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Edited on Thu Dec-04-03 01:06 AM by RandomKoolzip
I have to go retrieve something, hold on....
Here's part of a rant I posted the other night as part of a dust-up involving Why I hate Radiohead. Ignore the parts that don't make sense:
""I never said everyone was "clueless:" that's putting words in my mouth. The whole thrust of my tangent was to express my befuddlement at music fans not breaking out of their self-imposed major label cocoons. Why would you want to listen to only the artists that Bertlesmann, inc, etc. says is your duty to listen to?
Radiohead, U2, etc. get a whole lot of press and radio airplay. The increasingly incestuous nature of the music business makes for a decreasing number of listening choices in the mainstream resulting in a kind of all-purpose soundalike noise being pushed by record companies. For instance, Christina Aguilera's entire career is based not in true grassroots support, but by stealth marketing. Pr legworkers at her record company deigned to give her a huge promotional push by posing as posters on music message boards and elsewhere on the net, creating a fake "buzz" about her music. This is a well-trod path for PR advertising, used since the days when beer companies used to pay "plants" to walk into bars across the nation to loudly demand their brand of beer. Enough paid hacks shouting "Ballantine, " and soon enugh, what you got s a whole bunch of people hopping on the Ballantine bandwagon in the hopes of keeping up with the crowd.
On MTV's call in show, TRL, the only calls tabulated by those operating the phones are the ones logged from record companies themselves; in essence, the radio, MTV, and mainstream press are now broadcasting nothing but payola, nothing but "bought" acts. Mostly these acts fall into a solid "pop" category, i.e. Britney, etc., but to give off the appearance of diversity, the officially-sanctioned musical acts often come in a "rock" flavor to placate those boys (and occasional gals) who demand a somewhat more aggressive muse. Often to give off the appearance of a truly "grassroots-supported" act, the record company plants stories in Rolling Stone, Spin, etc. claiming rebellious intentions on the part of the musician, ie. Radiohead's supposed "difficult" and "avant-garde" qualities, their supposed SIGNIFIGANCE and IMPORTANCE and SPOKESMEN OF A GENERATION status. This too, helps sell the act to the public, but not the mass public; the audience being sold a bill of goods here is the self-described "adventurous" listener, the "non-conformist," the kind of music fan who will pat him/herself on the back for being "hip" to the "newest" sounds and trends before they "sell out."
Remember CBS advertising slogan in the late sixties: "The man can't bust our music?" It's working all over again. And while in the case of Radiohead there are occasional bright spots of real creativity in their back catalogue (I'm thinking here of "Electioneering," specifically), the product itself is a corporate item, through and through. And when we see a Band like Radiohead change the direction of their music to incorpoarte sophisticated studio technology like ProTools, drum machines, samplers, etc. what we are seeing is a band buying credibility in the form of "experimentation" when in fact, all they are doing is making their music more impersonal, colder, to match the feelings engendered by its means of production: an Anti-Rock move.
When we see the popularity of a group like Radiohead, what we are seeing is the product of a corporation PR department working overtime. And when the media outlets are clogged with multi-page reviews and interviews of Radiohead, even, in a kind of cynical in-joke, quotes of Thom Yorke bemoaning the profusion of corporate influence in daily life (ha ha), what you also have is a press blackout for any other musical act who may be great but don't have the monetary backing of a gigantic multinational. What results is the officially chosen act gaining a mass audience while literally thousands of others are left waiting at the gate.
I think this sucks.
There is a world of music out there untouched by the realm of the corporate wolves, and it is that world I choose to partake of. If you think Betlesmann, BMG, Sony, etc. should all be richer, so be it.
By the way, you are witnessing the reason why I no longer work as a Rock Critic; I used to make a living off this stuff but I got tired of playing the corporate game at the expense of the music itself.""
I think this is awesome.
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