In the history of pop music, there is exactly one good song about celebrity: Fame, which required the combined effort of David Bowie and John Lennon to be brought into existence. Otherwise, from the Rolling Stones' Star Star to Britney Spears' Lucky, the subject has been a disaster for any artist who comes near it. It's not that people aren't interested in celebrity—Mary Hart's summerhouse is a monument to the contrary—but that the pleasures it provides are voyeuristic, defined completely by the distance between the famous person and the average viewer. But great pop music erases distance. It takes our dumbest secret thoughts (He doesn't like me! No one has ever loved as deeply as I am loving right now!) and, with three chords and some magic dust, renders them glorious and universal.
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