When 29-year-old pop singer Jesse McCartney caught his first wave of stardom circa 2004, fangirls followed his every move both in magazines and real life. His bright, green eyes, casually disarrayed bowl cut and sweet love song formula put him solidly in the same generation of teen idols as Aaron Carter and Hilary Duff.
Ironically, over the course of a decade McCartney has gone from pursued to pursuer: He’s currently on a nationwide tour targeting his OG fanbase at their respective college campuses. McCartney visited our own campus last Sunday night, performing a sold-out show at the Wisconsin Union Theater.
McCartney has flown under the radar since his last hit single, “How Do You Sleep?” made the Billboard Top 100 back in 2009. I arrived at his show curious to see what artistic progression he’d made over the past eight years; maybe he’d reinvented himself and was preparing for a comeback. Regrettably, McCartney’s exaggerated superstar persona and one-dimensional, expired personal brand made it tough for me to take him seriously. The way he milked his “superstar” status was immediately offputting. While the concert was scheduled for 8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., he made a belated entrance at 9:15 and only stayed for 45 minutes. His opener, UW-Madison’s all-male acapella group, Fundamentally Sound, performed a longer set than McCartney did.
I was disappointed again when pre-recorded vocal tracks did the heavy lifting of his first song, “Leaving.” McCartney made up for this a bit by working the crowd. Fans went wild for his provocative dance moves, like his strategically placed hip thrusts in “How Do You Sleep?” during the line, “Around my way where we used to park and did all those things.”
Many ridiculous moments ensued from there. My favorite happened right before he played an acoustic version of “Just So You Know.” He conspicuously pulled up a second stool beside his own like he might pick a lucky girl to serenade—The hyperventilating in the room was audible at this point—but instead his guitarist crossed the stage and took the coveted seat. Amazing.
However, McCartney did end up bringing a fan on stage. He handpicked someone from the crowd and then intimately crooned Robin Thicke’s song “The Stupid Things” (I’m not making this up) to the blushing girl. This led to the night’s other gem-of-a-moment, when he stopped mid-song to enthusiastically praise Robin Thicke’s “underrated” first studio album to a venue of blank stares.
To McCartney’s credit, his concert also had plenty of nonironic good moments. He was at his best performing songs from his latest album, In Technicolor (2014). These songs were less well-known to the audience but felt familiar enough in that they parallelled the pop-forward hooks and girl-centric themes of his older, more popular works. The song “Back Together” stood out from the rest, reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s pulsing dance-flare production and sexy smooth vocals. The night’s true climax came during the encore when he sang “Beautiful Soul,” the debut single that launched his career to begin with.
It’s unfortunate that McCartney is clinging to his past fame instead of seeking new relevance. After all, pop music is making a comeback. McCartney could potentially find success in the same niche sector that pop artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift market themselves in. Sadly, he hasn’t rebranded himself in the slightest since his glory days nearly a decade ago. I began the night reluctant to pigeonhole McCartney as a washed-up teen idol, but now I see that he puts himself in that corner. At least he looks cute there.
