The Era of Pop Star Mall Tours | Internet Analysis
hello my dudes so I saw this Tick Tock of Ashley Simpson performing in a Walmart to an audience of what looks like five kids and I had to dive in I needed to learn more about this the Pop Star Mall tour in case you have no idea what a maltor is basically it is a free public performance right in the middle of an indoor shopping mall imagine you're walking along gonna get a pretzel and you hear singing now of course busking is a thing it's very common for people to sing in public places to try to get attention tips or gain an audience cue that Meme of Halsey singing in a mall time for me you're already or the classic Walmart yodeling kid now as fascinating as those instances are that is not what this video is about we are talking about your record label sending you to at least a handful of malls across the U.S we're talking Cincinnati Ohio we're talking Paramus New Jersey you are going to meet those teens and tweens where they are or at least where they were until the death of Mals I wanted to cover this topic because one I love discourse about the role of shopping malls in society and two I love the wonderful Nostalgia of 90s and early 2000s pop stars consider this format a kind of Wikipedia surfing this is what it's like in my brain because I am addicted to Googling everything once something crosses my mind I have to spend the next few hours hopping from tab to tab memorizing random facts as if they're gonna pop up on this week's trivia it's a blessing and a curse and if you saw my last video which was all about my neurotic self-conscious video making process I'm trying to shake that off a little bit so if you're wondering right now what is the point of this video to Tiffany the point is I had an interest I wanted to Google that's it thank you enjoy and also cheers to me for trying to avoid copyright strikes all over this video before we continue this portion of today's video is sponsored by Peach and Lily Peach and Lily offers Korean beauty and skin care 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dare I say plump and fresh again I am not a pro I don't want an overly complicated scary skincare routine so I love that these products are very gentle yet effective and so easy to use if you are looking to try out some new skincare or beauty products soon I highly recommend Peach and Lily you can use my link and promo code in the description okay so let's dive in we're going back to the 80s baby we have to start with the story of Tiffany not me this girly Tiffany just Tiffany is often credited with popularizing the maltor concept I'm sure there were probably some other people who maybe had performed in a mall at one point or another but her tour really brought the concept to the mainstream so this is a mini version of her life story Tiffany Renee Darwish born October 2nd 1971 a fellow Libra from an early age she loved to sing loved to perform by the time she was nine Tiffany was earning money as a professional singer when she was 14 in 1985 she made it to Second Place on the talent show Star Search soon after she signed a management deal with George Tobin and got an MCA record deal her debut album Tiffany was released in 1987 but her first single didn't really land everyone was like hmm what do we do with this teenage singer she's not gonna fit in at the clubs Tobin thought of an idea let's send her to the mall Tiffany will be singing to pre-recorded music tracks to promote a new album and generate a following her manager is betting that this marketing spin will be a hit Brad Schmidt said we wanted to take her where her peer group hangs out all summer long America's playgrounds the malls so for a little tangent why the mall in the U.S and many other places indoor shopping malls have been dying for a while now but for many decades malls were the place to hang out especially for young people the mall oh my God I love them all there was Mall culture teenagers were called Mall Rats for just hanging around the mall at all times it was the default place to meet up with friends Window Shop try on clothes even if you weren't spending money eat at the food court Chill by the fountain people watch maybe your mom had an arcade a bowling alley or a movie theater but it wasn't just for young people indoor malls are great for all ages and they're especially useful during extreme weather you can still get your steps in just strolling around the perfectly temperature controlled Mall malls have functioned as a third place especially for those living in the suburbs a third place is basically a community Hub it's not home it's not work it's the third place it's somewhere to hang out in public to chill to socialize so these could be malls libraries coffee shops Etc and of course much can be said about malls being a consumerist hellscape of capitalism a car Centric mess with an endless expanse of parking lots and those critiques are extremely valid but in researching this video I have felt a lot of nostalgia for Mall culture even though I personally spent my teenage years at our outdoor local Town Center the mall still felt special and exciting to me throughout my childhood and it was a major part of the media I consumed especially about what it means to be a teenager going to the mall with a couple dollars in your pocket the freedom to meet up with your girlies and watch your crush from afar anyway I'm trying to stop myself from writing an entire dissertation on malls because I don't want this video to go completely off the rails so let's get back to it and thus Tiffany's iconic Mall tour was born it has an incredible Name by the way the beautiful you celebrating the good life shopping mall tour 87. so at this point she is 15 years old she performs three 20-minute sets at each stop unsurprisingly at the start of the tour she's kind of flopping she's just a random girl singing in the middle of the mall to Tiffany said at the first few stops she would only have a handful of people come by to listen from one weekend to the other you never knew what to expect because one week and you'd be in a mall and you'd sit up for the entire weekend and throughout the weekend maybe you'd only gather 10 people 10.
during the tour though her next song begins to get popular her second single is I Think We're Alone Now it's a cover of the 1967 song originally by Tommy James and the schindels I Think We're Alone Now it doesn't seem to be anyone around I just realized I don't think I've ever watched the entire music video I like obviously that they include real footage from the mall tour that's cute that's lovely but the rest of it there's like six different concepts look at all these cool video effects they just said let's just put a little bit of everything in this let's get a couple background dancers for a scene foreign November of that year it becomes a hit it's number one baby so by the end of the mall tour her shows were attracting swarms of fans so what are the other benefits of marketing in a mall what is the mall tour promotional strategy is this actually a good business move Sheridan noted the mall wasn't just a Marketplace for consumers but also a Marketplace for producers where else could you find a highly concentrated area of diverse demographics to test out your latest marketing campaign with these Mall tours the corporate sponsors get some attention the mall enjoys more Shoppers for kids and parents it's just pretty convenient to combine a shopping trip with a free concert plus product demonstrations have existed for a long time in malls here's a little fashion show here's a cooking showcase and you can purchase any of these lovely items right here in the mall so in this instance the pop star is also a product there they are demonstrating themselves as a a commodity you can go to the record store and buy their album check out those stores so you can buy a similar outfit and look like them according to the record labels who used this strategy they called it a very symbiotic relationship between the artists and the mall and the management so why did Tiffany and this song work I do think the mall tour itself is just kind of a gimmick it's an interesting strategy and there was a fair bit of news coverage about it which helped to promote Tiffany but I don't think it was just the mall tour that like caused this flame to spark I think Tiffany was just in the right place at the right time when young audiences were looking for someone closer to their age to look up to today obviously seeing a solo teenage artist have a number one song or a number one album is pretty common but from what I've seen back in the late 80s this concept was pretty new the whole teen pop star really took off during the 90s and early 2000s what Tobin and Schmidt understood good and nobody else in the record business seemed to realize is that millions of young and pre-teen girls who stalk the nation's shopping malls had no role model younger than Madonna who at the time was 29. the number one says Tiffany herself was part of a whole new wave of bubble gum pop kids who were aggressively marketed to America's teenage and preaching kids their own generational cohort so at the same time there was another teen star on the rise Debbie Gibson so of course the media created this fake rivalry between them do you hate that other girl who's like totally your competition and both girls were like no spoiler they've been friends for decades now anyway aside from just being a teenager what was Tiffany's appeal a commenter on one of these articles said she was the girl next door non-threatening glamor-free and relatable she hung out in shopping malls again I know a relatable teen being popular sounds like the most obvious thing ever but apparently it was a big deal Tiffany thought her image was pretty laid back she described herself as real casual my image is jeans an oversized sweatshirt t-shirt a pair of boots or sneakers very simple and that's what I feel comfortable in even Tiffany was well aware at the time that having a Down to Earth relatable image was very important to her branding she knew that her fans could dress like her her style was affordable and accessible unlike the more Glam or luxurious celebrities oh she's just a she's a very talented singer I think she sounds like a young Stevie Nicks I love that type of sound I don't know I just think she's good Tiffany was setting records according to billboard magazine Tiffany was the youngest female artist to earn a number one album and also the youngest to have two back-to-back number one singles let's talk about the manufactured teen pop star because I think Tiffany is an early example of this in recent years Tiffany had said she doesn't like being called manufactured she doesn't agree with that label and I get it because she's definitely not like an industry plant she isn't a nepo baby so I don't think people mean it in that way she was a teenager who could sing so she was talented but the manufactured side is I guess in the way that her manager George Tobin molded her and you know he handled all the music all the marketing all the pr moves she even said it herself she said Tiffany is the voice the songs are George Tobin and the arrangements are George Tobin all the production values are George Tobin but overall in Reading lots of articles about her and watching a lot of interviews I'm just reminded of the tragedies of child Fame even as a younger kid Tiffany loved to sing Love to perform but in order to be marketed to audiences you have to have branding you have to be a product when she was young oh should she be a little country star that didn't really work at 13 they tried to turn her into a little rocker and that wasn't a great fit either in this era when she blew up she seemed to genuinely get to dress in the ways that she wanted and that's great but you cannot be an autonomous Artist as a 15 year old and a 15 year old with a number one album when you are a money making machine a lot of people and businesses are invested in your success they want you to continue to make more money so that they can take some of it and therefore they're going to control what you do one of the darkest parts of child stardom is the fact that so many people are making bank off a child a child's work a child's Talent parents managers agents Executives even early on Tiffany's parents especially her stepfather had a vested interest in her income and mainly the situation was I had a stepfather who kind of looked at my career as a vacation and he went wherever the gigs were well no he kind of thought this will support me for the rest of my life why should I work and I think reality is you never know how long you're going to be in this business and you might need to reinvest in your career so it's important to save your money and that's really what I wanted to do and I was striving for a trust fund and I had been singing from that time when I was nine and I didn't know at the time that I had no bank account until I was about 14 and my mother and my stepfather were divorced and I found out a lot of things that I hadn't I never knew from the Tiffany Wikipedia in 1988 at the peak of her popularity Tiffany was embroiled in a conflict in which Tobin fought her mother and stepfather over control of her career and earnings this led to a court fight in which Tiffany tried to have herself declared an emancipated minor in an interview Tiffany said really what I was striving for was a blocked account that I couldn't touch my money no one could touch my money and I could be assured that it would be there later on in the future for me she said she didn't even necessarily want to be emancipated from her mother but she wanted to guarantee herself more control over her money and her future quote I had to go to that extreme to have any say but it wasn't just her parents during the Emancipation trial Tiffany's mother's contention was that Tobin had too much control of Tiffany's career and earnings that contract called for Tobin to get 50 percent of Tiffany's royalties and a 20 cut for his management duties numbers that are high by industry standards Tiffany had a number one album two number one hit songs her music had generated over 5 million dollars in Revenue a huge chunk of that went straight to George Tobin according to this article she had a trust account that she couldn't touch until she turned 18. it had about half a million dollars in it in the meantime legal fees are mounting attorneys in this case estimate the legal bills had totaled more than 250 thousand dollars when the dust clears both sides agree Tiffany will probably have to pay for all of it it is always tragic to see talented successful kids get taken advantage of by everyone around them everyone that they should be able to trust to have their best interests at heart so Tiffany did not stay at the top of the charts for very long she really had a year or two of her Peak and then her career kind of declined she has been able to maintain a music career her entire life she's released many albums she's continued touring she's done Nostalgia tours with other 80s pop icons plus some celebrity reality TV shows she looks like she's been having a pretty fun time and she's made the most of her hit songs and Hit album and occasionally Tiffany will return to do a show at a mall For Old Times Sake so continuing on the mall tour promotional strategy caught on and a lot of young performers did this circuit some were successful they got lucky and their music got popular and others have faded Back Into Obscurity initially when I was researching I just wanted to be able to share a lot of examples of different strategies different Mall tours I found that some people or groups went on Mall tours not to perform but more so to do q and A's and sign autographs there were many honorable mentions some featured here in pictures and also honestly it was kind of hard to research this because a lot of these Mall tours were very small and relatively insignificant there wasn't a lot of media coverage and if there wasn't any footage re-uploaded anywhere it's hard for me to learn more about the essence of the mall tour so with that I just decided to highlight a handful of maltors in this video but if you remember any or know of any other good examples let me know so next we have the iconic Britney Spears and her L'Oreal hair zone maltore 1998. so this is a decade after Tiffany's maltore and interestingly I found a few parallels between both of their early careers Brittany also performed throughout her childhood and she was also on Star Search but honestly who wasn't look at any star from the 90s 2000s that everyone was on Star Search in Britney's early teen years apparently three record labels rejected her arguing audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls and there wasn't going to be another Madonna Another Debbie Gibson or another Tiffany we'll see about that so Brittany's management had a similar promotion strategy let's do a mall tour to promote your upcoming debut album at this point Britney is 16 years old she's on the mall tour from June to August 1998.
absolutely killing it by the way classic Britney performances then she goes goes to open for and sync on tour her album gets released in January 1999. um baby one more time ever heard of it then she has to go back to finish the mall tour with a number one song she's going back to the mall and I think that's the wildest part watching these videos thank you starting a dinky little Mall tour as an unknown artist and then a few months later your Mall shows are overwhelmed with fans you're the top artist in the country amazing it's so cool to watch these videos because you can see the differences in the crowds and the energy between the starting clip and the end of the tour so yeah I just found it a little interesting um comparing their early careers it's not super surprising because obviously teenage Stars pop stars tend to follow kind of similar paths obviously Tiffany ended up having a different career trajectory and Brittany became a literal icon unfortunately like many child stars Brittany also famously struggled with family and management to control her income career and life overall I found it kind of Bittersweet to watch these old clips when Britney was up and coming on one hand her dreams are about to come true and that's amazing but also we know that she's gonna go through a lot of in the future did I get emotional watching all these old clips maybe and for our last example we jump ahead to 2004 and I'm not changing outfits again because this is already too much but we have one of my faves Miss Avril Lavigne what's up boys so what do you guys want to do today dude you want to crush the mall nice okay I was a huge Avro fan especially in this era the first song I ever performed on stage was complicated at a YMCA concert the talent show calm yourself I fully forgot an entire verse but I loved it and also my first ever real concert was an Avril Lavigne show so she's thoroughly embedded in my childhood brain anyway the live by surprise tour aka the top secret Mall tour was performed at malls in the US and Canada details of each location were not revealed until 48 hours before the event commenced ooh feels like a fun little secret concert like a little hole on the wall come right now they're performing can you believe it they're in a dive bar except it's a mall for children but basically if you were signed up for her fan site you would get an email with the details you have 48 hours to prepare for the show of a lifetime meaning call your friends and figure out whose mom can chaperone and carpool at each stop Avril performed acoustic Renditions of six songs some of her previous hits and some new songs from her latest album under my skin bangers there is some very cute footage of all the excited fans he's real she writes Our Own lyrics and I think she's really cool I heard it on a radio station and I was just like begging my mom to skip school account I think it's awesome because people that can't go see her in the concert just gets come here for free and ultimately I agree I think free performances are always nice though every Mall tour is obviously a marketing Ploy these kinds of appearances can still be very special and meaningful for local fans lastly I want to end by quoting some of this article by Julian Shepherd absolutely roasting our rock chick Avril is not the first person to tour them all she joins a long and sugary procession of Tiffany's Debbie Gibson's instincts Britney's and Mandy Moore's who've hawked their Tunes in American shopping compounds for candy pop stars the mall tour is logical because you're dropping in straight on your fans teens and tweens AKA Americans with buying power but the second you play a gig in a mall all pretense that your music was more than a cog in the Perpetual machinations of capitalism are ground up in the garbage disposal this is a problem in particular for the quote punk rocker Rebel image of Avril when does one realize their art is merely a product when their acoustic version of skater boy gets drowned out by the sound of Jamba Juice blenders that roast I mean again I'm an Avro fan but I loved it we do not need to get into the ishy punk or not discourse but I did like this short piece and I honestly feel like Avril would have agreed she didn't really look like she was enjoying the mall tour very much and that also speaks to kind of the intensity of touring I watched interviews of hers where she said of course she loves to perform her songs but she didn't love the travel she didn't like you know jet setting all over the place and showing up exhausted and running in to perform a few songs and then running away I get that that's pretty hectic but it it's kind of like part of the requirements of being a touring hit pop star anyway I think all of us feel conflicted when we have to do the capitalist things the parts of our jobs that maybe don't fully align with our values existential crisis anyway mostly I laughed because the mall tour is always a bit clunky that's a shared theme throughout all of these videos and everything that I watched is like some of the footage can look super sick and then some of it just looks so dorky because it represents like this random stage in the middle of the mall some kids some parents they don't know who this is what's going on but like imagine man please have your attention the store will be closing in five minutes maltours are weird they were always weird um and I I love them for that so there we go I hope you all enjoyed this weird little mini reflection on Mall tours it's funny because I'm like oh like the kids these days are missing out on Mall tours I never went to a mall tour performance at least not that I recall so it's kind of fascinating in itself that I've become so interested in this thing this cultural Relic that again I was never even a part of it was just like vaguely around but I'm glad that we did this I hope you enjoyed it I do have more random fun facts that I had to cut from the script so I'm probably going to turn that into this month's bonus video on patreon with that thank you to my patrons I have a patreon where I do a monthly bonus video keep you guys updated on what I'm working on extra thank yous to my executive producer tier we have ooh face Eric Danielson freshly London Jackie King Jill Hoffman Julie Leva Kristen Holloman Matthew Gray Megan Collins medcat33 Nicole Louise online DBT skills Sarah kemi Stevie May Tom Walker truffa and vivianola dunn.com thank you for being patrons and thank you again to Peach and Lily for sponsoring this video check out the link and promo code in the description that is all for today stay tuned for future internet analysis videos if you didn't see my last video it's a doozy if you want to see more of what goes on in this brain of mine watch this video about how video essays have kind of melted my brain okay thanks bye thank you
2022-12-18 14:15
