Slaves of celebrity

Kelly Clarkson has a golden future, right? Maybe so. But the "American Idol" winner and her fellow finalists had to sign virtually their entire careers away to the show's producers for one shot at stardom.

By Eric Olsen

Sept. 18, 2002 | Hope, uncertainty, euphoria, disillusionment: This is a familiar career arc for pop stars caught in the manufacturing cogs of the star-making machine, from Ronnie Spector and the Monkees to the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and O-Town.

Will this be the fate of winner Kelly Clarkson and the other finalists of Fox's summer smash "American Idol: The Search for a Superstar"? At first glance, Clarkson would seem to have it made. This week sees the release of her first chart-bound single, "Before Your Love/A Moment Like This." But Clarkson is less an artist, in the old-fashioned sense, than the extruded product of an impersonal manufacturing process.

Clarkson and the other finalists signed an unusually onerous contract with 19 Group, the production company headed by British pop entrepreneur Simon Fuller. These young performers are wrapped up for recording, management and merchandising under the most restrictive terms imaginable: Their careers are literally not their own.

Since 19 and Fox have declined to respond to questions about their contract with Clarkson and the other finalists, or the extent to which they control their careers, perhaps the best place to look is the public record.

Before the Sept. 11 anniversary, the New York Times reported that Clarkson wanted to withdraw from a scheduled appearance singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a commemoration held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Friends and critics had reportedly questioned turning a somber occasion of national mourning into a promotional opportunity. Clarkson was quoted as saying, "I think it is a bad idea ... If anybody thinks I'm trying to market anything, well, that's awful ... I am not going to do it."

In the same Times story, Tom Ennis of 19 Management said that "he would allay Ms. Clarkson's concerns and that she would sing the anthem on Sept. 11." She sang.

Clarkson probably had no choice. According to the version of the contract one entertainment lawyer posted to the Internet, Fuller and his company own the names, likenesses, voices and personal histories of the "Idol" finalists, "in or in connection with" the show, forever. 19 Group can use that material however it wants, even if it's false, embarrassing or damaging.

If contestants reveal anything to anyone about the workings of the show or the contract they signed, they're liable for damages "in excess of $5 million." Their recording, management and merchandising companies, needless to say, are all owned by 19 Group -- a fundamental conflict of interest familiar to anyone who has studied the machinations of the music biz.

For some observers of the business, the "Idol" contract doesn't seem like that big a deal. Industry veteran Bobby Poe, of record label and management company Pop Music Records, argues that the massive exposure Clarkson got from her TV appearances probably made this one-sided contract worthwhile.

"Kelly Clarkson has immediately been catapulted to the rank of media superstar," Poe says. "If she delivers with a viable recording career, then she will have all the leverage she will ever need to write her own ticket in the near future."

Kenneth Freundlich, a prominent Los Angeles entertainment lawyer who has examined the 14-page contract that was presumably signed by all the "American Idol" contestants, says, however, that Clarkson and her fellow finalists are "surrounded by what appears to be the worst rendition of the industry, after being voted on by a public with no knowledge of the story within the story." How many of the millions of viewers who voted for Clarkson or any other contestant, he wonders, would willingly have signed their own sons and daughters up for such a career of music-industry servitude?

Simon Fuller (not to be confused with acerbic "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell), the 42-year-old impresario of 19 Group, is the latest in a long line of British pop Svengali figures, dating back at least to Larry Parnes in the 1950s.

Parnes specialized in discovering attractive teenage boys, grooming them for the British faux rock 'n' roll market, then assimilating them into traditional showbiz following the Elvis Presley model. (Of course Elvis was an authentic rock 'n' roller who was "self-created," and as a result never had the rocker fully assimilated out of him, but that's a different story.) Among Parnes' stable of "stars" were Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde and Billy Fury, along with less luminous figures like Dickie Pride, Duffy Power and Johnny Gentle.

Fuller's career as a manager began in 1985 when he established 19 Management, named after the company's first single release, Paul Hardcastle's techno-pop hit "19." According to the company's Web site, "'19' has attracted a unique collection of expertise in people who work together to integrate and leverage activity across television, music, film, merchandising, music publishing, recording, artist/writer and producer management, sponsorship and promotion," resulting "in the creation of over 50 No. 1 singles and 25 No. 1 albums." Fuller created and managed the Spice Girls and the global television and pop music "brand" that is S Club 7.

"Branding" is what the deeply tanned and black-bouffanted Fuller -- who has been invited to the White House later this month by President Bush -- is all about. Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive of Universal Music U.K., recently told the Financial Times:

"[Fuller] has redefined the role of a manager for the 21st century. He treats pop acts as brands, to be exploited over different media, rather than performers who make money only by selling records and playing concerts. He's a genius -- he makes everyone else look like complete amateurs."

Next page: Talk about "American Idol" to anyone -- and you owe the producers $5 million