Tagged: music

The VMAs and Our Brainwashed Soceity

I feel no shame when I report that yes, I spent the last two hours anchored in front of my television while a musical menagerie was paraded across the screen in a whirl wind of teen heart throbs and mega stars.  Lots of people sang, lots of people danced, a few people won awards, and for some reason Kevin Hart made the exact same jokes about two dozen times.  Its the VMAs!

This won’t be a post about the irony of honoring music videos when in fact MTV rarely plays them any more.  This won’t be a post about how utterly annoying it is that talented artists are often past over because they are not young and/or hot and/or British.  All those subjects seem trite and boring.  No, I will talk about something much more important and profound than that.  I want to talk about Miley Cyrus.

Oh, Miley, how far you have fallen.  It’s sad, and only slightly fascinating and gratifying, to watch your public degeneration into teen star wash out status.  Did you see her performance at the VMAs?  Much like her video for the summer hit “We Can’t Stop”, it had that “I don’t care what you think” vibe yet somehow desperately screamed “please say you think I am cool!  Look!  I’m twerking!  That’s cool, right? Right?!”

To sum it up, it wasn’t classy.  I hope for MIley Cyrus’s sake that the whole plot was the brain child of some money hungry manager or executive.  Either that or she had at least done a lot of cocaine first.  I understand that she is trying to distance herself from her Disney Channel days, but it seems she is teetering on the edge and could go over the deep in at any moment.

…Or possibly they just want us to think that.  Maybe Miley Cyrus has become a train wreck for a reason. Because at the end of the day no one will look away.  As sad as it may be, as long as she is still relevant, she is still successful.  It doesn’t matter how many middle aged women are sitting at home shaking their heads with disappointment when they see her Jersey turnpike Robin Thicke on national television because she is still making money.  It doesn’t matter if her hair makes her look like the Cynthia doll from the Rugrats.  All publicity is good publicity, right?

It’s why Ke$ha says she was born with a tail.  It’s why Lady Gaga can be as strange and confusing as she wants.  It’s why Daft Punk will never take off their helmets.  It doesn’t matter if we like it, as long as we are intrigued.  As long as we are tuning in.  As long as we still care, they still are making the money.  No matter what we think, as long as we are still thinking of them, they still win.

Oh, show business.

The Hipster Effect

I’m sure we’ve all heard this phrase (or maybe even been guilty of using it ourselves): “I liked [insert band, movie, book, etc here] before it became popular and now everyone is in love with them/it and it’s really annoying!”

I’ve spent some time considering this aversion to the popular and mainstream.  When I brought up how entirely in love I was with The Killers in conversation with a good friend, her response was, “I don’t listen to the Killers, they are too mainstream.”  Too mainstream?  What does that even mean really, and more importantly, how does it effect the quality of the Killers’ music?  Whether you are a fan of this particular group or not is irrelevant.  It’s the sentiment behind the statement.  What she was really saying is “I am better than the mindless hoard.  I am a hipster–which makes me cooler than you.”

She could not come out and say she is a hipster (because that would negate her hipster-y-ness), but the end result was the same.  I felt like I was one step behind, like I was missing the next big thing because I was too busy in the now.  Another, probably better example of this, is the predicament of the band, Fun.  I only became a fan shortly before their breakthrough album, Some Nights, was released. And who doesn’t love the song Some Nights?  (Don’t answer that.)  But if you listen close enough, you will hear the soft little murmurs of discontent every now and then when someone begins to belt out the chorus.  Those little voices are saying “psh, I liked them before everyone else.  These fans are such posers.”

People are mad that Fun. is popular.  They are mad that people hear their songs on the radio and no longer is anyone impressed by their knowledge of them.  No longer can they haughtily suggest them, no longer will they be able to show off their advanced taste in music.  And they are afraid of the obvious truth:  They have the same taste in music as the dreaded “mainstream”.  They try to gainsay this imminent epiphany by digging deeper and deeper, searching harder for the newest unknown artists to load onto their ipod and brag about to all their friends.

There is a positive there.  It diversifies the music industry.  It is nice to see that Ed Sheeran can reach as large as an audience as Rihanna.  While some may say hearing the A-team playing after Diamonds is an abomination, I think it’s progress.  

I only wish people could see their favorite bands and artists gaining new fans as a good thing.  If you are really a die-hard fan, you would want those people, those people that inspired you and made you happy, to achieve their own dreams, even if that means everyone in your calculus class is humming their latest single.  Nothing would make me happier to see my favorite band, Mother Mother, become super successful and famous.

I can remember the first time I heard a Mother Mother song anywhere besides my ipod or in the internet.  I was shopping on New Years Eve, standing in line in American Eagle about to try on a dress that had just gone on sale, when I heard it; that familiar tune, the soft beat playing over the hushed speakers.  It took a moment for my mind to make the connection, but suddenly, it dawned on me and I full of excitement and mirth to the point that I was bursting with it.  I wanted to grab complete strangers firmly be the shoulders and scream “do you hear this!  This is Mother Mother!  Go look them up, now!”

The point being, it doesn’t matter when you become a fan of a certain band or book or movie.  It doesn’t matter because it doesn’t make it any less good.