We sent the EU £350m a week, let’s fund a popstar instead

We started working a blog yesterday which seemed like quite an amusing idea — hey, they’re triggering Article 50 but what about the other articles LOLOLOL — but in the cold light of a Wednesday morning it really wasn’t very funny.

So we binned it, but not before this had happened.

That’s the real money shot, isn’t it?

Ask yourself this:

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF A POPSTAR HAD TO SPEND £350M A WEEK, EVERY WEEK?

To kick this all off we need to establish a few pop truths, such as:

• Apart from the real top-tier popstars, all of them moan that they don’t have enough money to do what they really want to do.
• Even the top-tier ones moan or have to make compromises.
• Budgets always have some sort of foundation in the real world — for instance marketing or recording budgets can be based on how well a previous album’s performed, or on how well it looks like a new album’s likely to perform, but there has to be some sense that when all is said and done there won’t be a loss.
• Even the really expensive-looking, expensive-sounding stuff has had to cut corners. Like if you think about one of this year’s most obvious instances of something having had an obscene amount of cash thrown at it — Katy Perry’s ‘Chained To The Rhythm’ video — it’s obvious that the CGI would have been better with more cash.

But what if nobody had to worry about whether an artist or album would ever recoup the cash thrown at it? What if every Monday £350m simply appeared in a popstar’s bank account? What if Katy Perry could actually create a real life theme park?

When you think about it this is absolutely amazing.

1. One Direction actually would have gone into space.

2. Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ could have continued LIKE SHE PROMISED, with the most expensive film of all time whose budget was twice that of The Avengers.

3. This Clean Bandit artwork would be a photograph of something that happened in real life.

4. Kanye West could bring his beautiful ideas into the world. 

but I need access to more money in order to bring more beautiful ideas to the world.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016

5. Ed Sheeran could fund a research trip to Ireland in order to find out what it’s actually like instead of relying on Camden Market t-shirt slogans and old B*Witched b-sides.

Ripples would inevitably go through all of pop.

Every collaborator on every song — from the writers and producers to guest vocalists — could be wildly overpaid, which by the end of an album campaign could result in dozens of other creative people no longer being bound by economic constraints.

Rather than attempting to make money through streaming, an artist with a weekly £350m could pay money to streaming services every time their music was played on the condition that this money be redistributed to other artists. But that’s all a bit egalitarian and boring because what we really want is Beyoncé paying 350 people to have facial reconstruction surgery to all look like Beyoncé for a ten-second sequence in one video, Rihanna buying up a small village and evicting its residents in order to facilitate an 800-member, 24/7, 365 writing camp, and Becky G buying up global TV ad space until she finally has a hit.

But which popstar should get the cash?

Despite our talk of Kanyes, Beyoncés and Rihannas, in order to qualify for this Brexit-themed version of Brewster’s Millions the popstar would need to be from the UK, and to be on the safe side let’s say Scottish popstars aren’t eligible.

We’d need the popstar to have big ideas, but we’d also need to choose someone who didn’t mind the moral implications of spunking £350m on a pop career while there are thousands of people using food banks.

Importantly, the weekly £350m must ALL be used on a pop career or a pop-related expense within a month of receipt — this allows the popstar to save up for something really nice. So we’ll need someone who’s able to keep things moving along quickly. We don’t want someone who does something interesting a few times a year, we’ll be needing something ludicrous and almost offensively extravagant nearly every week.

To be honest we keep coming back to Charli XCX, but if you’ve got any better ideas drop us a line at letsfundapopstarinstead@popjustice.com, explain your reasoning, and let’s see what suggestions we come up with together. We’ll send the best ideas to Theresa May.

The post We sent the EU £350m a week, let’s fund a popstar instead appeared first on Popjustice.