Rap’s hard sell-Blame It On The Alcohol
I’m running out to the movies, but I was just eating some breakfast and reading the newspaper and I read a story so intriguing and horrifying I just had to alert you.
Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I grew up in a different era, where music was music. But today everyone’s saying to become a "brand", and you end up with stuff like this. People using their oftentimes limited musical footprint to expand into merch that far exceeds t-shirts and tourbooks.
If the music is just a stepping off point, if it’s just a cog in their game, do we ever expect the people to trust it? Music should be precious. It should stand by itself. As for not being able to make enough money making it, go into banking if cash is your desire.
Isn’t anybody willing to leave any money on the table?
This is a natural conclusion of our two-tiered society. Everyone wants to be rich and leave the common folk behind them. But isn’t it interesting that the common folk pave the way for the ascent? Without the common folk, you’ve got no money. This is what bugs me about the rich and the Republicans, as if you can get rich in a vacuum. If people don’t buy your products, you’ve got nothing, why are you stepping on them?
What’s worse is people are influenced by these jerks. Drinking these concoctions to become "cool". Wannabe cool? Stay in school and learn how to make money the old-fashioned way, by earning it.
The L.A. "Times" has become a toy newspaper. Something sans calories you play with for a minute or two. But then they come up with something like this article, which you’d expect in the "New York Times", but the Gray Lady doesn’t have enough manpower, it’s too busy cozying up to the stars, buying their publicists’ access, hanging with the momentarily famous the way Judith Miller was chums with the Bush administration.
I know it’s a new world.
But even Steve Stoute says you’ve got to worry about your credibility.
Brands are not people. They’re two-dimensional, they’ve got no personality. To aspire to become a brand is to lose your humanity.
These "musicians" should be exposed for what they are, hucksters.
Although the sound is lame, give Dr. Dre credit for hyping Beats, you can at least see the connection and have to give credit to anyone challenging the low quality of sound in earbuds.
But then you’ve got Jimmy Iovine wearing them on "Idol", just another salesman. Funny how you don’t see Dre doing that.
Your art should speak for itself. In today’s Twitterverse, people think marketing is just as important. That’s wrong. You can get people to notice, but you can’t get people to stay. They’ll look at the car wreck, but they won’t even check online to see who was involved.
Music has become the domain of momentary con men.
And everybody without an endorsement is just looking to get in or sucks so bad you can’t take ’em seriously.
Kudos to the writers for this article. A little more sunshine on this subject would help.
