I always wondered, what exactly makes an artist relevant? Is it their music or their presence in the media? I used to think it was more about the music. Artists needed to have music that was new and fresh to be relevant. But the more I pay attention to the media, the more I realize that's not all that's important. Relevance is in this case, is just top of mind awareness.
An artist can have a great song. But, if it's not promoted correctly, it'll be harder for them to stay in listeners' minds. This can be the promotion of the project, or it can be completely unrelated. Some people react to posts and stories about what artists are doing outside of music negatively. They'll say, "so what?" or "who cares?" If it's not about their music or latest project, why is it being talked about? That's because artists don't have enough music to only talk about that all the time. Even if they did, most people don't want to hear it after a while.
Listeners often want to know more about the artist as a person. Listeners want to know how artists grew up, what they like to do for fun, who they're dating, and what they love. They want to get to know them. It makes perfect sense. Without all of this, some artists can get boring. Think about a movie, for example. It's like having an action movie with only fighting scenes. There's nothing about the character's development, no heartfelt story about how they got there, very little dialogue and emotion. It's cool to watch for a bit but gets old fast.
All this comes into an artist's brand, who they are, and how they are unique. Everyone wants to see character development, even in real life. Sometimes though media takes this too far. The artists and the record companies can't control what people say. It can be a magazine or a site like TMZ. Or it can be just someone on the internet. When all of those people speak about celebrities, it's not about the promotion of the artist. Some labels may not mind if the story isn't that bad. It's free promotion and keeps them top of mind. But, some of it can be really damaging.
The point is you need to keep people talking about different things. Because they can only talk about your song for so long.