Don’t confuse celebrities with heroes.\u00c2\u00a0 Heroes are people you look up to, who you want to emulate, celebrities are three-dimensional characters in a living cartoon cavorting for your entertainment.<\/p>\n
Paris Hilton has no talent and isn’t that good-looking.\u00c2\u00a0 But people love reading about her.\u00c2\u00a0 This uneducated twit who lives to fuck and party is an endless situation comedy far eclipsing anything on Must See TV.\u00c2\u00a0 She tapes herself fucking and leaks it to the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 She cracks up her Bentley and gets arrested for driving while intoxicated at IN-N-OUT BURGER!<\/p>\n
Then there’s Firecrotch.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting boob implants before she’s twenty and then missing out on her REAL job, acting in movies, because she’s too busy living the celebrity life.<\/p>\n
Not to mention Brandon Davis, who outed her.\u00c2\u00a0 Taped walking down the sidewalk ranting and raving about her pudenda.<\/p>\n
Those who remember the sixties, never mind the EIGHTIES, just don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 How can these no-talents get all this press for doing NOTHING!\u00c2\u00a0 But they’ve got it upside down, all wrong, that’s EXACTLY THE POINT!\u00c2\u00a0 Their celebrityhood is not based on their work, their talent, but their everyday EXPLOITS!\u00c2\u00a0 The work is IRRELEVANT!<\/p>\n
How stupid is Warner Brothers, making a record with Paris Hilton.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost as stupid as Tommy Mottola.\u00c2\u00a0 Tommy Mottola lost his job because of the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 In a limited media world Tommy could create fabrications out of thin air, and then hype them to high hell.\u00c2\u00a0 We had suspicions Mariah Carey was a twit, but it was only when we got online and found out everybody else felt the same way that perception changed.\u00c2\u00a0 Believing that it’s about him, not the talent, Tommy decided to make the aforementioned Lindsay Lohan into a music star.\u00c2\u00a0 He just didn’t realize she WASN’T a star.\u00c2\u00a0 She was a CELEBRITY!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, for a moment there, she was a nascent film star.\u00c2\u00a0 But then everybody got broadband, blogs blossomed, and she changed from next door nice to party slut.\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody wants to fuck the slut, but nobody wants to marry her.<\/p>\n
Yes, the hoi polloi want to frolic with the celebrities.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to get in on the press action.\u00c2\u00a0 Doubt me?\u00c2\u00a0 Then what are all the online rating sites about?\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind Tia Tequila and her zillion MySpace friends.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about working your way into the celebrity sphere.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s got nothing to do with movies or music, never mind conventional TV.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not what these celebrities’ talent IS!\u00c2\u00a0 Their talent is getting fucked up and bedding each other while they leave a stream of broken automobiles behind.<\/p>\n
No one’s interested in a Paris Hilton PRODUCT!\u00c2\u00a0 SHE’S the product.\u00c2\u00a0 You might like to meet her, touch her, but you don’t want her record.\u00c2\u00a0 Why would you?\u00c2\u00a0 She’s got NO TALENT!<\/p>\n
But it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Seeing the reams of publicity the celebrities accumulate, record companies believe this is the way to break MUSICIANS!\u00c2\u00a0 To have them endorse any product that’ll feature them in an advertising spread.\u00c2\u00a0 Not realizing that rather than having this publicity burnish their career, it eviscerates their credibility!\u00c2\u00a0 A true artist would never compromise, never sacrifice, never PROSTITUTE himself to such a degree.\u00c2\u00a0 All Paris Hilton HAS are her wits.\u00c2\u00a0 Which she employs quite well.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, she’s a household name.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s a train-wreck that will garner attention to such a degree that associated brands, whether they be bars or bikes, can get noticed.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas musicians supposedly have talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Something god-given the rest of us don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Which separates them from us.\u00c2\u00a0 Which makes us look up to them.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t look up to the celebrities, we MAKE FUN OF THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 And for their ability to sell ads on TMZ and PerezHilton and "Entertainment Tonight" and VH1, they get paid and endure the ridicule.\u00c2\u00a0 You think they don’t know the more outrageous their behavior the higher their price?\u00c2\u00a0 For they deliver more EYEBALLS!\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas musicians don’t touch your eyes, but your soul.\u00c2\u00a0 And it doesn’t matter how you look, what you’re wearing, just what you sound like, what you have to say.\u00c2\u00a0 And how can we believe in what you say if you’re dressed up in designer duds in "Blender"?<\/p>\n
And then there are the big sellers.\u00c2\u00a0 People like Justin Timberlake.\u00c2\u00a0 The press is in on the game, since they get eyeballs\/readers from featuring him.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s call the new album what it is, not Justin Timberlake’s second record, but TIMBALAND’S NEW ONE!\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why nobody’s got a career anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Because everybody knows they’ve got no talent.\u00c2\u00a0 The true talent is producers.\u00c2\u00a0 Dr. Dre will have a longer career than any rapper out there.\u00c2\u00a0 For he’s the one who creates the beats.
\u00c2\u00a0
And the beats fit the lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 The CELEBRITY lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why they sell.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t play rock in a club, never mind ballads\/torch songs.\u00c2\u00a0 And it being easy to fit into this participatory culture, record companies don’t focus on what’s real, but the avenue of least resistance.\u00c2\u00a0 You wonder why sales keep declining?\u00c2\u00a0 Because all there is is buzz, and NO TALENT!<\/p>\n
Then you’ve got the wannabes.\u00c2\u00a0 The MySpace musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Who complain the focus isn’t on them.\u00c2\u00a0 When all they’ve got is ambition, their talent being nonexistent.\u00c2\u00a0 Really.\u00c2\u00a0 Go listen to these bands.<\/p>\n
And the infrastructure is calcified.\u00c2\u00a0 Touring is big business.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not the sixties and seventies anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 LiveNation wants spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 Because that delivers the big bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though next year you need a new spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, take Madonna.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s ONLY spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 What next, TRULY NAILING HERSELF TO A CROSS?<\/p>\n
Ridin’ down the highway It didn’t used to be so easy.\u00c2\u00a0 But MTV changed the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Took about four years for someone to understand the image\/marketing game completely, but by time Michael Jackson and Madonna hit it big, it was all over for the usual suspects.\u00c2\u00a0 People who practiced their instruments in basements, toured shitholes just trying to get traction, getting good along the way, figuring out what worked with the public, never mind learning how to play better.<\/p>\n Gettin’ had Used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 A ten year overnight sensation.\u00c2\u00a0 Even Billy Joel signed a bad deal and was relegated to the piano bar circuit.\u00c2\u00a0 Where’s Vanessa Carlton today?\u00c2\u00a0 Where are the Spice Girls?\u00c2\u00a0 Where are all the one hit wonders?\u00c2\u00a0 Without seasoning, without a cadre of devoted fans keeping them alive on the road in between successes, they’ve faded out, left the boards, it’s just not economically feasible to keep doing it.<\/p>\n Hate to tell you, it’s still just as hard.\u00c2\u00a0 The way we’re going, we’ll have BABY superstars soon.\u00c2\u00a0 An engineer will record an infant’s cooing and crying and Dallas Austin will craft a hit single.\u00c2\u00a0 The kid will tour and be on drugs before kindergarten.<\/p>\n Don’t blame the celebrities.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re just doing their job.\u00c2\u00a0 Blame yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 For not seeing and understanding the game.<\/p>\n And blame the cynical purveyors.\u00c2\u00a0 Who don’t realize anything’s changed even though everybody in cyberspace has.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, on a day when Steve Jobs is talking about streaming films wirelessly through houses the labels are focusing on selling CDs!\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think they’d want to go back to signing acts based on their talent, their ability to write songs and perform, irrelevant of genre?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, what’s the first thing you hear when you’re rejected?\u00c2\u00a0 WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO MARKET YOU!<\/p>\n They know how to market no-talents.\u00c2\u00a0 They think they’re pulling the wool over the public’s eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 But the public is laughing.\u00c2\u00a0 They know what’s real.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got the Doors.\u00c2\u00a0 Doing no endorsements, just standing on their music.\u00c2\u00a0 Music with HISTORY!\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, how many records did Jimmy Page play on BEFORE he formed Led Zeppelin?<\/p>\n It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll Give a fifteen year old the choice.\u00c2\u00a0 He can spend the evening hanging with Paris Hilton and the usual suspects at the club du jour or hang backstage with Angus Young.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no contest.\u00c2\u00a0 He’ll want to hang with Angus.<\/p>\n The tiny Angus hits that Gibson and this AMAZING sound comes out.\u00c2\u00a0 It fills rooms.\u00c2\u00a0 It speaks to one’s elation, one’s FRUSTRATION!\u00c2\u00a0 He wears the same outfit every night.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t advertise deodorant, never mind watches.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s never given a coherent interview, he speaks through his axe.\u00c2\u00a0 And out of that axe comes religion.<\/p>\n There’s no religion in celebrity culture, but AC\/DC is TEEMING with it.\u00c2\u00a0 "Back In Black" is gonna sell when we’re dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Because captured therein is the essence.\u00c2\u00a0 Not something salable, but something that RESONATES!<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Don’t confuse celebrities with heroes.\u00c2\u00a0 Heroes are people you look up to, who you want to emulate, celebrities are three-dimensional characters in a living cartoon cavorting for your entertainment. Paris Hilton has no talent and isn’t that good-looking.\u00c2\u00a0 But people love reading about her.\u00c2\u00a0 This uneducated twit who lives to fuck and party is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-8t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Goin’ to a show
Stop in all the byways
Playin’ rock ‘n’ roll
Gettin’ robbed
Gettin’ stoned
Gettin’ beat up
Broken boned<\/em><\/p>\n
Gettin’ took
I tell you folks
It’s harder than it looks<\/em><\/p>\n
It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll
If you think it’s easy doin’ one night stands
Try playin’ in a rock roll band
It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll<\/em><\/p>\n