Grammy Awards
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abooja
Well-Known Member
I agree it was a great speech, though I found him to be quite humble compared to the rest of those idiots.IDLEchild said:
I found it sickening hearing the names of so many familiar record execs I used to work with (for).
I also thought the Jennifer Lopez/Mark Anthony duet was abominable. She can't sing to save her life.
SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
I boycotted the Grammys when Tull beat out Metallica for the Metal Album way back when. Haven't turned it on since. I get all the Junkie Of The Week the labels want to cram down consumers' throats I need...we have a 12 year old. Gimme a real musician any day over a dancer with a sequined halter top claiming to be a pop artist...I can get that at the local tittie bar.
SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
So many legends wouldn't even be signed these days simply because...
1. They aren't cute
2. They aren't marketable
3. They can't dance
which is a travesty. Talent is no longer required; it's all about looks.
Janis Joplin was hands down the greatest female vocalist I have ever heard. Her live recordings fully display the intensity of her singing style. But she couldn't dance, and didn't look good in a bikini, and would have fallen flat on her face if they tried to make a MTV teenybopper show around her. Hence, the world would have been denied the wonder of Janis if she were trying to make it today. Which make you wonder how many potential Janis Joplins, John Lennons, Johnny Rottens, or even David Lee Roths are out there right now getting ignored.
The music business has never been more of a business than it is right now. Talent means nothing. IMO, the most musically talented artist on the contemporary scene is none other than Lenny Kravitz. The man can play anything, and play it will. He writes good songs. He has a decent voice. He gets ignored in favor of some twitching little slut who lip synchs everything. Said slut will be a distant memory in a year.
Just look at it...what music survives the test of time? A glance at the charts from, say, 1985 might show who was being force fed to us over the airwaves, but is it what we remember liking? Is it what is still being played on radio twenty years later? No.
I've studied this phenomenon for damn near 30 years now, and it is always the case. Music label execs shove artist A down the public's throat, pile PR money on them, blow the entire wad on making them successful. Artist B gets virtually ignored. Music fans, the ones who BUY music instead of following the trends and hearing artist A for free at every conceivable outlet, are the ones who really control the music industry's long term success. If they flock to artist B, then twenty years down the road artist A (oh, let's just say...Debbie Gibson) is a trivia answer, while artist B (umm...say Motley Crue) has millions of sales, concert and merchandising revenue aplenty, and a lasting place in music history, like them or not.
Perfect example of what I am talking about...we all remember (some more fondly than others) the hard rock explosion of the mid 80s. There were more bands in LA alone than the industry could support. But of all of them, only one band is still to this day regularly releasing albums...the rest have faded away or on some sort of "comeback" mission.
Motley Crue...no.
Poison...no.
Ratt...no.
Guns N' Roses...no.
Great White...no.
Only W.A.S.P. Never immensely popular, and certainly never a band that the label actively supported or backed. That was left to the fans. And they have.
Leads me to one conclusion. Music taste is fickle. In the end, the only people that matter are the fans. If they buy it, the artsist and label make money. If not, the artists becomes a truck driver and the label goes broke. And try as they might, the labels will never be 100% able to dictate acceptance of their pet projects so long as an active underground of music fans are willing to open their wallets and support the artists they like. The Sex Pistols outsold and outlived almost every single disco act ever conceived, despite the labels' attempts to shove disco down our throats.
[/SnP on soapbox]
1. They aren't cute
2. They aren't marketable
3. They can't dance
which is a travesty. Talent is no longer required; it's all about looks.
Janis Joplin was hands down the greatest female vocalist I have ever heard. Her live recordings fully display the intensity of her singing style. But she couldn't dance, and didn't look good in a bikini, and would have fallen flat on her face if they tried to make a MTV teenybopper show around her. Hence, the world would have been denied the wonder of Janis if she were trying to make it today. Which make you wonder how many potential Janis Joplins, John Lennons, Johnny Rottens, or even David Lee Roths are out there right now getting ignored.
The music business has never been more of a business than it is right now. Talent means nothing. IMO, the most musically talented artist on the contemporary scene is none other than Lenny Kravitz. The man can play anything, and play it will. He writes good songs. He has a decent voice. He gets ignored in favor of some twitching little slut who lip synchs everything. Said slut will be a distant memory in a year.
Just look at it...what music survives the test of time? A glance at the charts from, say, 1985 might show who was being force fed to us over the airwaves, but is it what we remember liking? Is it what is still being played on radio twenty years later? No.
I've studied this phenomenon for damn near 30 years now, and it is always the case. Music label execs shove artist A down the public's throat, pile PR money on them, blow the entire wad on making them successful. Artist B gets virtually ignored. Music fans, the ones who BUY music instead of following the trends and hearing artist A for free at every conceivable outlet, are the ones who really control the music industry's long term success. If they flock to artist B, then twenty years down the road artist A (oh, let's just say...Debbie Gibson) is a trivia answer, while artist B (umm...say Motley Crue) has millions of sales, concert and merchandising revenue aplenty, and a lasting place in music history, like them or not.
Perfect example of what I am talking about...we all remember (some more fondly than others) the hard rock explosion of the mid 80s. There were more bands in LA alone than the industry could support. But of all of them, only one band is still to this day regularly releasing albums...the rest have faded away or on some sort of "comeback" mission.
Motley Crue...no.
Poison...no.
Ratt...no.
Guns N' Roses...no.
Great White...no.
Only W.A.S.P. Never immensely popular, and certainly never a band that the label actively supported or backed. That was left to the fans. And they have.
Leads me to one conclusion. Music taste is fickle. In the end, the only people that matter are the fans. If they buy it, the artsist and label make money. If not, the artists becomes a truck driver and the label goes broke. And try as they might, the labels will never be 100% able to dictate acceptance of their pet projects so long as an active underground of music fans are willing to open their wallets and support the artists they like. The Sex Pistols outsold and outlived almost every single disco act ever conceived, despite the labels' attempts to shove disco down our throats.
[/SnP on soapbox]
chcr
Too cute for words
abooja said:
Or act.
[opinionated bullshit]
I don't watch 'em anymore. Modern popular music rarely interests me anymore. "It's not that I'm old, your music really does suck."
Joss Stone, on the other hand, is a bright, shining light in a wasteland of talentless tits, asses, too much makeup, too little clothing and bad attitues.
[/opinionated bullshit]
Lopan
New Member
There is some good music out, its just drowned under the sheer volume of formulaic crap. Rap is mostly rubbish with that artists admitting they are just in it for the money. Whatever happened to making music because your an artist. The moment you advertise for a multi national behemoth you shouldn't be allowed to make music.
MTV is mostly pants, If I hear that nelly/tim mcgraw song one more time I'm going outside and lying down in the road
MTV is mostly pants, If I hear that nelly/tim mcgraw song one more time I'm going outside and lying down in the road
SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
Lopan said:
It went down in a helicopter outside Chicago, along with Stevie Ray Vaughan.
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
Yeah..if talent actually meant anything over the marketablility of an artists' skill, then Milli Vanilli would never have existed, but the two women and one man who actually sang the Milli music would've been the stars. *Weird example..but it works.**
Fat people can't become stars anymore, ugly people can't become stars anymore, people without charisma but with great lungs and style can't become stars anymore. Hell..check out what happened to Ruben Studdart... hell of a voice, glad he won...where is he? Havn't the foggiest, but the #2 guy.. young, slim white boy's hitting the charts again.
To paraphrase - video killed the radio star....and that the shame and the truth both, children.
Fat people can't become stars anymore, ugly people can't become stars anymore, people without charisma but with great lungs and style can't become stars anymore. Hell..check out what happened to Ruben Studdart... hell of a voice, glad he won...where is he? Havn't the foggiest, but the #2 guy.. young, slim white boy's hitting the charts again.
To paraphrase - video killed the radio star....and that the shame and the truth both, children.
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
Ditto Aretha Franklin, Celia Cruz, Jimmy Hendrix, Santana, etc etc... they aren't cookie-cutter performers.. if they'd have come out today, they wouldn't have made it past talent searches.SouthernN'Proud said:
What a fuckin' loss. Can you imagine who we're missing out on? Hell, this morning as I dropped off my kid, there was a woman singing in the bus-shelter. Gorgeous and clear voice...I had shivers and it wasn't from the cold... shame that she's about 70lbs overweight and in her 40's.
SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
Pop music has always been about cookie cutters. If something works, beat it into the ground.
Music trends are very cyclical. It's always happened. For a time the stuff that's force-fed will reign, until the public gets sick of it. Usually when that happens the diametric polar opposite comes into vogue. Disco and punk, Whitney Houston to Twisted Sister, R&B to grunge to rap, it's amazing to chart.
Take the 70s. We went from the highly political 60s artists (Bob Dylan) to easy listening (Bread) to country-rock (Eagles/Linda Ronstadt) to hard rock (KISS/Zeppelin) to disco (Blondie) to punk (Sex Pistols) to pop again (Air Supply) in a decade. Each is a reaction to the former. Naturally, there are aberrations thrown in here and there, and some artists who do not fit the mold of the day, but overall it is cyclic. This gives me hope that soon, the public will have had its fill of Ashley Simpson and another refreshing genre will emerge. One where actually playing an instrument is considered worthy of note.
Meanwhile, at this very moment, the next BIG THING is struggling along in a rehearsal room as we speak, wondering if there will be enough money to keep the rent current...
Music trends are very cyclical. It's always happened. For a time the stuff that's force-fed will reign, until the public gets sick of it. Usually when that happens the diametric polar opposite comes into vogue. Disco and punk, Whitney Houston to Twisted Sister, R&B to grunge to rap, it's amazing to chart.
Take the 70s. We went from the highly political 60s artists (Bob Dylan) to easy listening (Bread) to country-rock (Eagles/Linda Ronstadt) to hard rock (KISS/Zeppelin) to disco (Blondie) to punk (Sex Pistols) to pop again (Air Supply) in a decade. Each is a reaction to the former. Naturally, there are aberrations thrown in here and there, and some artists who do not fit the mold of the day, but overall it is cyclic. This gives me hope that soon, the public will have had its fill of Ashley Simpson and another refreshing genre will emerge. One where actually playing an instrument is considered worthy of note.
Meanwhile, at this very moment, the next BIG THING is struggling along in a rehearsal room as we speak, wondering if there will be enough money to keep the rent current...