Lots of stuff flying through my brain.
Music and the music industry have changed dramatically over the last 30 years. What is commercially successful today is what can be marketed to mindless tweenagers, who are the money spenders. They don't go to clubs, where there is still a lot of amazing music being played. They don't support the indies, because a lot of that is too intelligent, too musically sophisticated, and too often, to challenging to the simple-minded, poppish pablum that's become the status quo. Boy bands. Girl bands. Vapid, useless music, but if you put enough fluff on it, enough gratuitous sexiness, it'll sell, and the production companies are laughing.
Talent isn't really important; only the package matters. This actually started long ago, long before I was really following music. The Monkeys were a packaged band. Decades later, Milli-Vanilli were a packaged band, and there were many in-between. But, it's reached insane heights in today's market, and it's sickening. Real talent gets ignored in favour of some bit of fluff whose voice can be DSP'd to sound tolerable.
I was a serious fan of Romeo Void in the 80s. Innovative, dynamic, edgy music with amazing vocals by Deborah Iyall. They were on the edge of fantastic success, when the promoters pulled the plug. Why? Debora was a large woman. Large women don't sell as many tickets. People wanted to look at Dale Bozzio (Missing Persons) and Debbie Harry (Blondie) and so on. Granted, quite talented women, but the important thing, commercially was that they were also blessed with looks that sell. The politics of fashion cut an amazing career short. (Romeo Void's
Girl in Trouble is definitely worth a listen, whether it's to your tastes or not. Ignore the idiot DJ, and the video is typically 80s artpop, but the song is what matters.
Never Say Never was another hit from the period.)
There's still a lot of fantastic music being produced, but most of it will never be heard on the airwaves, and will only garner an underground following. It's a shame, really, but it's always been that way. Once in a while, a band, or even a genre, will emerge from the cellars and streak through the public's consciousness for a short time before going back underground, but it's rare, and, apparently, getting rarer.
Welcome to post-modernism at its worst. Damn. I think I'm feverish.
