Nicole Westbrook-It’s Thanksgiving
The joke is on us.
And the only people who don’t get it are the music business establishment, the usual suspects complicit in creating the drivel that pours out of Top Forty radio, compounding cliches as they parade around believing they’re Masters of the Universe.
The truth is…ANYONE CAN DO IT!
That’s one of the appeals of rap. You don’t have to spend long hours alone practicing. You can hang with your buds and make up your rhymes and ask why you’re not famous already, since you just graduated from middle school.
Nobody listening to this crap thinks it’s forever. It’s got the protein of a milk shake. Goes down easy, makes you sick thereafter.
Once upon a time, all the hit records were different. Now they’re all the same.
Now “It’s Thanksgiving” is not as good a track as “Friday,” with its indelible chorus. But watching the video, you can’t help but wonder, not only who Nicole Westbrook is, but who are her parents and what do they think they’re achieving here, allowing their young daughter to parade around in too much makeup, as if they can will her, or spend her, to be a slightly older Honey Boo Boo.
And then Nicole starts singing into her drumstick, using it as a microphone just before three minutes in, and you wonder…maybe even she knows it’s a joke…
That’s what makes this work… The big black guy cooking in the yard, showing up in a turkey costume… This isn’t made for the hit parade, but Funny or Die!
It’s only the establishment that takes itself seriously. We see reporters lashed to lampposts, reporting on the hurricane, and all we can say is GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! We know it’s for the ratings, we know the people on morning TV are not best friends, the whole world has bifurcated, separated into a camp that believes the old game still rules and those who are laughing hysterically at it.
And that’s what’s killing music. Because not only is there a laughable establishment, people are lining up to play. On “Idol,” “The Voice” and “X Factor.” Not a single person watching believes any of the contestants can be a star. Only the producers do. It’s HYSTERICAL!
Taylor Swift has got nothing on Nicole Westbrook. Then again, unlike Ms. Swift, at least Nicole Westbrook has a sense of humor. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” wasn’t put together as music, lightning in a bottle that would stand the test of time, it was a purely commercial venture, to keep Ms. Swift in the public eye, to make her and the old men behind her rich. And the complicit mainstream media laid down and said hosannas, as if “calculation” was not in their dictionary.
Meanwhile, the same guy who created “Friday” has repeated his blockbuster formula and is gonna burn up the Internets, which are even more powerful and more important than any radio station, any newspaper, any SoundScan, any Mediabase. Remember, radio refused to play Rebecca Black, but we all know “Friday” and can’t even tell you what was a hit on radio a year ago.
Just as funny are the white guy shoegazers who can’t sing who themselves are mad they’re not rich and famous. But they’re not even worth skewering. Because nobody’s paying attention.
And then there’s Bob Dylan. Who can’t even sing, but the media trumpets the hype, says “Tempest” is the album of the year, and when the L.A. “Times” reporter reviews his Hollywood Bowl show, toeing the line, saying how great it is, he’s got to add an addendum, after the attendees weigh in and complain how awful it was:
Bob Dylan at the Hollywood Bowl: Fans express outrage (as usual)
You see we know the truth.
The truth is music is now the playground of the wannabe rich. They boast that they tie in with corporations, they overcharge for shows more akin to Broadway musicals than Philharmonic performances, hell, Beatle performances, and scalp their own tickets along the way.
We’re bankrupt. It’s just like Wall Street. Which still believes it’s not at fault, did not bring the economy down, builds thing instead of just making money. Meanwhile, everybody at home is scratching his head and saying…WHAT?
Meanwhile, you desperately try to get on the “Today Show” with your built by committee tracks thinking this is the road into people’s hearts.
People’s hearts are CLOSED! You can’t get in. The people before you have ripped them off so bad, they’re multiple times bitten and completely shy.
No wonder nobody lasts anymore.
