| COMMENTARY PAGE |
| 07/16/01 - Millennium Music Okay, everyone, I'm finally moving onto a new topic this time. But before moving onto the actual commentary, I'll kick off the week with a musing: I was watching a movie the other day, and, as always happens, the character at death's door manages to squeak out his last word, fully clearing his chest of all he's wanted to say before finally dying. Is it just me, or is the timing impeccable? Does the Grim Reaper stand there, waiting patiently until the character finally says all he has to say before finally claiming his soul eternal? If this is the case, and if I'm ever on the brink of dying, remind me not to finish my sentence until help arrives. Anyways, onto this week's central topic - music. The following rant is something I've gone over before, but it never occured to me to print it out in my Commentary until my friend pointed it out as a suggestion. So, music being the broad category that it is, I will narrow this rant down to one aspect of music - millennium music. Now, yes, I know, going on about the millennium is SO "a-year-and-a-half-ago", but it is a topic that disturbs me, even today. If you ask me my idea of millennium music was, I would offer such songs as Lord of Acid's "The Real Thing", which perfectly captures the mood of a futuristic 2000, or music by Slipknot or Kid Rock, for actual music of the year 2000 that stands high above the others. (Given, most of the songs I would mention by Kid Rock were actually written years ago, but they were introduced into the "mainstream" on the "History of Rock" album.) But, no. The voice of one is insignificant when it goes against the majority opinion, because nothing speaks louder than numbers, right? So now, the turn of the century of centuries, the dawn of the era we have long expected to be a post-modern age, will go down in history as hailing The Backstreet Boys as the pop cultural phenomenon. In a hundred years, universities will play samples of Britney Spears in their lectures. Text books will reference song titles in which half the titles are separated by parentheses for no particular reason. On the plus side, society isn't crumbling. If the granny-fication of Vancouver serves as any indication, we aren't heading into a Blade Runner future - it'll be more like Star Trek. Which is kinda cool, actually. I wouldn't mind spending my time in a holodeck, reliving my favourite Blade Runner moments... (Side Note: the previous statement was for biting satire reasons only - in truth, I'd probably use the holodeck for purposes of being fed grapes by scantily clad handmaidens. But then again, who wouldn't?) Okay, but back to the music. Now, my biggest problem with such "musical" acts like The Backstreet Boys, or Christina Aguilera or Jennifer Lopez, etc, is the fact that the music is just so shamelessly cookie-cut. The argument has been raised that I should go a bit easier on them because they may not be all that great, but they provide music for the younger demographic, but really, that's no excuse. I mean, sure, they provide G-rated music for the pre-adolescents, but does that mean that they have to suck so bad? That they have to be completely unoriginal? Does the fact that they appeal to a younger demographic automatically declare that, as prerequisite, their music must be of lower quality? But then again, R&B is running rampant amongst the adolescent crowd, too, so I guess every demographic has its crap. But let's phrase this analogically... When I was younger, at around the age when computer games had finally broken through and took the reigns of electronic entertainment away from the Nintendo and other gaming consoles, there were only three types of games being released - the good, the bad, and the children's. The only games that were meant to appeal to the younger-than-12 age group belonged to the genre of "edutainment", in which the games were riddled with mathematics and keyboard proficiency tests. Even the surprisingly high quality "Carmen Sandiego" series couldn't resist incorporating edutainment into the gameplay. Now, don't get me wrong - when it comes to games, edutainment does have good intentions. Anything that can entertain while it teaches is a good thing. But does being under 12 have to mean that you're not allowed anything better? Just because you're under 12, does it mean that your world must be entirely dominated by math? You come home from a long day of school and unwind with a riotous game of "Operation: Neptune"? (Note: For the record, the first three installments of the "Space Quest" series were exceptionally great G-rated game titles) Much like the edutainment of old, pre-adolescent pop bands are focusing more towards their age group rather than on the quality of the work, worrying more about filling in the blanks rather than creating a new page, kind of like what I'm doing with this website. Somewhere in the production, I'm sure that somebody is saying "don't worry too much about it - it's just something for kids." The same was said about "Goosebumps", another pop cultural phenomenon. Who came up with the brilliant idea of making a horror genre for young kids, only to determine that due to the younger age group, it wasn't allowed to be scary? It happens with everything - once something is popular, nobody tries to fix what isn't broken, even if it very well may actually be broken. An edutainment title sold well? Then let's only release edutainment! The Spice Girls had a hit single? Then all pre-teen music must be crap! But it would take quite a slick pitch to convince me that boy bands can be considered edutainment, or even otherwise productive or in possession of a redeeming quality. Just because something is popular, it doesn't make it not suck. Look at disco. Or "Armageddon". Just like movies don't necessarily have to suck in order to be a summer blockbuster, music doesn't necessarily have to suck in order to cater to a particular age group. In fact, I find it quite appalling that there are people out there who take advantage of such an untapped demographic, releasing sub-par quality work in order to make a crapload of money by cornering a market with much lower standards... especially since I didn't think of it first. |