From my personal blog, here’s a good example of how NOT to be a popstar - by squandering your talent and personality. I think Gaga followed that path momentarily with parts of The Fame, but she’s been on the right track long enough.
Jay Sean - Me Against Myself
Lately, I’ve been listening to, and thinking about pop music a lot - and with it, the fact that so few pop artists start out great. As much as I love the latest albums by, say, Fall Out Boy and Rihanna, there’s much more to pop than melody - I can barely listen to their early output simply because it’s bereft of the artistry that makes them great. There’s no better argument for the organic nature of pop than the fact that even the Beatles had to grow into their genius.
Though hating on Justin Bieber is now so cool as to be meaningless, I can see in him the roots of something deeper. He’s objectively talented - and though I have no love for the marketing-over-talent Baby etc., I’ll gladly say “I told you so” to the kneejerk masses in a few years’ time.
Which brings me to Jay Sean, one of the least likeable - least anything - popstars in recent memory. The sappy, contrived Down resembles Chris Brown with a lobotomy - in its inescapable transatlantic crossover success, Cash Money seem to have sold the pure idea of the sensitive, romantic man as reassurance to the masses; romantic cliché served on a cafeteria platter, with nothing of the little, personal details that truly make us fall in love with another person.
Then I heard Me Against Myself - and I’ve honestly never been more shocked by an artist’s prior talent in my entire life.
Me Against Myself, the title track of Jay Sean’s fairly underground 2004 debut, has a concept to make Eminem jealous - a 3-minute, no-chorus battle between his rapper and singer personas. His raw talent and personality is stunning - the rapping in his native British accent as nimble as any 21st-century rapper, his R&B singing as melodic and nuanced as Justin Timberlake. But the lyrics, hilarious throughout, are even more unique - the (other-)self-deprecating rapper hurls every possible criticism, whilst the singer confidently articulates the difficulty of walking the line between his ambitions for fame and artistic integrity. It’s an internal dialogue many artists go through - but airing it in public is both fascinating and brave, and a powerful defense against accusations of selling out.
He presents part of Me Against Myself at the end of his video for Eyes on You, from 3:17 onwards, depicting the singer as the clear winner, with the audience’s (metaphor for the public’s?) support. But that’s problematic - in the full song, the singer’s short final response feels like an afterthought, and with the benefit of hindsight, it’s the rapper who has the greater attitude and charisma. The singer’s defense is reasonable, but it doesn’t even apply to post-Down Jay Sean, his personality so sanded-down he’s ditched his British accent in favour of sounding like an emasculated, auto-tuned puppy. Even his skin colour’s lighter - and yes, back then he’d marketed himself as a distinctly Indian popstar in the British/Asian markets, but really?!
For the most part, I think the concept of “selling out” is a rockist-perpetuated myth - even in questionable cases like Metallica and Weezer, their commerciality stemmed from artistic choice, and good music did come of it. But Jay Sean may be the single purest, most contrived example of commercial desperation I’ve ever seen.
So pure vocal talent may not be a prerequisite for good pop music, but for the aspiring popstar, nothing is more important than personality. Jay Sean merely has a target market without a unique marketing angle. Maybe he’s trying to establish a commercial presence before revealing his abilities - but why play dumb in a world that wants Lady Gaga-sized ambition? In fact, Me Against Myself is a better song than anything Lady Gaga wrote prior to 2009!
The signs don’t look good. 2012 (It Ain’t the End), the first single from his upcoming album Freeze Time, is more of the same generic sound that’ll date well before the year arrives, and, unlike the future/present/past-tense swap Prince’s classic 1999 has undergone, its concept is about as enduring as Y2K Bug (It Ain’t the End). Nicki Minaj demolishes him in her usual effortless style, but it’s not true proof of her overwhelming talent - knowing what Jay Sean’s capable of, it’s outright depressing.
By oversizing her personality, Nicki Minaj’s developed the strongest of cult followings. Even if she doesn’t have a Bad Romance-sized event song to indicate her popstar ascendancy, her debut Pink Friday is guaranteed to hit #1 in November, and (hopefully) establish her for years to come.
By downplaying his personality, Jay Sean’s had the most successful song in the U.S. by a British male since Elton John’s Candle in the Wind 1997, spending two weeks at #1. Comparatively, his 2009 album All or Nothing peaked at a mere #37 on the Billboard 200. His problem’s obvious - really, who gives enough of a shit to buy an album by someone as talentless and indistinguishable as Jay Sean?
My necessarily over-the-top plea to Jay Sean (and really, anyone who wants to make it big) is this: A few of us may know the truth about you as a person, but what’s no longer on display may as well not exist. So great, you have a platform for now - use it for good. Three minutes can change the whole world’s opinion of you into respect - it changed mine. If you really have had a lobotomy, let us know! Otherwise, I ask, for your benefit as much as everyone else’s: will the real Jay Sean please stand up? We know you’re in there somewhere.
