The Man

“Give up, just quit, because in this life, you can't win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you're just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don't know the Man. He's everywhere. In the White House... down the hall... Ms. Mullins, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock 'n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome 'cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!” – Dewey Finn, School of Rock

Since we got cable, MTV and the Disney Channel were probably my two favorite channels. Music videos were an amazing world, and it was so much more enthralling to be able to see the artists than to just listen to them on the radio.

Disney Channel had Disney stuff, which was cool, but there were also series from Canada and Australia, and classic movies. Every Gary Cooper movie I have seen was on the Disney Channel.

What they once were, they no longer are, and in their own corporate way, from “The Real World” to “The Jonas Brothers”, they have robbed us all, catering to youth by sinking to a level that youth should be insulted by, so that even the stars that are not directly connected fit in with it.

First of all, I get the appeal of Justin Bieber. I have never been a big fan of Michael Jackson in any of his incarnations, but I find Bieber somewhat reminiscent of Jackson 5 Michael, and I know there are a lot of people who do like that. (I realize this comparison will offend some, but wait till my next sentence.) Based on this, my advice for Bieber is to avoid plastic surgery and small boys. (Crude perhaps, but I wish I was sure that was a joke.)

I also realize that I should really cut Taylor Swift some slack. She pursued music on her own, plays and writes, and her music is personal even if it is shallow. Really, she’s kind of the Debbie Gibson of today, unless Mandy Moore is. I guess I’m just going to have to fall back on a lack of chemistry there. Maybe it’s her country roots. She is still not the pre-packaged abomination that I have concerns with.

Writing about the Top 100 Guitar Songs list, I gave some praise to “Seven Nation Army” for stripping down to the basics, and it got more credit for doing it at a time when the trend was towards overproduction of everything. It seems this is a recurring trend. I think to some extent that is what fueled Adele’s popularity. She sounded like she was for grownups at a time when that pretty rare. (Though we do not like her, and found it funny when we realized that was the song Mom was complaining about because it was on every time she got into the car.)

I said I don’t have a problem with selling, but it does matter what you sell. Let’s say you start out with a child who is reasonably cute and personable, and has either an interest in performing or a parent interested in exploitation. First we will start out with a television show. Kids are stupid and unsophisticated, so the show will be poorly-written, contrived, and poorly-acted. It will be effective at selling sheets and clothes and dolls, though.

This is still not enough. There must also be music. It doesn’t matter if the performer can’t sing, because we have Autotune. Of course that means that live performances should be lip-synched, but that’s okay because we are going to choreograph an elaborate dance routine anyway, and being able to sing and dance simultaneously is really hard, and really, what we are selling with you is not skill, it’s cuteness. That’s how you got into the business, that’s how you will stay in the business. This is the kind of situation where it makes sense that Rebecca Black’s parents think that they can buy her a pop career; it’s just another commodity.

There is no getting lost in the skill of acting, because all that is required is goggle eyes and spit takes.  There is no getting lost in the music here, because there barely is any music here, and they are squeezing the joy out of the semblance of music that is left.

That’s annoying, and seems like a lost opportunity, but I went from annoyed to angry with a single video: “Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)” by Lindsey Lohan. Wow. No, the “wow” is not because it is so good. It’s because it’s so uncomfortable.

I will get back to this, but thinking about Lohan’s issues reminded me of Britney’s breakdown, and Jessica’s divorce, and Demi Lovato’s meltdown and stint in rehab, and the writing on the wall for Miley Cyrus, and it seems to me that the girls pay a much higher price for this process than they boys. I am not comfortable with that. Part of this process will be trying to figure out why things are this way.