They think we’re fucking idiots.<\/p>\n
Used to be that music was the bastion of reality, it was where you went for truth.\u00c2\u00a0 But ever since Clive Davis went from zero to hero, completely out of the mainstream TO the mainstream, and every other label followed his hit\/dreck formula, music has been a joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Made for the lowest common denominator.\u00c2\u00a0 Those with IQ’s under 100.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you complain about this, you’re told you’re TOO INSIDE, TOO MUCH OF A MUSO!\u00c2\u00a0 And worse…LOOK AT THE GROSSES!<\/p>\n
Yeah, but now the grosses aren’t so good.<\/p>\n
Something’s happening here.\u00c2\u00a0 The same baby boomers who went from love your brother to rip him off in the eighties have now completely lost touch with the marketplace.\u00c2\u00a0 These cynical fucks are so out of touch with what people think that their work is truly laughable.<\/p>\n
Take MTV’s coverage of Live 8 for example.<\/p>\n
Let’s stop being pissed for a minute and analyze it.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV hasn’t been about music for eons.\u00c2\u00a0 The only reason they air videos is so they can get cheap celebrity entertainment and not have to change their name.\u00c2\u00a0 But, even MUSIC celebrities are too expensive, too strongwilled, so they’ve created THEIR OWN!\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, for doing nothing, the stars of "Real World" and the so-called newscasters are now personalities, presiding over a modern day Mickey Mouse Club.<\/p>\n
They won’t tell you that.\u00c2\u00a0 But the audience of MTV skews EXTREMELY young.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you’d have to be completely inexperienced, unjaded, to BUY their crap programming.<\/p>\n
Of course MTV had to air Live 8, since they’re supposedly "Music Television" and they aired Live Aid.\u00c2\u00a0 But their goal wasn’t to be in service to the music or the cause, but their AUDIENCE!\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, ten year olds.<\/p>\n
Only problem was, with knowledge of the outlet’s Live Aid coverage, oldsters tuned in.\u00c2\u00a0 And the teenagers who’ve abandoned the channel FOR music, who are Pink Floyd fans, they dialed in too.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s what all the brouhaha’s about.\u00c2\u00a0 NON-fans, who tuned into MTV for Live 8 coverage the same way they tune into CNN when there’s a disaster, were STUNNED at the change that had been wrought.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t even RECOGNIZE MTV, never mind its values (i.e. cutting off "Comfortably Numb").<\/p>\n
The fact that MTV couldn’t foresee this is astounding.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that the channel was SO caught up in servicing its core audience of ten year olds that they didn’t realize there was a whole other WORLD out there!<\/p>\n
Yup, MTV wasn’t caught flat-footed. They INTENTIONALLY aired lame Live 8 coverage, carefully calculated to keep the barely pubescent at best viewer tuned in.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, old farts playing decades old music, that’s ratings DEATH!<\/p>\n
And it IS, when shown as videos.\u00c2\u00a0 But this was a SPECIAL EVENT!<\/p>\n
Same deal with "Rock Star".<\/p>\n
Let’s see.\u00c2\u00a0 People like reality shows.\u00c2\u00a0 They like the drama of seeing people eliminated.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Burnett’s got a track record, we can sell advertising.\u00c2\u00a0 LOOKS GOOD!<\/p>\n
Only problem is CBS is in essentially every home.\u00c2\u00a0 And the show was labeled ROCK STAR, not something cheesy like "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 And it featured a one time credible band.\u00c2\u00a0 So, people were going to pay attention, just like they did with Live 8 (albeit in smaller numbers), and what they’ve seen is an ABOMINATION!<\/p>\n
What does Brooke Burke have to do with music?\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not ONE female musician you could hire to host this show?<\/p>\n
But the whored out audience is worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Just about everybody who views this show has been to a concert.\u00c2\u00a0 And knows rampant pandemonium does not break out the instant some lame opening act hits the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to EARN your applause.\u00c2\u00a0 FIRST you sing, THEN you get acclaim.\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming you’re good.<\/p>\n
Which these contestants are not.<\/p>\n
"American Idol" is a talent show.\u00c2\u00a0 How many people from your high school talent show made it?\u00c2\u00a0 NONE!\u00c2\u00a0 But, you enjoyed watching them perform in the gym, making fun of those who sucked, marveling that some girl or boy you never talked to actually had a good voice.<\/p>\n
And what if you could audibly hear YOUR critique of these performers.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, Simon provides that.\u00c2\u00a0 And, you hate Paula Abdul just like you hated the saccharine cheerleaders.\u00c2\u00a0 And you forgive Randy because hell, you know he’ll let you take a hit of his blunt if you run into him in the bathroom.<\/p>\n
"American Idol" WAS NEVER MEANT to be real.\u00c2\u00a0 Ratings on TV are good because of the drama, and CDs sell because of the exposure.<\/p>\n
But "Rock Star" is PREDICATED on being real.\u00c2\u00a0 CREDIBLE!<\/p>\n
And the band itself, the four surviving members of INXS, they’re sitting there slapping their thighs, grooving to the lame performances of these wannabes.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe TWO of these performers verge on being professional, but even they don’t quite measure up.<\/p>\n
And then you’ve got the contestants themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Standing up grooving to the efforts of their co-competitors.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean it would be one thing if someone blew the roof off the place, and the rest were willing to concede, but in a CONTEST, do you really cheer on the other people, who are not doing so well ANYWAY?\u00c2\u00a0 I mean if you want to WIN??<\/p>\n
But they’ve been coached.\u00c2\u00a0 Be ANIMATED!<\/p>\n
As have been Brooke, and the audience and the band.\u00c2\u00a0 As for Dave Navarro, I’ve got the sneaking suspicion he really is this lame.<\/p>\n
So what you’ve got is a fake show made for an audience that DOESN’T EXIST!\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody involved is SO inside as to be COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH!<\/p>\n
And there you have today’s music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Cynical old men who only know the ways of yore who are completely out of touch with their audience.<\/p>\n
Yup, labels truly believe the riches are in the lowest common denominator.\u00c2\u00a0 That we’re fucking stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 That we won’t notice that these performers didn’t write their own songs and can’t really sing.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about IMAGE, right?<\/p>\n
Well, until you can convince me that the quality of a tune is commensurate with someone’s looks, I don’t think so.\u00c2\u00a0 As a matter of fact, doesn’t some of the best music come from the UNATTRACTIVE?\u00c2\u00a0 Frustrated at their plight in society, the fact that no one notices them, that they can’t get LAID?<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s a market for crap.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 The mainstream wants respect, they want something they can sink their teeth into, that they can chew.<\/p>\n
Even though it’s stumbled, that’s what HBO was built on.\u00c2\u00a0 RESPECTING its audience.\u00c2\u00a0 And people pay every month for the privilege of being respected.<\/p>\n
Credibility.\u00c2\u00a0 Respect.\u00c2\u00a0 Passion.\u00c2\u00a0 THESE are the building blocks of success in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 To the degree anybody working at a label knows this, they only pay lip service to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they’re whores to their mortgages, slaves to the grind.<\/p>\n
Unless you’re willing to put it all on the line, the public just doesn’t care.<\/p>\n
Ask Iggy.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, ask just about ANY true rock star.\u00c2\u00a0 They came from nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no fall back position.\u00c2\u00a0 They NEEDED this.<\/p>\n
And we could sense it.<\/p>\n
And the drama, the pure desire, made us pay attention.<\/p>\n
We’re not paying attention to "Rock Star: INXS".\u00c2\u00a0 Just check the ratings if you doubt me.<\/p>\n
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They think we’re fucking idiots. Used to be that music was the bastion of reality, it was where you went for truth.\u00c2\u00a0 But ever since Clive Davis went from zero to hero, completely out of the mainstream TO the mainstream, and every other label followed his hit\/dreck formula, music has been a joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Made for […]<\/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-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-1n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","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=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}