- Act releases moderately successful first single.
- Act releases second (or third) single which is generally a ballad. Single muses about the long path travelled to fame, the cost of success etc. Song adopts a reflective "looking back" tone, generally with shots of act "keeping it real" despite their success. Examples of "keeping it real" can include drinking herbal tea on white couches, or walking along actual, like, streets.
While, for example, the Spice Girls' Mama represents a "statement of success" third single, it's slightly different because they had actually achieved phenomenal success (although Mama is memorable for its own reasons, e.g. its revisionist version of Spice Girls history, with the Girls inexplicably cast as childhood friends rather than careerist fame-whores meeting at their first audition). But when Nat Bass reassures others that they will, one day, find their showbiz dream (in an odd reprise of her Kate Bush Don't Give Up role) it seems a little premature -- her success seems so tentative, and she seems to crave it so much.

