Reality TV supercouple Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt suffered a deep loss in the past week, as the home they shared was destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire.
Not content with second billing, Montag and then-boyfriend Spencer Pratt hijacked the show and remade it in their own image.
Someone like Kardashian is a corporation; Pratt and Montag, as the scrappy “Body Language” verse makes clear, are a mom-and-pop shop of fame.
Pratt and Montag’s use of this horribly sad moment in their lives as a promotional opportunity could, uncharitably, be seen as cynical.
It also represents a moment in which Montag sat a good deal closer to the center of the culture.
In the last week, reality TV supercouple Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt experienced a profound loss when the Pacific Palisades wildfire destroyed their shared home. And they had a response that could only have come from their imagination.
On TikTok, Instagram, and every other social media platform, both parties—who gained notoriety on MTV’s “The Hills” in the 2000s—have urged their followers to listen to Montag’s album “Superficial.”. Coincidentally, the album celebrated its 15th anniversary over the weekend. It is a curio from the 2010s that owes a debt to Lady Gaga, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears’ musical endeavors, but Montag added her own camera-eager stamp to it.
In the reality soap opera “The Hills,” Montag played the role of golden-girl Lauren Conrad’s sidekick. The cameras followed the “Laguna Beach” star as she relocated to Los Angeles. Montag and Spencer Pratt, his then-boyfriend, took over the show and remade it in their own image because they weren’t satisfied with second billing. The ridiculous made-up dramas of her two enemies were far more entertaining than Conrad’s dry tales about trying to succeed in the magazine business. However, Pratt and Montag didn’t mind being the villains as long as you continued to watch; Conrad, who was ironically a little too shy for reality TV at its nastiness, wanted to be seen as good.
As a recording artist, Montag was a passionate music lover whose talent for maintaining eye contact with the camera surpassed other requirements for a pop-star position. Her one and only album, “Superficial,” sold about 1,000 copies in its first week of release. In the lengthy lead-up to the album’s release, Montag sobbed in public after receiving negative feedback on a music video from 2008, a moment that was conveniently documented by the paparazzi. The roll-out continued with a rendition of the song “Body Language” at the 2009 Miss Universe pageant. Pratt, who is obviously uneasy in front of the microphone, performs a featured rap on the entire song. “Sassy pearl, lay my eyes on it,” Pratt raps. Yes, that’s my girl, Heidi Montag. “.”.
“Superficial” appears to have benefited from some tinkering and was undoubtedly the result of numerous gifted individuals doing their best work; “Body Language” was not to be included in the final tracklist. (Edited writers include Taylor Momsen, the frontwoman of Pretty Reckless and star of “Gossip Girl,” Danity Kane girl group alum Dawn Richard, and co-writer Cathy Dennis of “Toxic.”. This brings to mind the 2007 masterpiece “Blackout,” in which Britney Spears, at the height of her tabloid career, was forced to experiment a great deal by collaborators who chose beats for her. The unreserved embrace of pure-pop instincts is where it deviates: “Superficial” seemed to be reverse-engineered to follow trends, whereas “Blackout” was forward-looking.
Montag’s contribution appeared to be more about her persona than her vocals. For example, in the song “I’ll Do It,” she embraces the bad-girl persona she had started to develop on reality TV, singing, “I’ll be your blonde tonight, if that’s what you like / Stilettos and fishnets, if that’s what you like.”. The title track of the album added a more literal touch. “They say I’m superficial, some call me a bitch / They just mad ’cause I’m sexy, famous, and rich,” Montag says after joining the rhymes “Maserati” and “paparazzi.”. “”.
Perhaps the album didn’t meet any specific needs, which is why it didn’t do well when it came out. Those who were interested in this type of music could listen to Lady Gaga or Kesha’s excellent performances. There were many ways for people who wanted to learn more about Montag’s life to satisfy their curiosity, but a weekly reality show on cable TV was just one of them. Montag’s new look was featured on the cover of People magazine with the headline “Addicted to Plastic Surgery” the same month the album was released. “Montag complied with the story, which detailed ten cosmetic procedures she had done in one day. The inspiration for “Superficial” came from Montag’s real life, but it was also the work of an artist whose major concept was to push the boundaries of overexposure. She discovered them in 2010.
However, those like Kim Kardashian, the all-things-to-all-people reality colossus whose own vanity single was released and forgotten a year after “Superficial,” make Pratt and Montag’s efforts seem charming and endearing. Time has a way of softening and reframing these things. Kardashian, for example, is a corporation, but Pratt and Montag are a mom-and-pop shop of fame, as the tenacious verse in “Body Language” makes evident. The fact that the couple is now parents to two children only serves to highlight how sincere their pleas are to stream Montag’s music as a lucrative venture. ).
One could unkindly argue that Pratt and Montag’s use of this incredibly depressing time in their lives as a marketing opportunity is cynical. However, I contend that they are just doing what they have always done best. Whether “Superficial” is beneficial or not is less important in this stressful situation than whether it can support their family’s very real endeavor of survival. Montag was much closer to the cultural center during this time, too. For the chanteuse and the featured rapper she refers to as her husband, there might also be a pleasant sense of nostalgia in that.