Their hearts on their sleeves We all need stories. They help us to identify and categorise People Like Us and Others Who Aren't Like Us. Musicians (or more likely the clever imps marketing the musicians) often use this to their advantage. We all know, for example, that Beyoncé is hard-working, as a recent article in The Guardian, entitled "Let's hear it for Beyoncé, the hardest-working woman in showbusiness" tells us: "Few could begrudge Beyoncé going home with a record-breaking six Grammy awards. After all, the singer has been working for this since she was a child. So, we are told, she deserves her success. Like Kylie Minogue, Jennifer Lopez and Madonna, she is one of a breed of female singers who we can categorise as a grafter. For many women, this will also make her someone we identify with, her success validates our own hard work. Reality TV and Twitter feed a desire to see more of celebrities' lives and consume their stories. It's not enough for fans to watch a singer at a gig and buy a souvenir, we want to feel we own a part of them. For the hard-working women types, this doesn't pose much of a problem. To live up their role they just need to keep working. Why isn't Madonna on Twitter? She's far too busy; working on her fat-to-muscle ratio, adopting kids, drinking the life force of young infants to improve her longevity, film-directing, Kabbalah-ing. Oh, and being one of the best-selling female artists of the 20th century. She's a hard-working woman, you know. For the two other main types of female artist, who I have dubbed the "Survivor" and the "Lost Soul." Sharing their narrative means exposing much more of themselves (and we aren't talking about hot-pants and crotch-skimming leotards, but proper, soul-bearing stuff). Pop singer Katy Perry has sold more than 75 million tracks and been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. But that's not enough. According to ABC News, Perry wanted to showcase her divorce from comedian Russell Brand, to prove that she is a "Survivor." "People... see me having that problem, they're like, "Oh. Well, even she can't dodge life's curve balls" and they can relate to me better... I want that human connection, especially with my fans. To achieve that connection, Perry has released a semi-autobiographical film, Katy Perry: Part of Me, in which she carves up parts of her life and dishes them out for consumption, giving her fans exactly what they want. In one scene, Perry is reportedly shown curled up, crying and unable to move. "It was really important for me to keep some of the more unflattering shots in the film to show I'm just every kind of woman," she told the Daily Record. And she's right. Millions of women can relate to her triumph-over-tragedy story, and she is brave to reveal it. It will doubtless raise sales of her music, which benefits her, and fans get the insight into her life that they crave. She's also not the first to do this. Like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Joan Baez before her, Perry is trying to share her individual experience of a universal feeling. But the difference is that those singers told the story through their songs, their music was always the main focus. Now, X-Factor contestants tell their back story before even releasing their first album. Now, the story comes first. Male musicians don't need a strong narrative to sell music. Many keep their private lives private. Or maybe female artists just like to share more. Whatever the reason, up-and-coming female artists now come with a dense biography attached: Jessie J suffered a stroke, aged 18. Sea of Bees, a Catholic woman, fell in love with a girl and kept it a secret for years, consoling herself with guitar-playing. A verbose biography on Ren Harvieu, a singer of the Duffy/Adele school of soul, tells of the spine injury that left her hospitalised for months. When she recovered, she was "like the Bionic Woman, a girl with metal in her spine, even more iron in her will." Another survivor. Can the story used to sell more singles become self-fulfilling? For the third group, the "Lost Souls" - those who don't bounce back from their tragedies - does the story of self-destructiveness sold to the public beget more deterioration? Britney Spears once shaved her head in front of photographers. Amy Winehouse died quietly, lost and alone. Did they buy into the stories that PR teams and the press were telling? What draws us to these stories is they make our idols human, flawed and more like us. The more we know about them, the closer to them we feel. Like supporting a football team, their successes and failures feel partly like our own.