Music Television

[badfaith]

Two main points to consider:

Is it me or does music tv suck now?

I remember having one mtv chanel and being entertained for hours with a mix of all sorts of styles of music and shows (Ray Cokes!). Now I can flick through scores of chanels and it'll take hours to find a single song worth listening to... and even then I'ts an old song- nothing particularly fresh and inovative.
Just third rate celebrity houses or their crap lives- failing that it's all "R&B" which seems to have eaten all other forms of music!

Point 2:

Are the BBC failing in their duty as a public service broadcaster by not replacing top of the pops with a prime time popular music show aimed at bringing the good new music that does exist on the internet to a new youthful market which must be feeling let down by a dearth of cultural recognition in this regard?

[maxperenchio]

When the first wave of reality television started replacing some music video shows I thought it was vaguely entertaining, ironically enjoyable, and perhaps even an understandable business move for MTV as a growing corporate machine. It attracted diverse crowds of junkheads who all liked the general idea of America getting off on its own degradation...once in a while!!!!

But somewhere the fun stopped- and the actual musical content seemed to disappear entirely. I could understand a thirty minute reality show a few times a day for variety's sake- but a THREE HOUR block of "Room Raiders" followed by two hours of "Parental Control" followed by an hour of "Next"???? What the fuck was happening? Since when did the only traces of music become the 15 second preview of the latest Lil Wayne single during the credits of "16 and Pregnant". This sucks! You seriously can't play an hour of videos during the day instead rerunning "True Life- I'm a Recovering Transgender Dendrophiliac"?

This obviously presented the music industry with a curious dilemma. How do we, as musicians, compete with the cultural phenomenon of a relentless indulgence in the (intentionally?) banal? Well........ a good solution would be, "My Humps"!!! And I sat back and watched- mildly entertained- as Fergie symbolically spread her buttcheeks and showed me her anus -with the (somewhat) unrelated decline of record sales providing a fitting decadent backdrop. It was like a Jeff Koons painting...or was it a Keats poem?

Because eventually this all becomes an art in itself- who can be more ironic, decadent, self/culturally degrading, aggressively vapid etc. And it all arrives hilariously lost on the majority of the record buying audience, as it IS on the radio after all, and it is part of MY GENERATION god dammit! It's consumed face-value-as-hell.

Obviously this has been going on gradually since the beginning of MTV - but it has certainly reached...some sort of point, hasnt it? I feel like my Dad saying that! Of course there's a million of sub-points too- the indifference/rejection of the "underground cool" that fueled mainstream corporate music throughout the 80s and 90s. The prevarication of aligning "real art" with "selected audience" or "commercially irrelevant." The list goes on.

I'm not sure if its good, bad, interesting, boring or anything. All I know is I've been watching shit loads of old Kate Bush videos. And THOSE are awesome.

[badfaith]

But music has, through all it's changes over the years, been central in our culture, and that has been reflected in the fact that there has never been a scarcity of it on tv... as this music in turn points to the general moods, aspirations, and desires of the people, are we to conclude then that the crap state of music television is due to greedy executives selling out completely, or a more serious lack of ambition and aspiration among the people. A general malaise that may be read when we see how many of this decade's (and as the decade is almost over, it's justified to say so) albums rank among the finest on this site, compared with previous decades.
And not just in quantity, I'm talking about diversity, originality, new directions in music, the subject matter etc. Just a decade back we had Drum n' Bass, Trip hop, (proper) hip hop, rap, rock dance music of every stripe, brit pop, american bands spanning blues, country, alternative, still some metal, and so on.
It boggles,... yes, BOGGLES my mind that in one of the darkest decades in human history, with huge issues to be digested in the public mind through culture- Global warming, terrorism, and globalisation, that there has emerged no voice of protest ( a Dylan, RAge Aginst the machine, Public enemy etc.) to reflect or even acknowledge these issues exist.... instead music is obsessed one the one hand with sex, and bland sentimentality that passes for "reality" on the other.
I'm particularly disappointed with hip-hop. Public enemy, NWA, and those guys (love em or hate em) at least said something about life as they saw it. and the promise they engendered with this music has been entirely wasted with twats like Jay Zed, Kanyebelievetheypaymeforthis- West, and an endless stream of nipple rubbing imititators who convey the message "I'm better than you, more desirable, posses more wealth, treat women as objects, and you going to willing pay me for the priveledge of me telling you this"

[maxperenchio]

Totally agree with you- hip hop especially has been one of the most bewildering forces in American culture. I always feel bad talking about it because I am in no way a scrupulous hip hop scholar, but it generally seems to be the textbook definition of a perverted genre. So much talent and relevancy usurped by mere temporary controversy and overall banality. I'm starting to truly believe the only way to legitimately enjoy a lot of modern commercial music is in the most ironic, detached way possible. (Which isn't bad sometimes)

I'm interested in your opinion of the cause- as a general lack of ambition among artistic crowds and people in general. Its a fascinating topic really. I think a lot of it has to do with the recent refusal to tap into the underground. If you study the commercial music from the late 70s through 80s through the 90s, most of the viable commercial trends began as a sort of a innovative commercialization of underground "cool" culture. It happens in most art forms to this day, particularly fashion, but music? I don't see it anywhere anymore. MTV used to do it because it kept things fresh and most importantly cool and mildly credible. Remember when MTV's motto was "You Hear It First!"???? I think they simply realized that these virtues no longer were important and simply got in the way of the real huge commercial juggernauts. And as a result, I think a lot of underground artists are becoming less and less accessible as a general subconscious reaction. Anyone else see this?

[theharrisonfords]

Well, Max, it seems that with mainstream music, average people are not trying to expand their musical tastes (at least what I see here in America), which can be dangerous to any form of art. People don't try to listen to anything else, because they don't know any better. If one grew up outside of MTV's golden age, they wouldn't know any better, and therefore they embrace their coporate driven television to anything prior. I'll write more about this when I full wake up.

[badfaith]

Actually, you've highlighted the point I'm trying to make... what with the internet now, where the underground bands can bypass the musical industry disappointment... they are not heard, and so to all intents and purposes, don't exist in the public's mind.

But Is it not mmore than simple commercial expedience, but in fact a DUTY to provide "jumping off points" for people to become aware of other possibilities... It's like sitting at the internet for the first time- unless you know what you're looking for, and where to look for it, you just sit staring at your home page!

I call it Focal Media... TV and radio still have a roll to play in directing people's attention to these bands, who may be crap in the main, but you may find the next Goldie, who turned Drum n Bass into a genre... a movement. This is how Punk, Prog, House,Disco, even Rock 'n roll became cultural events.

I just think they're failing in their job basically.