Fans Go Along for A Wild Ride

The Hooks Aren't Just In the Music of R. Kelly, Britney and Amy Winehouse

R. Kelly, the R&B maverick who's spent half a decade battling sexually related criminal charges, declares himself a "sexasaurus" on his latest disc, practically daring the world to write him off. Dude's crazy, right?

But just as his career seems about to implode -- whoosh-- his album debuts at the top of the charts, followed by a stadium tour that graces Verizon Center tomorrow night.

Britney Spears spirals from traffic citation to custody hearing to scalp-shearing meltdown while her singing career slides toward the brink of irrelevance. Girl. Is. Crazy. We lace up our boots, ready to kick a fallen former Mouseketeer to the pop-culture curb, when -- whoosh-- a frothy new album swoops in, delighting many fans and critics.

Amy Winehouse stumbles through the mediascape in a boozy daze, allegedly brawls with her beau and mangles her songbook on tour before taking a month-long sabbatical from the spotlight. Bona fide crazypants? Deja-whoosh-- her 2003 U.K. debut is rereleased stateside with Yankee devotees lining up to pledge allegiance to that bewitching, embattled voice.

The antics of pop-music stars might fuel endless tabloid tsk-tsking, but as our era of perpetual blog surveillance grants us unprecedented access to the artists we adore, an intriguing truth starts to emerge:

"Crazy-appeal" is stronger than ever.

"We love the drama as much as we love the music," says Danyel Smith, editor in chief of Vibe magazine. "We watch people like their lives are movies. We're living for the suspense, the twists, the turns."

And the soundtrack. Some of 2007's most brilliant pop music comes from artists waging hyper-public battles with vice, ego, expectations, the law, the bloggerati and/or Kevin Federline. And while the American highway to musical superstardom has long been littered with sin and squalor, we never got to see Johnny Cash passed out on YouTube. Now, we can't seem to get enough. And for a select few, just when the hoopla threatens to transform pop star into punch line . . . in comes luck, design or cold, hard talent.

Here's the gazillion-dollar question for an ailing music industry: Does crazy-appeal sell records?

"Is that a real question? Of course it sells!" Vibe's Smith harrumphs. "Controversy sells. Sex sells. Melodrama sells. People want to participate by buying a concert ticket. They want to download a song. They want to be a part of it."

But Craig Marks, editor in chief of Blender magazine, begs to differ. "There's no evidence that any of this controversy helps sell records or concert tickets," he says. "I think it only hurts. It's an inverse relationship between tabloid appearances and record sales."

In which case, crazy-appeal might just boil down to whether fans want to see an artist triumph or train-wreck. And either way, crazy sells best when you counter it with some quality jams.