-snip-
But why? It’s easy to understand teenage girls going nuts for a wholesome kid armed with radio hits expertly crafted by top industry songwriters. It's a bit tougher wrapping your head around the particular level of shrieking megafame Bieber has so rapidly attained. He’s not excessively talented: His voice is accurate but thin; his dancing, at best, is competent and rote. At first pass there is nothing dramatically different between the general appearance, musical style, and marketing of Bieber and, say, Jesse McCartney, one recent blip on a lengthy lineage of teen pop predecessors that never even so much as sniffed JB's current stratosphere. So is there a good reason Justin Bieber is this famous?
The company line is that Bieber’s massive success is rooted in the particulars of his YouTube ascendance. The message, as articulated by Never Say Never director Jon M. Chu: “He wasn't chosen by a big corporation; he was chosen by the people, kids at home in their living room who are on the Internet all day long.” Manager Scooter Braun, to the New York Times: “We supplied more content. I said: ‘Justin, sing like there’s no one in the room. But let’s not use expensive cameras.’ We’ll give it to kids, let them do the work, so that they feel like it’s theirs.” And Chu again: “He's kept the relationship a one on one, almost sort of a texting relationship with his fans, through Twitter.”
Is that really it? It's not a novel marketing strategy: Nearly every new artist throws up purportedly impromptu YouTube clips, nearly every new artist tweets excessively. But you could argue that Braun and Bieber have executed it better than most; that the details of their approach to creating the perception of open communication channels with fans, whatever they are, must be, considering the results, cleverer than the rest of the competition. (And, in the same vein, you could argue that the behind-the-scenes machinations of Usher and L.A. Reid — two members of the extended Bieber team who have driven music industry successes for decades — must have been more effective as well). Basically: that, partially, Bieber's success can be attributed to lucking into a team that has embraced the new models and that works harder at, and is smarter about, applying them.
It's true that Braun used some of the same tactics with his previous artist, the rapper Asher Roth. Braun discovered him on the Internet as well, that time on MySpace, and also flew him to Atlanta, where they together worked on establishing industry connections and creating online buzz. And Roth, mostly on the back of the radio hit “I Love College,” was commercially successful.
-snip-
Or, as more colorfully put in this YouTube video by young Belieber Tara: “If you hate Justin Bieber, kill yourself.”
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/why_is_justin_bieber_this_popu.html?imw=Y&f=most-viewed-24h5
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