Without constant exposure, female pop singers can quickly fade

August 23, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Cher never did it. Neither did Beyonce nor Britney.

Katy Perry changes outfits eight times during just one song on her current concert tour.

That may sound excessive, but what concertgoers see when Perry performs “Hot N Cold,” illustrates how hard it is to be a music diva these days. You have to get the attention of the media as often as you can. New hairdo, new tweet, new drama.

Diana Ross, Madonna and Mariah Carey never had it like this.

“When Lady Gaga’s record came out and she was doing TV all over the world, I would say it’s five times more than Madonna did,” said publicist-to-the-stars Liz Rosenberg, who has represented Madonna forever and Cher for the past 12 years. “If they’re not saying ‘You’re overexposed,’ then you’re not doing your job.”

The attention span of fans in this ADD-like pop world demands something new constantly. The attitude of music lovers can be summed up in a song by another vintage diva: Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”

Perry seems to release a new single every five weeks. Jennifer Lopez zoomed up the charts with “On the Floor” in May, then disappeared as soon as “American Idol” went off the air. After three No. 1 up-tempo hits, Rihanna released a so-so ballad, and suddenly Nicki Minaj has replaced her in the hearts of dance-pop fans.

“The appetite is insatiable,” said Rosenberg, just back in New York after a trip to Sturgis, S.D., with client Stevie Nicks.

When Madonna was starting out in the early 1980s, Rosenberg had just a few targets: Rolling Stone, MTV, “Entertainment Tonight,” major newspapers, key radio stations and maybe People magazine. Nowadays, PR involves maintaining a website and Facebook pages, posting regular tweets, singing on TV — morning shows sell albums, late-night shows add cachet — getting plugs on such sites as Perez Hilton and TMZ, scoring magazine features in the likes of Cosmopolitan and InStyle, and walking the red carpet at endless award shows and movie premieres.

Rising R&B star Keri Hilson fondly remembers what it was like to be a fan of Janet Jackson or Whitney Houston and have them disappear between album projects.

“I loved when you missed an artist and when they re-emerged, you saw changes,” Hilson said. “But now you don’t really recognize the changes because you see them every day.”

The only change may be a new look for the next media opportunity.

These days, there are media opportunities around the clock, whether the stars want them or not.

Step out of the house, paparazzi will capture the moment. Go to the convenience store, a fan will snap your photo with a cellphone. Make a scene at a nightclub, someone will post it on YouTube.

Longtime country queen Reba McEntire, who has scored a No. 1 Nashville song in each of the past four decades, knows the landscape isn’t the same anymore.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “You need to be on all the time. No matter where you go, you’re (fair) game. If you’re business-savvy, you’ll look presentable. There’s not a day I walk out of the house without my makeup on and looking decent. We all want press, but we want good press, too.”

Enter what Rosenberg calls the Glam Squad: the team of hairstylist, makeup artist, wardrobe stylist and dresser that’s now part of the retinue of an all-day diva.

Madonna never needed this much attention except on days when she was shooting a video — and that was in the privacy of a soundstage.

“It’s way more extreme than it used to be on the wardrobe part,” Rosenberg said. Some divas work directly with couture designers; some have stylists who pick out their clothes.

Some, including Dolly Parton, even have assistants who send out tweets for them.

Any way you look at it, “fans expect much more,” Rosenberg says. “They used to just expect a great record and maybe a little press.”