Wednesday, August 18, 2004

video killed the radio star

sometimes it seems as though the world is turning into "Logan's Run"... like once you're 30, you have no use... the world is so geared towards ages 12 - 19, no one cares about the thoughts of anyone older, it's like, once you're of a certain age, the only thing you're good for is breeding the next generation of consumers.
Take pop music, for instance, has anyone over the age of 16 gotten a record contract lately? what happened to the days when music artists had to be able to write AND sing AND have some kind of stage presence... the music's not realistic anymore - record companies take these cute shiny faced girls, put them in a t-shirt that says "PUNK" (you know, so we aren't confused and think that they're country), give them too much black eyeliner, computer generate some disaffected sounding songs about being done wrong by a bad boy, wrap it in pink sparkle (wouldn't want that punk to be too scary) and spin it on MTV until we buy the cds... don't get me wrong, it's not that i don't think that some of these kids are talented, but what do they know about normal lives, or normal loves, at 14, 15, or 16? i can buy that patsy cline knows heartbreak, i can believe that janis joplin was screwed over, and i won't argue that patty smith lived a hard life, but what does jojo, or hillary duff, or ashlee simpson (sidenote: nothing screams "street cred" to me more than a name like ashlEE) know about any of that? these girls have been groomed for stardom since they were fetuses by disney or dreamworks or nickelodeon or pepsi, they've been robbed of normal childhoods (as much as they suck, pimples, weight gain, heartbreak and having your parents divorce are character building) they have no idea how the real world functions, and they're going to grow up into circus freaks. you'd like examples? how about everyone's favorite train wreck, britney? she's been famous since she was a zygote and now she thinks nothing of dropping 30k on purses in one store (for most of us, that's a year's salary, or a downpayment on a decent house, or years of savings), she's married as a joke, slept with fred durst and admitted to drug use (yes, those are all things that 20 year old girls do, but you don't admit to them - those are skeletons that you tuck into your closet and move on from. she doesn't know what it's like to be out of work and living on top ramen, she doesn't know what it's like to pine for a boy who doesn't know she's alive, she doesn't know what it's like to have to put a vacation on hold for another year because you need the money for a new transmission.
another example? two words: michael jackson... enough said