MYTHMAKING

THE BACKBONE OF ALL POP SUCCESS

For a manager, making sure there’s a suitable story around the artist is one of the first jobs. Some artists haven’t a clue - they prefer to think it’s all down to the music. Others understand it at once and grab every opportunity. When Bob Dylan first signed to CBS, he was sent to see the PR man, who asked, “How did you come to New York?”

Dylan had arrived in a friend’s ’57 Chevy, but he said he’d hidden in a freight train. The PR guy chose not to check. And the Dylan myth began.

Marc Bolan was brilliant at it too. When he first came to see me, he was writing poetry and dressed like a Dickensian urchin. A great image – but not one we could sell. Eighteen months later he was Ravi Shankar, sitting on a rug, playing acoustic guitar, with joss sticks and a tabla player (well, not really – just Steve Took paying bongos). This was Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was successful, but Marc still felt constrained.

Another eighteen months and he’d changed the name to T. Rex and unleashed himself – electrified and glittered. He became the launch pad for glam rock - from elfin poet to electric demigod — half Elvis, half fairy tale. He sang about dragons and desire and made them sound like the same thing.

The Yardbirds, on the other hand, needed a helping hand. They had trouble keeping a guitarist. They went through three in two years — Clapton, Beck and Page — so the myth we grew around them was “the great guitar group.” In truth, the essential sound of the group was the voice of their singer, Keith Relf. But the myth said otherwise, and it’s the myth that keeps the name alive.

Most managers understand instinctively that myth is pop’s oxygen. To begin with Colonel Parker built a myth of accessibility around Elvis - just an ordinary guy. But as movies became more important than music, he morphed him into the King of Graceland – rock’n’roll royalty. “You don’t sell the steak,” Parker said, “you sell the sizzle.”

Tony Defries refined the idea for the age of artifice. He wrapped David Bowie in a shimmer of invention and distance. “David Bowie doesn’t exist,” Defries said in an interview, “he’s whoever we need him to be next.” From Ziggy Stardust, to Young American to The Man Who Fell to Earth - Bowie described it as, “Creating myth faster than I could live it.”

In the 80s, Wham! spoke a different language entirely. Ambition hidden behind smiles and suntans — lifestyle with an exclamation mark.

Critic Paul Morley sneered at the group’s Club Tropicana imagery. “You’re banal,” he told George in an interview.

George wasn’t fazed. “But people are banal,” he replied. “Their lives are boring and they just try to get through it as enjoyably as possible.”

He was right to defend Wham!’s youthful hedonism – the myth still continues today. He then built two subsequent myths. First as a leather-clad rock star. Then as a gay icon.

These transformations are born from the understanding that music alone isn’t enough. It needs a frame. You can record the perfect album, but the myth gives it its meaning. “You’ve got to give people the dream,” Mick Jagger explained.

That’s why “authenticity” is such a red herring in pop. No artist is ever just themselves. They’re the edited version — the remix of a person. What gets left out is as important as what remains. The manager’s task, or the PR’s, is to know which truths are useful and which will ruin the story. Tom Robinson said, “You’re not hiding the artist’s flaws; on the contrary, their fans want them to have some. But you have to decide which ones they’ll feel empathy with.”

Even in the social-media age, when stars insist they run everything themselves, mythmaking still has to be managed. New artists study the old tricks and update them. Lady Gaga brought in Troy Carter, a manager who came from the world of hip-hop. It wasn’t just business; it was a political gesture — white avant pop aligning itself with Black management, art-school performance meeting hip-hop hustle.

Her producer Vincent Herbert said, “People are still trying to figure it out.” Which of course was exactly the point.

Jay-Z’s team built myth through achievement — the rapper as billionaire entrepreneur. Harry Styles did it through control — every appearance casual, every gesture rehearsed – charming yet impenetrable. His career run like a designer brand.

Eventually, of course, every artist grows restless with the story they’ve created. They dismiss their manager, announce a deeply personal solo album, and talk about finally being real. It’s an old ritual — the shedding of skin.

In fact, it’s just another act. Bowie did it a dozen times, and his greatest myth became his ability to change sub-myths so often. He always knew he was playing a part.

Most artists don’t. They only realise it afterwards, when the myth refuses to die. Myths are stubborn things and usually outlive the artists themselves. They’re what turn musicians into cultural furniture. Elvis will always be the King, no matter how many documentaries explain he wasn’t. Michael Jackson will always be the eternal child, because the myth of platonic innocence is too ingrained to be killed by scandal.

But mythmaking isn’t deception. It’s translation. It’s the way a disorganised human life can be edited into something millions of strangers feel part of. It doesn’t matter if the story is simplified, or polished, or even totally invented. If it connects, it becomes real.

Pop isn’t truth; it’s resonance.

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