It's days like these where I get my most cynical about the Internet
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MY ONLY KANYE POST TODAY:
After realizing that everyone was shocked that something controversial happened at the VMA awards, I felt much older than any 23 year old should feel. I also realized just how much I hate using Google Trends as a viable guide for news coverage. I posted a brief history lesson on Prefix, and was done with it.
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MOG it up!
Comments (21)
Saw him seeming all humble and saddened on Leno last night. I had to dig hard to find out exactly what went down. I just heard bits and pieces that he got kicked off the show. Somewhat happy I was able to keep my distance after all the excessive covereage.
Although music and music videos are great, and even though I'm down for keeping tabs on all that MTV music-related garbage (just to see how shallow it gets I guess), I didn't even dvr the damn show.
Oh yeah - you forgot the Rage Against Machine incident where the bassist climbed a post and wouldn't come down. Can't quite remember the details but it happened about 2000ish maybe...?
I didn't watch because of Jay Leno. I will say this: I like Kanye's music a lot more than Michael Jackson's.
Controversial!
Yep, an egotistic maniac invading the stage is much more newsworthy than an egotistic maniac invading a country. [I really hate celebrity culture.]
My problem is I think they're the product of the same cultural forces. I onced described Bush as the first post-grunge President. I wasn't talking about Gavin Rossdale or the band that wrote the song "Lump."
I'll admit it--I watched Kanye on Jay Leno. Not because of Kanye at all, couldn't give a damn about him, really. Still, it was on and I watched it, and at first I thought he seemed really sincere, until I noticed that, regardless of what he did or how he felt, he was still the one on camer, which is exactly what he wanted.
I don't know how sincere anyone is when they're talking to Jay Leno. Jay Leno makes anyone look sincere in comparison.
lol! Now why don't you tell us how you really feel about Leno?
Bill Hicks said it better than I ever could.
Am I the only one who was thoroughly amused by the incident?
That recap of MTV's past glories is great...Rock/pop star flip outs and legendary missteps were so much better before MTV,though, when you just heard or read about the legends..your mind filled in all the blanks so vividly and it fueled the rawk mystique...the MTV "controversy" demystifys so completely that it neuters whatever rage there is..
BTW, I loved MTV when it first came out, but over time I've come to realize it's part in killing rock, and making sneering ATM machines out of artists.
One of my fave MTV moments was when the Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared on CLUB MTV, started lip synching Knock Me down..with the dancers obliging with a fake mosh pit..the band gradually dropped the instruments they weren't playing and started climbing the walls of the Palladium (I think) and moshing along with the fans.
To me it revealed the artiface of the whole MTV set up..turning music into commercials..that you watch in between commercials. The ultimate corporitization of music..disgusting (but with nice graphics and visuals).
MTV is done with music now, kicked it to the curb, a racially divided shell of its former self..but despite the money problems, still expecting folks to make videos as they've become an essential part of the "music experience" for some. YUK..I don't believe I'm saying this, but Fiona Apple was on the money..
The problem with MTV is that it had some brilliant stuff, but Baby Boomers hated it so vehemently that you had to defend yourself with nihilist rage. Now, I think we're at the point where we're realizing that our parents had a point.
Still doesn't mean I like Beavis & Butthead, The State, Siphl & Oly, or John Stewart any less.
Raised on TV Baby Boomers, who by that time were in charge of the biz, invented MTV for the youth, as a new way to promote music (they clearly understood the power of TV, and though in their youth they would've decried sell out of Jimi,Janis,or Jim for appearing in commercials..they got over it.) and, their boomer peers rejected it (they received their music from radio and records sans visual), as their parents rejected rock and roll.
You mention all those entertainment shows you liked on MTV which traded on whatever cache music had to promote themselves while all the while slowly eliminating music from the programming.. I liked the shows too, but were they good for music as a whole?
MTV essentially made video a necessary component for promoting records then abondoned videos..
They have fine shows, but they most certainly were not good for the music long term. It's not that I have any problem with videos per se, but I think they are a seperate entity from the music. They can be very well done, but I still prefer my mind pictures to almost any visual.
MTV really demystified music, helped make it ubiquitous, and began the corporate synergy strategies that made it OK for music to be used to sell everything from movies to toothpaste to acne cream. Definitely presaging the internets, where ubiquity is king.
Well, I'm not sure how much MTV killed music by making videos necessary. I certainly know that there was unprecedented idolatry of Elvis, Jagger, Dylan, the Fab Four, Hendrix, Morrison, etc, and that was just as much about their looks as their sound. I'm just saying that with baby boomers screaming one way, and Gen X'ers screaming another way, I was really left with no option other than to laugh at MTV news the same way Beavis laughed at actual music videos.
I actually thought,as the networks popularity grew, that MTV News was a good thing. Early on it covered folks that didn't get covered elsewhere.
You are prolly right..nothing "killed" music, but it changed the music playing field. I think there was unprcedented idolotry of the folks you mention because they were some of the first folks to be marketed, to a generation that was very much primed to be marketed to..MTV pushed the visual up quite a few notches. The thing I dislike about MTV is that music was being marketed by videos (commercials for songs) surrounded by commercials, so that you would buy CD's and whatever else..
S'true. I guess my problem is people who put Animal Collective and Wavves on the same playing field as Kanye. I'd rather rock stars be rock stars than be the tribal musical trust fund ghettos we've seen surrounding new bands this decade (regardless of how I feel about any of those bands).
Isn't that what the old saying is in essence "There's NO business like Show Business". It's the ugly side of any art form, and unfortunately were tuned into it more than ever.
Coming from the art world, I can't help but bite my tongue in an exhibit, because of all the glad handling, back scratching, and scene-ness that it takes to "make it" or be represented. It's the ugly truth of anyone who want's to make money making art. The business side is a bitch goddess. Probably the only difference is that Music artists are contracted to large corporations, where as visual artists are in shows sponsored by big corporations and their work is bought by those same corps as "investments". The culture market is an ugly war.
Is what MTV did any different (in a late 20th century way) than the early Payola deals on rock radio? Now there's YouTube and video serves the gap between non accessible bands MP3's and what's available streaming. I can't think of how many times I have found a 45 spinning on YouTube playing a song I can't find online. That's a beautiful kind of payback towards years of over produced slick video productions if there ever was one.
I'm saying the coupling of sound + vision made something different..it changed the game. It seems like the ads on radio were seperate from the music while on MTV the ads and the videos really blended together.
The business end always sucks..but the MTV era began the mega-corporation era of rock, the instant video hit, and ultra-marketing. Even more bean counters moved into the biz..
No doubt they changed it. I have a feeling since "Hard Days Night" (or maybe "Love Me Tender"?, the biz was always looking for a way to sucessfully combine the two.
I'm always interested though in how forces can come along and change the very nature of business. MTV did it, and now the internet is changing the game even more.
On a side note, having grown up on MTV, I'm surprised these days just how little patience I have for sitting and watching a video. Nothing bores me more. When did this happen to me?
If it isn't a live performance..It's difficult for me to make it through a vid.
Another thing..A great song, I can listen to over and over..a music video, even a great one..not so much.
Music is still being composed, played, recorded, and appreciated with video "ehancement." Still, fan-made, blurry, shaky YouTube footage of a band of musicians can be interesting, especially if certain bands never play in your town. I'll toot a nose flute for OC16's "Pakele Live" streaming videos of local (Hawaii) musicians you'll almost never see playing Waikiki. (If it's good enough for Craig Ferguson...)