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Beauty and the beat: why do so many models shoot for pop stardom?


Sam Fox managed it – but Naomi Campbell didn’t. As Paris Hilton assails ears with a new album, we look at the chequered history of models in pop, from Grace Jones to Kim Kardashian

When the US model, actor, tabloid figure, artist, podcaster, designer and author Julia Fox released her debut single, Down the Drain, this year, it felt more like a curio, born out of a sincere desire to create something outre, than a bid for pop stardom. True to the song’s grimy, art-kid aesthetic, Fox debuted the track at Charli xcx’s hyped Boiler Room show in Brooklyn and reportedly blew out the speakers – a Bianca Jagger-at-Studio-54 moment for the terminally online Zoomer crowd. Hot producers including Gavin Friday, Tim Simenon and Youth, AKA Martin Glover, not to mention a video in which Campbell looks typically gorgeous in the company of elephants, were not enough to save it from commercial oblivion – it failed to chart in the UK.

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