This post contains stuff that some people don't want to realize. If you're not sure whether or not you're one of those people, then please go away. I doubt my arguments and supplications would sway you anyway, and I don't want to top it off with any ranting about how I offended your sacred sensitivites.
Oh..and it also has a few curse words, too. Leave now, or forever hold your peace.
Dear lord and savior. Dear God. Please forgive me for the words I'm about to write, but I just can't take it anymore. If thoughts like these send me to the eternal fires of your holding place for morons, then I'll just have to suffer the consequences, because this just isn't right, and I aim to talk about it. Amen.
Is everything about the dollar anymore? I think that's a pretty common notion. And marketting agents, the total suckers of Satan's cock, know exactly how to suck a dollar out of you just like they swill down Satan's semen like it's Nectar and Ambrosia.
Sad thing is, the reason marketting is like it is is because it works, and sadly, Earthlings, that's on you.
Are you tired of buying things that offer relief from whatever ails you only to find out that it offers no relief and when you pursue the money back guarantee you get the runaround so badly that you just give up in frustration? Are you tired of promises that have no honor behind them? Are you tired of the lack of honor, in general, or rather, the definition that whoever sucks the most cash out of the public is the most honorable? I am too. But you know, you have no one to blame but yourselves.
I could probably talk ad infinitum about instances of corporate marketting preying on the lack of intelligence of the population of the Earth, but I'm not against it, per se. I'm not against things you can prevent yourself by just thinking a little bit. But in the thing I'm about to talk about, I really believe you just don't know any better and equally don't know you're hurting others and yourselves. So here I am. Standing like some asshole that knows it all. So be it, because I know this:
This rant is brought to you by the MTV Music Awards (and actually, ANY music awards).
Let me tell you something about music. It requires a dexterity not even remotely comparable to that which is required to dance. I didn't say "better" or "worse" I said 'not comparable.' Music also requires a knowledge which is equally uncomparable to the knowledge required to dance. It's also uncomparable to the knowledge of what kind of hair people like to see on you, what kind of clothes they like you to wear, what kind of smile you have, what kind of life you live, and what kind of car you drive. Music talent requires...err...duh....musical talent. The talent to weave notes and rhythms together into an appealing (to someone) pattern which conveys some sort of emotion.
For an example, (the very simplest of examples), songs in a major key sound "happier" than songs in a "minor" key, which sound more morose. But that's the very very simple example I feel most can relate to. There are all kinds of similar techniques which invoke different emotions in an audience. Things that are fast and choppily accented show anxiety. Things that are strident and discordant show conflict. Things that are smooth and connected show calmness. There are millions of techniques to depict various emotions on a musical canvas AND ALL HAVE TO BE PRACTICED AND LEARNED.
Many young women and men every year, finding themselves gifted in the field of music, on some instrument or another, seek to learn how to better convey all of these emotions. See, that is our goal. Not to be able to push keys or pluck strings or sing notes faster or higher or louder than anyone else, but to cause you to feel what WE feel when we play the notes we play. It's emotional communication via notes and rhythms. It's often our very souls that we offer you - raw and naked and unashamed - only to have you miss the point completely because the "soul" of a thing isn't of interest to you anymore.
Some do it by actually playing their instrument of choice. Some do it by writing the music and letting others play it. Either way, their talent is strictly the conveyance of emotion to you, the listener. But sadly, less and less of you are listening anymore. You hear music with your eyes. Do you know, after setting up for a gig, I've actually had people come up to me and say
"You sure look loud."
What?! So yes, many of you hear with your eyes. What does he or she look like? How do they dance? Do they have a nice light show? Do they wear cool costumes? Are they animated? EVERYthing except "Can they play or write worth a shit?" Many of you don't seem to even ASK that question much less care about the answer. And why should you? Because real musicians are real people and are the source of your musical culture. They, with genuine emotion and actual musical ability, represent the feelings of the day, and today's stars have ridden on their coattails long enough.
The problem here is the difference between "entertainment" and "musicianship." I have no problem with people being entertainers. Not everyone wants to go to a show and have emotions sucked out of them or put into them. Sometimes they just want to go and "have fun" and not think about it. At all. Ok, I'm with you that far. But when you start calling these entertainers "musicians" that's where I jump off the bus. It's bad enough that talented people have to suffer under the shadow of untalented people. The musicians are the ones playing the music so these folks can gyrate around on stage pretending that THEY are musicians. And they're doing so for chump change compared to the guy you laud and praise as a great musician. I'm not saying that you should change what you like. I'm saying please categorize it right. Entertainers are entertainers. If you like them, great. Musicians work hard at their craft, and often just to become a sidebar on an entertainer's front page article. You don't have to care if someone is a great musician or not. Just please make the distinction between great entertainer and great musician, and if you feel motivated, maybe learn how to tell the difference (which I could teach you easily if I had an unlimited amount of money).
If I had an unlimited amount of money, the very first thing...the VERY FIRST thing I would do would be to pay all the "real" musicians to stop playing for the non-musicians in the entertainment business. Just so you could see what you're really paying for - a whore. Because based on the shows like the MTV "music" awards, many of you don't seem to know the difference, and you're patronizing people that are putting genuine artists out of a job, are diminishing the quality of our culture, and leaving the true talents of the world, and the incredibly human and unique communication language known as "music" to die.