The biggest act in music isn’t Christina Aguilera OR Justin Timberlake.<\/p>\n
It’s Pink Floyd.<\/p>\n
Now if you asked me a couple of years back, I would have said Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy and the boys are still huge, but they’ve been eclipsed.\u00c2\u00a0 By the sheer magic of the head-spinning aural gyrations of Roger Waters, David Gilmour and even Syd Barrett.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, fifteen year olds know who Syd Barrett was.\u00c2\u00a0 HOW COME MTV DOESN’T KNOW THIS??<\/p>\n
August 1st marked the twenty fifth anniversary of MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 But there was no hoopla on the channel.\u00c2\u00a0 Better not to alienate the younger generation, WHOSE PARENTS were addicted to the twenty four hour music station in their youth.\u00c2\u00a0 The only problem is, these kids are addicted to their parents’ music.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the evanescent crap MTV aired in the eighties, not even the still-around U2, but the music of the sixties and seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 These kids didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, they were weaned on the BEST MUSIC OF ALL TIME!\u00c2\u00a0 They know every Beatle song, and most of the Eagles’ too.\u00c2\u00a0 They know today’s music is crap just like our generation knows you can no longer buy a Chevrolet.\u00c2\u00a0 But chasing advertisers with a fifteen year old formula, MTV completely missed the point.<\/p>\n
This was evidenced most dramatically with MTV’s coverage last year of Live 8.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV had the mistaken impression that being a member of the group, hanging with your buddies, ECLIPSED the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only were there commercials during the broadcast, we had inane talking heads speaking with idiot concertgoers as the acts were reduced to background noise.\u00c2\u00a0 How could MTV get it so WRONG?<\/p>\n
The channel tried to make it up to us by airing an unexpurgated version after the fact.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you think this makes a difference, you’re probably watching tape of last year’s Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 In a now world to be even tape-delayed is to lose audience to the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s just what music fans did, they watched Live 8 on AOL.<\/p>\n
You must never forget who you are.\u00c2\u00a0 But somehow MTV did.<\/p>\n
Realizing that the ratings of long form programming surpassed those of endless videos, they exorcised the videos.\u00c2\u00a0 But in the process, the channel lost its spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV today is just reality programming for kids.\u00c2\u00a0 And the music "stars" they get to drop by are tools of corporations, slaves to the grind, the ANTITHESIS of rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 With no one believing in the channel, it’s got no soul.<\/p>\n
The reason Pink Floyd is the biggest band in the world today is not only its music, but where it’s coming from.\u00c2\u00a0 PInk Floyd never played by ANYBODY’S rules.\u00c2\u00a0 And this appeals to today’s youth.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t expect anybody on MTV to come up with an opus like "Dark Side Of The Moon", god, how would they promote it on the channel?\u00c2\u00a0 Pink Floyd was outside, but MTV is inside.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, for its first decade and a half the channel walked the line, trying to appear hip as it sold out to Madison Avenue, but after the boy bands, after the dating shows, it was clear.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV would do what Pink Floyd never did.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was follow the money.<\/p>\n
Sure, music didn’t get ratings as good as reality shows.\u00c2\u00a0 And music videos moved to the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 But by sacrificing its soul, by eviscerating the music that was always its underpinning, MTV ceased standing for anything.<\/p>\n
And its Web-presence was just as bad.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a reflection of the television channel, when all the successful Websites had NO counterpart on the tube.\u00c2\u00a0 Craigslist.org succeeds because it’s utilitarian, it not only delivers what you want, it does so QUICKLY!\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas to visit mtv.com is to endure an interface akin to swimming through molasses.\u00c2\u00a0 MySpace delivers the MUSIC of its members.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re lucky, you can figure out where on mtv.com to post your comments on the celebutantes and no-names featured on the TV channel.\u00c2\u00a0 In an era where Websites from awfulplasticsurgery.com to perezhilton.com to egotastic.com make FUN of the very same people MTV exalts, the brass at MTV were too invested in these morons, and too stupid to know they were going down on the ship with them.\u00c2\u00a0 Really, the only stars ARE those musicians who haven’t sold out.\u00c2\u00a0 Oftentimes, like Ani DiFranco, never featured on MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 But, rather than save its soul, MTV kept focusing on lower and lower common denominators, to the point where the only people watching the channel not making fun of it were four year olds.<\/p>\n
There was a moment there when MTV could have said mea culpa.\u00c2\u00a0 When stories started to appear everywhere, when there was an outcry, that there was no longer any MUSIC on the channel.\u00c2\u00a0 The bigwigs didn’t realize they were losing their audience, figuring that it changed over every five years or so ANYWAY.\u00c2\u00a0 But not only did this lack of music drive away oldsters, and let’s not forget, even the most ancient stopped by at MTV to try and stay hip, youngsters unexposed to the glory days of the outlet had no investment in the channel, no belief in it AT ALL!<\/p>\n
The Academy Awards telecast is tanking in the ratings.\u00c2\u00a0 Because movies don’t represent the soul of America anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Movies are where idiots like Wilmer Valderrama go for big paychecks made by studios looking for the safest, most success-insured product possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Avoiding all risk, kids no longer take the movies seriously.\u00c2\u00a0 As for stars…\u00c2\u00a0 Do you really think kids want to tune in to sexagenarians, SEPTUAGENARIANS, mugging?<\/p>\n
What are the VMAs for?<\/p>\n
Fearful of conflicting with 9\/11 memorials, MTV moved the show BEFORE Labor Day.\u00c2\u00a0 What a big mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 The show worked because you were ALREADY IN SCHOOL!\u00c2\u00a0 Summer was over.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a way to avoid doing your homework.\u00c2\u00a0 AND, you tuned in so you wouldn’t be left out of the discussion at your school the next day.\u00c2\u00a0 But with all the kids spread out over the landscape, there’s no center, the VMAs were\/are not MUST SEE TV, so people don’t.<\/p>\n
And the show no longer makes sense.\u00c2\u00a0 Kids know there’s no music on the channel, and oldsters haven’t heard of the acts.\u00c2\u00a0 What is the DRAW?\u00c2\u00a0 MTV proved it in Miami.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re playing to the "National Enquirer" crowd, you’ve lost it.\u00c2\u00a0 The VMAs were always hip, irreverent.\u00c2\u00a0 Now they became what they were mocking.\u00c2\u00a0 Vapid "stars" fawning over each other.\u00c2\u00a0 The VMAs are just not where it’s at.<\/p>\n
So the ratings tanked.<\/p>\n
If they wanted the ratings to go up, MTV would have needed a revolution.<\/p>\n
What would that revolution look like?<\/p>\n
Well, control would have been taken out of the hands of the usual suspects and given to the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, the VIEWERS’ VMAs.\u00c2\u00a0 Performers selected by viewers, the show featuring the kind of YouTube videos that never seem to air on MTV.<\/p>\n
And, the music wouldn’t be a slave to the Big Four, but the magic stuff kids want to hear.<\/p>\n
Like Pink Floyd.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not OLD stuff, but CLASSIC stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Geldof knew this, knowing he needed the world’s attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Who did MTV get?\u00c2\u00a0 JACK BLACK!<\/p>\n
Who’d already done the show.\u00c2\u00a0 Who, after "School Of Rock", has appeared in fly by night vanity projects.<\/p>\n
Shit, how about Robert Plant hosting the show?\u00c2\u00a0 MTV thinks the young won’t accept him, but that’s like saying that kids have no interest in seeing "The Godfather".<\/p>\n
Yes, kids love the classics.\u00c2\u00a0 And they love what they make themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t love the crap that smug baby boomers who think they can hoodwink youngsters feed them.<\/p>\n
If you think about it, MTV declined because it didn’t take heed of those musicians it featured.\u00c2\u00a0 Haircut 100?\u00c2\u00a0 A Flock Of Seagulls?\u00c2\u00a0 MTV wore them out, sapped all their soul, along with all the acts who sold themselves on TRL.\u00c2\u00a0 Even that afternoon train-wreck’s host, Carson Daly, WHO THE FUCK CARES?<\/p>\n
Whereas people care about Neil Young.\u00c2\u00a0 Because he MANAGES THE BRAND!\u00c2\u00a0 He only does what he wants.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not beholden to others.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s always trying something new, and even if he fails, we still pay attention, because we believe.<\/p>\n
But Neil Young is not Pink Floyd.\u00c2\u00a0 With Neil Young, it’s about him.\u00c2\u00a0 With Pink Floyd, it’s about US.\u00c2\u00a0 Neil Young is selling a story, whereas Pink Floyd is more basic, it’s like a drug, an LSD tab that you can take by dropping the needle, pushing play on your iPod, on ANY of their music.<\/p>\n
It’s not about the personalities in the band, but how the music makes you feel.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about your body, but your MIND!<\/p>\n
MTV only focused on the body.\u00c2\u00a0 The hotties on the channel.\u00c2\u00a0 It lost control of its audience’s mind.\u00c2\u00a0 And as a result, MTV’s got no fans, no believers.<\/p>\n
And this is why the fact MTV Networks plays videos on its other TV channels is irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 You buy "Atom Heart Mother" because you love "The Wall".\u00c2\u00a0 But if there was no "Wall", kids wouldn’t be going back and buying the catalog.\u00c2\u00a0 Without belief in the flagship, people don’t believe in the subsidiaries.\u00c2\u00a0 A band might have a great album track, but if all the singles, 9\/10ths of what people are exposed to SUCKS, they won’t care about it, because they’re looking for acts to believe in overall.<\/p>\n
And this is why MTV is doomed to fail on the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 Because MTV stands for something bad.\u00c2\u00a0 Something even worse than network TV.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV is crass.\u00c2\u00a0 With no respect for its audience, nobody respects it.\u00c2\u00a0 So why in the hell should people go to its Website when they can visit a zillion others, real estate\/distribution not being a problem on the Internet as opposed to cable TV.<\/p>\n
MTV got fat and happy.\u00c2\u00a0 Until one day it all collapsed.<\/p>\n
Not that different from the major labels, if you think about it.<\/p>\n
Each wants us to come back.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not going to happen.\u00c2\u00a0 Because each has abused our trust.\u00c2\u00a0 We AVOID them!<\/p>\n
If you go for the short term bucks, if you don’t have one eye on the future, then you’re doomed to fall off a cliff at some point.\u00c2\u00a0 When suddenly, EVERYBODY gets the memo.\u00c2\u00a0 And realizes not only that you’re not what you used to be, but that you have contempt for them.<\/p>\n
But the baby boomers running these enterprises believe they’re ENTITLED to their success.\u00c2\u00a0 That it should go on forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Not realizing they sold their souls for that million dollar lifestyle and lost touch with the peons as surely as Marie Antoinette did in Versailles.<\/p>\n
Which is why kids are gonna take over.\u00c2\u00a0 Contrary to boomers’ belief, they know what’s going on, they know what’s real, they can’t be so easily manipulated.\u00c2\u00a0 And now, with the means of production AND distribution within their grasp, there’s no need for the old forms. Just like there’s no need for IBM in a PC world.<\/p>\n
Oh, IBM reinvented itself.\u00c2\u00a0 As a services company.\u00c2\u00a0 And is doing well.<\/p>\n
But it’s no longer dominant.<\/p>\n
If you want an ubiquitous hit single, you must be with a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV is home to youth-oriented reality shows that can be profitable with a tiny sliver of the audience that networks demand to make their balance sheets work.\u00c2\u00a0 Both will live on.\u00c2\u00a0 But neither will have a grasp on the hearts and minds of the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 They will be greatly diminished enterprises.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when confronted with change, they just stuck to the course.<\/p>\n
The labels should have authorized a pay version of the original Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 And certainly shouldn’t have sued their customers.<\/p>\n
And MTV should have aired more music.<\/p>\n
In both cases the transition might have been wrenching, but by not seeing the handwriting on the wall, the major labels and MTV are now in the predicament of Floyd Landis.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s their word against ours.\u00c2\u00a0 And all that matters is the court of public opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 And the people have determined that the major labels and MTV are worthless bottom fishers.<\/p>\n
Floyd Landis isn’t coming back.\u00c2\u00a0 And the major labels and MTV aren’t either.\u00c2\u00a0 Because once you’re tainted with the stink of the skunk, you’re done.<\/p>\n
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