Believe it or not, there was a time when most people didn’t think music sucked, when they paid attention, when music drove the culture.  Before the labels were owned by fat cats blaming their audience for not buying their overpriced, overproduced, overmassaged cartoon acts.

Culture has changed.  Stars are no longer unreachable.  Rather they’re in bed with their audience, they’re like their audience, only talented.  When you tart up some female and sell her records on her looks you throw in with Paris and Lindsay, you create an instant joke, whose appeal is anything but her music.

The music industry perpetuates the image of a female who’s uneducated, stupid and can only get by on her looks.  In an era when so many women play a musical instrument, couldn’t the acts be respectable, couldn’t they be intelligent, couldn’t they be a little more like THEM?

I hope you’re following this Apple juggernaut.  Because it’s what music used to be.

First there’s great products.  Which create an insane fan base that will buy almost anything the company puts out, none of which is inexpensive.  This is how it used to be in the music business.  God, if that album was great you’d go back and buy the catalog, and then purchase each subsequent disc until you hit two turkeys.

Second, there’s innovation, which begets excitement.  The iPhone is like when the Beatles came out with "Sgt. Pepper".  It was beyond comprehension, it was MORE than we expected.

Third, devotees follow the company for substantive announcements.  We’re not watching Steve Jobs and his employees snorting coke on the Web.

It is utterly fascinating to watch a company firing on all cylinders.  Forget the iTunes war, with issues of DRM and intercompatibility.  Most people buy an iPod, there IS no issue!  The Apple backlash you refer to is only those who haven’t gotten on the bandwagon yet.  It’s like those who hated the Beatles because they believed the band killed Elvis.  But Elvis was old and tired, the kids wanted something new.

I’m fascinated that people in this industry are addicted to music news.  Where’s the beef?  Press releases and charting of the comings and goings of idiots and pompous assholes, all written by sycophants without writing skills.  I can’t believe I used to haunt the newsstands looking for ANYTHING about music.  Now, I’m jonesing for tech news, for Apple news.  Tech is what music used to be.  A new cell phone is better not only than the crap released by the hacks, but the safe product put out by U2.  Can you believe it?  They come out with a new phone every six months that you want, most acts don’t come out with an album you EVER want.  Oh, don’t say it’s about fashion.  Admit it, you want that new full-sized BlackBerry with the track wheel.  It’s so thin, call quality is better, and EVERYBODY WHO HAS ONE RAVES ABOUT IT!

Oh, my music sites are first.  But part of my morning routine is the MacDailyNews, and there I saw a story about the new Apple ads.

Now I never watch commercials, never ever.  I’m either watching a recording or a pay channel.  But I watch these ads online, because I want EVERY little Apple hit I can get, I want to experience the CREATIVITY!

And today I found this spot…

Go to:

Get a Mac Click on "Genius".  Watch it at the resolution/size your bandwidth and screen can afford. 

I can watch it in HD!  Yup, I’ve got an HD monitor.  But can I watch expensive music videos in HD?  Oh, it takes up too much bandwidth, the market’s not that big.  I’m limited to postage stamps in so many cases.  Or else I have to BUY THEM!  Who wants to own a music video?  Someone prepubescent caught up in momentary mania, not me.

Anyway, fire up this Genius Apple ad.

Where did they get this woman?  Oh, she’s definitely not a girl.  She’s not under twenty, hell, she looks closer to thirty!  And she’s not all tarted up, showing her body, showing her sexuality.  It’s about her MIND!

Sure, it’s a commercial, but isn’t it great for girls to have a role model to ASPIRE TO!

Like no female knows how to use a computer.  Like no female knows as much about tech as a guy.

The music industry is ignoring MUCH of its base (every young female is now computer literate), targeting a lowest common denominator that doesn’t exist.  Didn’t you ever hear the axiom that SMART IS SEXY!

Those females who front albums, to a fault, almost none of them radiate any intelligence.  God, their handlers say that doesn’t sell records.  Then again, almost nothing is selling records anymore.

It’s fascinating to see society evolve and the usual suspects become flummoxed.  They want to push crap down our throats when we’re only interested in pulling what we’re addicted to, what we’ve decided is great.  Hell, you can go on the Web and almost instantly find out what is good and what is bad.  You can read the reviews on Amazon, never mind surf all the critical sites and message boards.  Information is no longer hidden, it’s in plain sight.  That’s why leaks only hurt shit.  Word spreads.  Whereas if something is good, people are still interested, many want to buy it.

The consumer’s power has never been stronger.  Respect it.  And him.  And her.  The public now has the power that John Lennon was singing about, it’s a whole new era.