GOING FROM MUSICIAN TO REALITY TV STAR IS STILL A HUGE CAREER CHANGE
Reality television was once something musicians did as a last resort – either their days at the top of the charts were behind them and it was one final effort to get back in the public eye, or they were a newcomer using the exposure to launch their career. These days, it’s the rare pop star who hasn’t been on reality TV, whether as the star of their own fly-on-the-wall series, a judge on a competition show or a contestant on something like I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! or Dancing with the Stars.
Even though reality TV no longer has the stigma it once did – in fact, it’s an important part of many musicians’ brands – it is still a big step for a singer to shift from playing concerts to appearing on the small screen. For one thing, it makes them and not just their music the focus – what they say, how they spend their time and/or what they are like as a person dominate discussion rather than whether their latest song is any good. Remember when Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey opened up their lives for Newlyweds: Nick and Jess back in 2003? Most people cared more about the funny things Simpson said than her or her husband’s singing.
The Veronicas are the latest musicians to dive into reality TV with The Veronicas: Blood Is
For Life (starts Sun., Nov. 10 at 6pm (AEDT); MTV). The decision by Jess and Lisa Origliasso to star in their own show is an interesting one. Their last No. 1, ‘In My Blood’, was as recent as 2016, and even this year’s top 50 miss ‘Think of Me’, was streamed and downloaded enough to go gold. They also have a number of festivals lined up this summer. In short, it’s not like their music career is struggling.
But every bit of exposure helps, especially when an act is in the 15th year of its career. Although Blood Is For Life wasn’t available for preview, it seems to me that The Veronicas would be perfect candidates for this type of observational show, which comes at a time when they have been making headlines more for what they have been up to onboard that Qantas flight than in the studio. The sisters have always been incredibly candid in their career, and so living their lives on camera shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for them.
What remains to be seen is whether their music career will get sidelined in the process. Advance info about the show suggests we’ll see Jess and Lisa working on music, but the danger with artists who go down the reality TV rabbit hole is that recording becomes a secondary concern. That seems to be the case with many singers turned serial reality TV judges. The Voice regular Delta Goodrem hasn’t released an album since 2016 and has only had one hit since then, 2018’s ‘Think About You’. For Kelly Rowland, it’s been six years since an album and more than a decade since top 10 smash ‘Work’. Guy Sebastian, meanwhile, seems to have mastered the art of juggling reality TV with a stream of new songs. Which category will The Veronicas fall into? •