Music & Movies

Personally I listen to classical music (i.e., Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn) and Michael Card, whose name none of you will have heard before.

Hmm... well since we're on the subject, I'll interject with a shameless plug. You can hear some of my latest music at http://www.allhands.com/redwire . Opinions are welcome!

Sex sells. Get over it.

I've heard of Michael Card and anyone else in the contemporary Christian genre in the 80s. To each your own.

I found Michael W. Smith far more impressive, especially in his early days before he (and Amy Grant, for that matter) started trying to please everybody.

Sex does sell, that's the problem. We aren't looking at art anymore, but product. Person A writes a song for Person B. Person A can sing and even dance a little, but unfortunately Person A has a face like a robber's dog and is therefore unmarketable. Person C takes this song, screws with it electronically, borrowing samples from Persons D,E,F and Y. Person B, who can carry a tune, but has about as much music talent as a tone deaf badger (and gets away with it because they are physically stunning after Person G has done all the plastic surgery) records the song, but because of the aforementioned lack of musical ability Person H (or possibly I) has to remix it and play with the vocal track until Person B's own mother would not recognise their child's voice. Meanwhile Person J and B get together to do the film clip with raunchy dancers K, L , and M (not to be confused with a Dutch Airport.) After creative editing by N, Person B comes off looking like the personification of any half dozen greek deities you care to name (except for Hades who has skin problems). Person O then goes out and gets the song played 8 billion times a day on commercial radio and then gets the film clip shown during kid's afternoon television every day at 4.

The end result? Person B wins grammy award for being most outstanding new talent. Person A is never heard of again. Persons D, E, amd F try to sue over breach of coryright (Y can't because they died in the late 80s of an overdose) Person B marries and/or has an affair with K, L and M (while desperately trying to cover up their bisexuality because it hurts marketability) Person J gets a three picture deal directing for Paramount (Person B, in a cross marketing scheme, stars in one of the movies.) Person B finally has a breakdown/overdose somewhere between the third and fourth record. Person O releases the unfinished album anyway making yet another killing (Person O was the producer of the whole thing if I hadn't mentioned that earlier.)

Person O buys their third boat and their fourth mansion (and divorces their fifth wife) has more money than god and then goes out looking for the next Person B. The cycle continues. The kids keep lapping it out. And where in all this does the art lie?

Possibly it lies with Person G for surgically making Person B look like everything we thought we wanted in another in the first place.

I couldn't care less. I'm not into pop music.

Me neither, I like classical.

I dunno what my kind of music is classified as, but I know I like funny music.

STRMkirby in refrence to your ealier comments you remind me of my daughter when she was a teenager. She actually with complete sincerity asked me what it was like in the civil war.

Ah, but what IS art?

Or, what is "product" but art that people are willing to support?

I'm defining product as art by committee where the goal is not art but profit. (which is different to art by collaboration where something artistic always survives in the end result, even if the artistic vision which creates it is blurred because of the many voices that went into it.)

Do you think less art is created because of this phenomenon or only that it's hard to mass-market it?