of the interviewer, the interviewee, and the audience.

The artist and I don’t really even talk about music except in the abstract. Instrumentation, technique, gear, process, none of this stuff is broached. Maybe there are some passing notions about song inspirations or influences from the past. But ultimately, this has nothing to do with music. It’s an exercise in establishing that some people matter, and some people don’t. And the subject of the interview, they most certainly matter. Their lives are more special. Their opinions are more important and valid because they possess some level of fame. They deserve to be selected out of the crowd of humanity, and feted.

And even though the focus is on the personal life of the performer as opposed to the professional one, there won’t be any talk about the string of ex-wives, the addiction issues, the clear anger and ego problems, or even the potential arrests and or sexual harassment/rape allegations. All of this stuff will either be completely swept under the rug—if it wasn’t previously negotiated as being out-of-bounds in the interview—or it’s simply inferred to in passing while praising the performer’s perseverance and overcoming of adversities.

“I’ve pursued a lot of personal growth as a human over the last few years, and pushed my ego aside,” the artist assures during the discussion.

But never mind the tough questions that deserve to be asked. Instead, the only point of this interview feature is to flatter the performer, if the questions aren’t predetermined before the interview even transpires, and a positive profile guaranteed to the performer’s team in exchange for “exclusive” access to them, which will also include a sycophantic photo shoot for the artist who professes to be completely above image, marketing, or any commercial concerns.

“In the end, I just want to help people,” is the quote chosen to conclude the story, as if this bromide is in any way insightful, or even to be believed since the entire interview process has been nothing more than a self-serving ego stroke, and an embarrassment of “journalism,” executed for the purpose of sowing social capital through hero worship and embellishment.

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