'The Idol's' Pop Chart Implosion
Why the Depp x Abel x HBO turducken couldn't cook up a hit.
Even if you don’t stan The Idol — and it seems most people don’t — you’ve at least heard about HBO’s controversial show staring Lily-Rose Depp as a pop ingenue looking to reignite a fledgling career and The Weeknd as a svengali-slash-cult-leader looking to take over her life.
You’ve also maybe heard at least one of the new Weeknd songs from the show, possibly “Double Fantasy” featuring Future, which hit #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 last month, or “Popular” with Playboi Carti and Madonna, which is currently #43. The latter song has yet to appear in the show (three episodes are left), and the former is a subtle music cue in episode 2 that is easy to miss.
Less forgettable from a viewer’s perspective (guilty!) is “World Class Sinner/I’m A Freak,” a song with Depp on vocals that gets played ad nauseam throughout the series’ first three episodes, and “Family” with Suzanna Son, which (spoiler alert) repeats its chorus until certain characters are literally spellbound.
“Family” is the better of the two tunes in the sense that sad girl piano ballads > tarted-up pop tunes (at least in this household). But “WCS/IAF” is the more interesting song in that it serves the narrative function of being a lightweight pop confection hated by its fictional creator (Depp as Jocelyn). Yet, it soundtracks not one but two extended choreographed scenes in the first two episodes (with a callback in E3). That’s a lot of screen time for a song that is supposed to be an embarrassment (according to the main characters). Meanwhile, everyone in Jocelyn’s old non-cult (but still cult-like) entourage is calling the song a hit. Is the viewer to believe them? Perhaps this confusion (is the song supposed to be good?) is why it has failed to thrive on streaming. As of this writing, “WCS/IAF” has only 1/10th the plays as “Double Fantasy.” It’s a flop.
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The intermingling of song and screen has existed since the invention of film and phonograph. Depp’s paternal lineage reminds us of how common these things are. Her mother is French singer-cum-model-cum-actress Vanessa Paradis, who in the 1990s was cosigned by Gerard Depardieu, Karl Lagerfeld and Lenny Kravitz (the pair’s 1992 collaboration is an all-time Phil Spector homage.)
Depp’s father is, of course, Johnny Depp, the most rockstar of A-list actors in history (even if his actual discography is limited to oddity collaborations with party pals like Alice Cooper, Jeff Beck and Gibby Hanes of the Butthole Surfers).
With that pedigree, plus a respectable acting and modeling career already underway, it seemed all one had to do to make Lily-Rose Depp a pop star was hand her a mic. She dueted with fellow singer-actress Harley Quinn on two tunes from the 2016 Kevin Smith film, Yoga Hosers, but was poised to truly break out with The Idol. Her acting is regarded as one of the few highlights of the show, but the TV popstar-to-actual popstar manifestation just ain’t happening — yet.
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Records from film and TV have dominated popular culture for as long as the two technologies have existed. At various points during the 40s and 50s, the soundtracks to Oklaholm!, My Fair Lady and South Pacific all held the title of top-selling album of all time.
Rock & roll rocketed to popularity with the first snare hits of “Rock Around the Clock” in the opening scene of 1955’s Blackboard Jungle. Beatlemania reached its frenzied peak with the release of A Hard Days Night in 1964. The 1969 Woodstock Festival didn’t become Woodstock the global phenomenon until the film grossed $50M ($400M in 2023 dollars) in 1970.
Disco hit its commercial and critical peak with the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever — one of only nine albums in history to be certified more than 40x platinum. That set the stage for ’80s megahits like Fame, Footloose and Flashdance. Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard soundtrack was the top-selling album of the entire 1990s. For the entire pre-Napster era, if you were a music mogul placing bets on blockbuster hits, cross-pollinating with Hollywood was a reliable way to improve your odds.
In the piracy-plagued days of the aughts, as the monoculture began to break apart, music placement in popular TV programs and ubiquitous ad campaigns remained a reliable way of turning a song into a phenomenon. Apple spent a fortune plugging iTunes at the end of shows like The OC and Saturday Night Live while making momentary stars out of Feist and Jet with its iPod ads. In the first 20 years of the 21st century, four of the best-selling albums by year were soundtracks — High School Musical (’06), High School Musical 2 (’07), Frozen (’14) and The Greatest Showman (’18).
With all that historical data, it seemed that a song heavily featured in a zeitgeisty series should chart well. Especially one backed by the confluence of Lily-Rose Depp, The Weeknd and HBO (a turducken of nepo baby-meets-billion stream artist-meets-prestige TV). In that regard, The Idol and its stars are underperforming. A victim of bad PR, mid-music and a TikTok economy that refuses to be controlled by Hollywood.
While writing this, the most popular “sound” on TikTok is a 2019 EDM song, “Monster” by LUM!X & Gabry Ponte which never charted when it was released. In the last week of May, when The Idol debuted, the top slot belonged to Montreal garage rockers The King Khan & BBQ Show whose 2005 song, “Love You So” has more than twice the Spotify streams as “WCS/IAF” but also 99,900% more video placements on TikTok.
The success of a song in 2023 isn’t entirely based on UGC short-form video (trying to make these apples-to-oranges calculations is the job of statisticians much smarter than The Cadence), but any way you peel this banana, the point is, once again, that hit songs aren’t baked following the same recipe as they were in the past.
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TAKEAWAYS
Salient statements from this week’s music news.
1. Niche-Focused Funds Are the Next ‘Natural Step’ in Music Investment
As blockbuster deals run dry, investors a seeking stable returns from niche-specific funds focused on genres like dance music, Latin, TV/film and more.
Takeaway: The primary difference between them and funds like Primary Wave and Hipgnosis, which have institutional and private equity backing, is that their success hinges on a lower cost of entry and therefore presents less risk.
2. After Decades of Independence, Moog Sells Out
Alesis, Akai, and Numark owner InMusic have bought the legendary synth maker.
Takeaway: The overwhelming majority of Moog components and products have historically been sourced and assembled domestically. The company’s press statement seems to assert that will still be true.
3. The Design Studio Behind Iconic Album Covers for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Wings Is the Subject of a New Documentary
The '70s design collective known as, wait for it, Hipgnosis, is the subject of a new film by Anton Corbijn.
Takeaway: The elaborate efforts and resources poured into these productions speak to an industry heyday in the 1960s–70s when bands dominated stadiums, owned private jets, and still had money to spare for a deeply conceptualized album cover.