Remember back in the 80’s and 90’s, when musicians became successful and blew up based on their actual merit and talent? No? I guess you were drunk for that, too? Well it happened.
Back in the day, musicians became famous because they had something valid to contribute to society. Bands wrote their own songs, singers sang their own songs, and music videos were shot with a camera, in a location, with bare bones special effects and auto-tuning.
Now, in 2011 musicians are more often than not famous based solely on the abilities of their publicists and the group of gay stylists surrounding them. A person can become a musician by leaking a sex tape, or getting a DUI. In our celebrity-obsessed culture we are so desperate to aspire to something that we will put normal people on pedestals for behaving badly, then chastise them for it and run them into the ground.
The worst part is, the music industry is in an uproar over pirating, but the product they release isn’t even worth the money they want to charge. The day I pay $12 for an auto-tuned piece of garbage that was created by a computer is the day I gangbang 3 chicks and drink an 18 pack of beer. Expect the apocalypse to come before that day does.
In previous decades, people paid for the lifestyles of recording artists, because they were exactly that: Artists that recorded their art. Nowadays, celebrity doesn’t really mean anything, and anyone with the capability of releasing sounds from their throat can have a #1 hit if they hire the right people.
Whitney Houston is rolling over in her grave. Into a brick of coke. Too soon?
