The hype is deafening.<\/p>\n
Last night rewinding the tape (no, I don’t have TiVo yet, don’t tell me how great it is, my goal in life is to watch LESS TV and since I bought the best VCR, for all of $120 bucks, I can use a digital mouse, which doesn’t move, but changes the channels on the digital box, allowing me to record whatever I want whenever I want) to see "Six Feet Under", which might have been the best, most human episode of television this year, I was exposed to a featurette on "Looney Tunes: Back In Action".\u00c2\u00a0 Which comes out…who the fuck knows?<\/p>\n
That’s what the entertainment business does best.\u00c2\u00a0 HYPE US!<\/p>\n
It’s kind of amazing.\u00c2\u00a0 I read about the "Aristocrats" in the "New York Times".\u00c2\u00a0 There was the leadup to Sundance, the pickup by Think, the rating issue.\u00c2\u00a0 And you know what?\u00c2\u00a0 Now that it’s finally out I don’t even have to see it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s one joke anyway.<\/p>\n
Same deal with "Wedding Crashers".\u00c2\u00a0 HAD to see it.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the first weekend’s gross wasn’t record-setting, when nobody I knew who saw it was peeing in their pants, suddenly, it became less of a priority.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I might not even watch it on cable when it premieres a year from now.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, it’ll be old news.<\/p>\n
Still, even though the movie’s been out for weeks, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are on the cover of "Rolling Stone".\u00c2\u00a0 Like they stopped terrorism or something.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only a fucking movie!<\/p>\n
A fucking movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Do we have to go to the movies anymore?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be the flicks dealt with big issues, everything from race to sexual politics.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, in the nineties, you had to go so you could talk at parties, movies were the common denominator.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you go out and everybody knows ABOUT the movies but they haven’t seen them.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?\u00c2\u00a0 They always SUCK!<\/p>\n
But their suckdom is jammed down our throat by a media so pervasive that you know what’s going on in Hollywood even if you haven’t been to the multiplex in years.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an endless sell.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes you think that normal elements of life…eating, conversation, sex…are just not as important as blowing up buildings and killing aliens on celluloid.<\/p>\n
So I’ve ceased paying attention.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t have to stay current.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like the PEOPLE, not the media, all realize it’s a joke.\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s not where it’s at.<\/p>\n
And it’s just as bad in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Labels selling product we don’t want and suing us for stealing the single instead of paying for eleven other tracks we don’t desire.\u00c2\u00a0 Or selling us this one evanescent track in a copy-protected form that you know will become obsolete or lost in a matter of just a few years.\u00c2\u00a0 Collecting?\u00c2\u00a0 Being a believer?\u00c2\u00a0 IRRELEVANT!\u00c2\u00a0 All you have are your experiences, the live shows.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, who can you trust to say what’s good?\u00c2\u00a0 The media that trumpets the grosses or the baby boomers who need to look good by telling you that some act they saw in a hole in the wall is the next Dylan.\u00c2\u00a0 And, there hasn’t been a new Dylan EVER!<\/p>\n
Which is why I could give a fuck about Sufjan Stevens.\u00c2\u00a0 So, they play him on KCRW.\u00c2\u00a0 So, his albums are thematic.\u00c2\u00a0 So, the L.A. "Times" cares.\u00c2\u00a0 I DON’T CARE!<\/p>\n
But the one thing I do care about is e-mail.\u00c2\u00a0 I read it all.\u00c2\u00a0 And respond more than I have time to.\u00c2\u00a0 And I got a missive from some woman at Sony BMG who asked me what I thought of Sufjan.\u00c2\u00a0 I told her to e-mail me an MP3…<\/p>\n
Can I tell you about discovery?\u00c2\u00a0 Listening to the Warner Reprise double album samplers?\u00c2\u00a0 Combing the rock press when you could read every publication in search of gems?\u00c2\u00a0 Reading enough about certain records to take a chance?\u00c2\u00a0 Stuff like Ry Cooder’s "Into The Purple Valley"?<\/p>\n
Fuck the Cuban Ry.\u00c2\u00a0 The film music Ry.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about the first four albums.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, each one other than the third, "Boomer’s Story", which was a dud.\u00c2\u00a0 But the reason I purchased the other three was because of "Into The Purple Valley’.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounded NOTHING like anything else I owned.\u00c2\u00a0 But, I got hooked on "Money Honey".\u00c2\u00a0 And "F.D.R. In Trinidad".\u00c2\u00a0 Listen to "Teardrops Will Fall", it’s got more heart and emotion than ANY Mariah Carey track.\u00c2\u00a0 "Into The Purple Valley" is one of my favorite albums of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 It DEFIES categorization.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not a single radio station, not even on the SATELLITE, that "Into The Purple Valley" fits in with neatly.<\/p>\n
So, this woman sent me "Jacksonville".\u00c2\u00a0 From Sufjan Stevens’ new album "Illinois".\u00c2\u00a0 And, listening in QuickTime, which I do to preview stuff, to see whether it’s worthy of being in my iTunes library, I was stunned to find it was GOOD!<\/p>\n
It wasn’t mopey like Bright Eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t have the mediocre vocals of the indie boys with their thin guitars.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounded like nothing else on the landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 Both melodic and experimental.\u00c2\u00a0 Hooky, yet not repetitive.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the kind of music I listened to in the seventies, that made me BELIEVE!<\/p>\n
This woman told me she’d e-mail me more.\u00c2\u00a0 But at this point I need the whole album.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it’s easiest just to rip the CD, since there are 22 tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 But I don’t know who to ask.\u00c2\u00a0 "Illinois" is on an indie entitled Asthmatic Kitty.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, no major would take a chance on a record that wasn’t obvious, that didn’t contain a hit.<\/p>\n
Which is why music fans have rejected the majors.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that this small record can surface outside the system indicates that the majors don’t have the control over the mental marketplace they say they do.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, as they’re prone to saying, it’s not about the money you spend, the best music always wins.<\/p>\n
And we hear about the best music from our friends now.\u00c2\u00a0 The top down music business won’t die, but it’s losing market share as we speak.<\/p>\n
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