Their CV's couldn't be more similar. Teenage superstars with that decade's biggest boy band. Became the breakout solo star of the group with a series of incendiary singles, and a quick succession of albums, each one bigger than the last. Live, they present a stripped down setup featuring the band, the singer, and not much else. No dancers, elaborate stage decorations, or video screen distractions. The shows are driven by the singers incredible charisma, and their rare and innate ability to seem larger than life while also forging a personal connection with everyone in the audience.
Robbie didn't, or couldn't break into the American market. In the UK and Europe he was a superstar, one of the top two or three selling artists at his peak, setting records for fastest ticket sales for his concert tours. He moved to the US. It didn't help him break the market.
Nobody books fifteen nights at MSG as a trial experiment. They do it because the demand is there. Except that this level of demand is virtually unprecedented. And now he's doing it again on the west coast!
During their prime, Take That's songs were unknown in North America. I would read about them in the NME or Select, who weren't in the business of covering boy bands but Take That were too dominant of a cultural force to ignore. Except that I had no way of hearing the songs. The indie shops I frequented weren't importing UK boy band records. The big chains weren't selling their records, not without regular airplay and live tours. Only "Back For Good" got regular play, but the band had chosen to split up by that point. When Robbie began his solo career, nobody in America knew who he was.
You can't play down the role of social media and streaming services in helping to break Harry Styles. One Direction were worldwide stars, even to audiences who had never watched the episodes of X-Factor that birthed them. Downloading or streaming their music can be done instantly. Styles was already a familiar name. Twenty years ago, many people predicted the death of the monoculture. They said a Michael Jackson type of megastar would never come around again, the music business was too fragmented. There were so many disparate ways to discover music and such a massive proliferation of artists that we, as a culture, would never agree on anyone ever again. The opposite has happened. Megastars like Harry Styles, Adele, and Taylor Swift have never been bigger. The echo chamber of social media can create a world famous artist in ways that the 80's generation of artists couldn't have dreamed of.
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