Life, the universe and everything.

Life, the universe and everything:

Which of course means “People: what the hell is wrong with them and what does that have to do with music?”

Hate!

I am just a little tiniest bit of* a music fascist. I don't like going to clubs or bars, or indeed parties, where the music is what I would call bad.** In fact I hate it. This often leads to antisocial behavior and much grumpiness, as I with an absolute minimum of violence try to take control of whatever device that produce said music.

On the other hand, if I enjoy the music, I will be happy, get somewhat drunk and kicked out of any and all establishments without fail, but that is another story. With lots and lots of hate in it. Back to the topic.

What people fail to understand, is that they have shit taste in music. This is not necessarily their fault (though, some people you just can't help, no matter how much you shout at them).

You see, it is life, Universal (sorry) hate and everything that is to blame, and by that I mean the “music industry”.

Most people like popular music, somehow known as “pop”, or popular music, since it is the most popular music. Commence loop. See what I did there? Anyways, if logic had something to do with anything, this should mean that the most popular music, is the best music, made by the most talented people, with the greatest sense of music artistry, poetry and skillful handling of instruments.

It must be, RIGHT?

Music is the universal language, the human race probably made music before we learned to talk. Music is deeply personal and moving to both performers and listeners.

Music is recognized as art and has been so for a long time.

Music is also a billion dollar industry.

Hate

A standard hit is produced by a recipe. To make a hit, there are many criteria that must be met. None of them are artistic. You do however need about 1,5 million dollars.

You need a catchy title. The title must be repeated. There much be a hook. The hook must be repeated. People should be able to hum or whistle the chorus. It must be the optimum length for radio play/attention span. And so on. And then some.

Well, if an artist can accomplish all these things, then a hit is well deserved, you may say.

Thing is, that the artist doesn't make the melody, or possibly even lyrics or titel of their songs.

The producers do. There are heaps of producers and songwriters who specialize in making hits for the big “artists”.

Ok, ok, you say, maybe that is so, but who cares, if someone else wrote the melody and mixed the instruments, she (yes, probably she, and that includes Bieber) sings so lovely and lyrics are so meaningful.

This is the point where I get passive aggressive and start pounding my head in any hard surface readily available. hate

Have you even listened to the lyrics of hit music lately? In some cases they are utterly meaningless nonsense, in most cases they are mind-numbingly stupid and/or boring.

And as the singing goes, how the hell do you know she can sing? And don't you blogging dare to say you saw it in the music video. I will bash my own head in on said hard surface. There will be blood. Daniel Day Lewis will possibly kill you in a bowling alley if there is any justice.

Autotune and lipsync is what you get these days. RHCP didn't even play their instruments at the super bowl, for blogs sake.

Oh, and if you say you want to see the music video, because she (yes, she) is just so damn hot and barely wears any clothes, then GO WATCH SOME PORN! Don't confuse your porn with your music***. Unless it is porngroove funk, but that is another matter entirely.

Ok, back on track.

So I hear you ask...

If the artist has no or little artistic talent, can possibly sing ok (or not), and someone I probably never heard of wrote the music, why is she so popular, we can't all like this song and “be wrong”.

Sure you can. Studies (that I can't be bothered to link to) show that if one song is “liked”, it will get more likes. If it reaches critical mass likes, it will get more likes, just because it has been liked by a certain amount of others, so when a song is liked by a lot of people, it must be good, therefore you will like it. A song that is disliked will automatically get more dislikes, because everyone dislikes it, so it must be bad. I know what I mean, even if you don't.

Throw the Big 3 into the equation. Sony, Universal and Warner. They are the 3 major labels, and they WILL TELL YOU what is good music. They will even make it popular. You will hear their exciting new talents of the new musical trend that is so cool, and they will even bring you that old artist that wasn't so exciting last year, but has had a total make-over and is ready for that come back you have been waiting and hoping for, for so long now and isn't it just great?

They will tell the radio and TV stations that this is the new hit single, it will become very popular, and they will spend truckloads of money on the promotion, so it can not fail.

So the song goes on the A list rotation of the radio stations and music channels, the “artist”, will go on all the right talk shows, and will possibly 1: make some sort of exciting controversy in main media, or 2: be the front person for some new product line. hate

At this point I will say that I don't have a problem with Miley Cyrus. If I had worked for Disney in that way for many years, I would probably smoke a joint and rub my ass against people too.

If she doesn't die from suicide or OD by the age of 27, I predict interesting things. Take the time to check out the 27 club if you don't know what that is.

Do I have a point to this rant? Maybe.

I would really, REALLY like to say that there are so and so many musicians in the world. I can't. Google will not tell me. But I will guess. I will set the ratio 1 musician to every 1000 other whatevers. 7 000 000 000 people on the earth and then some. 7000 000 ? That is a nice number. Not a hard fact in any way, but a nice round number. So how many of these musicians have you heard? 100? 5000? 439561? It's not important. What is important, is that you have probably not heard a fraction of the available music. If I sat down today, quit my job, and decided to only read books and listen to music for the rest of my life, I would not be able to hear all the music of the world before I died, and I will not even talk about the books. So maybe the point is this.

The best song, the greatest artist, the most utterly mind-boggling melody, you have not heard is out there, (so is also the worst, but that's life)****, so why the burning, blogging hell, do you insist on listening to the crap the big industry feeds you? Stop it. Right now. And hate the bad music long and hard.

This is also why my tv is not hooked up to any signal, but that is also for another day.

“...We live in a world where John Lennon was murdered, yet Barry Manilow continues to put out fucking albums. God-dammit! If you are gonna kill somebody, have some fucking taste.” -

-Bill Hicks

*I am NOT a musician, nor do I have an encyclopedic knowledge of music, but I know what I like, and I will tell you so, loudly and repeatedly, until you realize you like it too.

**Utter, utter, utter CRAP ad infinitum. I would rather have sex with a rabid 400 pound gorilla, than listen to any more plastic music than I absolutely have to. Yes, we can put it to the test if you bring the gorilla.

***I will in fact take my reasoning one step further. If I ask you what kind of music you like, and you answer “any music I can dance to”, you would probably be better off making porn. And possibly listen to good music as a side effect. Just a thought.

****The best/worst whatver you have not met/seen/heard applies to EVERYTHING. Remember this. It may become important one day.

“It's cool to hate!” - The Offspring