"To be a singer, you have to be naked and do things with your body and men on video," veteran Scottish pop star Lulu said. "What has that got to do with the music?"
Veteran Scottish pop star Lulu, 60, has slammed the music industry for exploiting present-day singers as sex symbols.
Lulu said young female artistes are being forced to dress in 'sexy' outfits and perform provocative acts.
She blasted industry bosses saying semi-naked routines — like those performed by the Pussycat Dolls, Katy Perry, and Girls Aloud — had become more important for them than the music itself.
"Young girls today have to straddle naked before they can get noticed," The Scotsman quoted her as saying. "It's cheapened the music and I think it is exploitative. I would never have stripped off like that and gyrated up and down a pole.
"There are talented kids who don't need to do that, but it is just expected of them. It's so regressive. I feel bad for them.
"To be a singer, you have to be naked and do things with your body and men on video. What has that got to do with the music?"
Lulu also criticised the competitive nature of the modern pop industry, saying that talent alone was no longer enough to be successful.
"I would not want to be launching a career now," she told the newspaper. "Nowadays, you have to achieve world domination or you get dropped by the record company. If the first single's not a hit, you're out. Today, to be successful, it is not enough to be a good singer. You have to have an army of people all focusing on that goal relentlessly."
Lulu achieved stardom after her hit Shout reached the Number 1 spot in the charts when she was just 15 years old.
"You don't just have to have talent and appeal," she lamented. "There has to be a big strategy. You have to be able to hold your head together, because the celebrity thing is completely out of whack. I think it's crazy."
Lulu revealed that she loved listening to the music produced by Pink, Christina Aguilera, Duffy, Alexandra Burke, and Amy Winehouse.
"I love Duffy and Alexandra Burke, who just won the X-Factor. They are really talented. I'm an Amy Winehouse fan — she's a great writer. She reminds me of the Ronettes."
She, however, also revealed that she did not like the current pop culture. "It's like a McDonald's world," said the Glasgow-born singer. "Everything is instant — instant success and instantly disposable.
"Even when it was really crazy in the 1960s, it wasn't like it is now. It is beyond insane.
"Everybody is a celebrity. There is nobody to aspire to be. Everybody is famous and everybody is documenting every time they breathe, spit, cough, or close their eyes.
"No wonder the music business doesn't mean much any more. Then, there was a mystique about things."
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