APassionLikeMine
*?*
I think he's upset that low level intelligent, meaningless music is popular and talentless people are winning awards for it.
Morrissey on Minogue
- Thread starter CrystalGeezer
- Start date
dizzywhore_1804
A big-nose who knows...
Why does music HAVE to mean anything?
I adore Morrissey but I sure as hell wouldn't want 'Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want' coming on when I was out at my local club.
Should Kylie have won the award? Who cares.
Was Morrissey simply making a joke? I'd guess yes.
CrystalGeezer
My secret's my enzyme.
With the exception that pretty much everything means something, especially music, I find your points particularly true. There's a time and a place for everything and awards are basically meaningless.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Okay, but what if Kylie Minogue's songs blaring in your local club meant "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" never existed? The defense of mindless pop music is fine-- we all like some flavor of dumb music or other-- but only up to a point, and that point is when the success of some kinds of music starts to ensure the gradual homogenization of all kinds of music. The success of Kylie Minogue, and the championing of her as an important cultural figure, mean that it's going to be that much harder for the next Morrissey and Marr to put out a record. She represents the triumph of the music industry-- profit over art-- and like the music industry she has only one real ambition: ruthless self-perpetuation. To be recognized as she was is a dire insult to people like Morrissey (although hardly an unpredictable one), not so much out of envy on the part of less wealthy, less recognized artists, but because they know it means more, more, more of the same. That's where the marketplace is heading, in music and in all forms of pop culture, and when we arrive there will be nothing aside from 32 flavors of Kylie Minogue at your disco and in your bedroom.
People want to make Morrissey out to be a spiteful snob for ripping her. He isn't. It's just that he knows the business and he knows that Kylie doesn't just stand for Kylie-- she and others of her kind represent larger forces at work. This should be obvious by now, but don't worry if it isn't. A time will come when it will be, maybe in a few years from now when one of us goes to the only place that sells music in a physical, non-MP3 format, Wal-Mart, and can find only Kylie in the 'M' section where Morrissey used to be.
Last edited:
D
Dave
Guest
Those larger forces at work are obvious, yes, and they invented the music industry. It almost sounds like you have this idea of some sort of pure art form being gradually corrupted, when it started long ago, in my opinion. The homogenization of music started when they wrote the first playlist.
I do understand that lack of consumer choice is a big issue, and one that you have strong feelings about, but that 'M' section... Target carried Morrissey's Greatest Hit(s) which surpised me, but that's where I bought "You Are The Quarry",shamefully as I didn't support my local record store, but the best little record store here hardly had any Smiths or Morrissey at all, ever.
ANyway, I'm rambling. I just think that things like Morrissey's music have a way of being known, and when you compare the less popular music stars to some of the more famous painters they are very well known.
dizzywhore_1804
A big-nose who knows...
Pop music always has and always will exist, and chances are it always has and always will outsell more alternative (and, in my personal opinion, 'better') music. Chances are most people are much happier to be 'happy' and listen to poppier than to soul-search and listen to artists such as Morrissey.
The idea that the existence of pop music and pop music awards will somehow kill-off other kinds of music is pretty absurd.
People will always seek out what they need - the current 'indie revival' has nothing to do with the quality of music improving it's that the audiences got fed-up of the saturation of American bling-and-booty singers.
People who NEED to sing, not people who simply want to sing to make money, will continue to do so - you just might have to be willing to search a little harder for it...
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Pop music, like TV and movies, was "corrupted" from the get-go. Anything that's a business is "corrupted" from an art for art's sake perspective. I don't harbor any illusions about that fact.
I'm talking degree. There are fewer and fewer media companies, owned by larger and larger corporations increasingly more interested in only those products that can saturate multiple markets. Sure, you can buy "Greatest Hits" in Target, but as I said wait a few years.
More importantly, think about this: you walked into Target with a decent idea in your head of what Target wasn't stocking. Having lived long enough to have grown up on LPs and tapes, watch CDs take over, and then see the MP3 revolution, an experience unique to your generation, do you imagine that the breadth of your knowledge, which informs your sense of what is available versus what is on offer at any given time, will continue to exist on a broad scale?
Which takes me to dizzywhore_1804's response: the point is not that all independent music will be eliminated (that will take decades, admittedly) but that it is unfair and extremely troubling to think that in the mainstream marketplace smaller artists will gradually be squeezed out into alternative channels of distribution, such as the web. For most people, shopping for music, just like shopping for anything else, is not about "seeking", it's about making fast decisions based on the entertainment choices being offered. You have to want to seek and then, following on what I said above, you have to know that there's something to seek out. A practical example: iTunes has millions of songs, but only a few dozen are featured on the front page. There's that all-powerful Search box in the upper corner, but guess what? You have to know what to type into the box.
It's also about accessibility for mainstream consumers. No, indie music won't be dead, exactly-- just as Apple computers or Firefox browsers aren't flatlining exactly. Just as you have a dozen options for lunch, Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's... Just as you are overloaded with movie options: if you don't like "Iron Man" you can watch "Hellboy", and if you don't like "Hellboy" there's "The Hulk", and if you don't like "The Hulk" you can watch "The Dark Knight"...all playing in the same multiplex with giant screens, A/C, and delicious snacks, but not to worry, if you want to see movies made for adults you can get in your car and drive 45 minutes to the little art-house theater with the screen smaller than your TV, wooden seats, and food baked by the ticket-taker's grandmother. Choices, choices, choices...
dizzywhore_1804
A big-nose who knows...
Sorry Worm but I really do not get your point.
How on earth would you rectify this?
TV and music IS business - Morrissey plays the game as much as Kylie or anyone else (if you think he has no say on tracklistings or single releases you are very much deluded, he is strongly advised to do certain things but he makes the final choices).
People are always going to have search out unknown artists otherwise we'd be drowning in choice.
Look at the internet for example, people CAN listen to anything but there is so much choice they become lazy. The record companies guide us to certain bands/artists (however cynical their intention).
Information overload is a powerful thing and a lot of 'good' stuff gets wasted, however, if exploited to its full potential then people will get to know about it.
Bands and musicians will, in order to survive, HAVE to find new ways of releasing their music (iTunes has massively helped in this respect), but you can't blame Sony/Universal for only selling a product they know will sell. Can you?
I can't tell if any of that made sense.
How on earth would you rectify this?
TV and music IS business - Morrissey plays the game as much as Kylie or anyone else (if you think he has no say on tracklistings or single releases you are very much deluded, he is strongly advised to do certain things but he makes the final choices).
People are always going to have search out unknown artists otherwise we'd be drowning in choice.
Look at the internet for example, people CAN listen to anything but there is so much choice they become lazy. The record companies guide us to certain bands/artists (however cynical their intention).
Information overload is a powerful thing and a lot of 'good' stuff gets wasted, however, if exploited to its full potential then people will get to know about it.
Bands and musicians will, in order to survive, HAVE to find new ways of releasing their music (iTunes has massively helped in this respect), but you can't blame Sony/Universal for only selling a product they know will sell. Can you?
I can't tell if any of that made sense.
I am seriously considering buying one, but I keep picturing me installing it incorrectly and falling off of it and hitting my head and getting a concussion and how do I explain that to my mother?
I'm sorry but I don't go along with this sort of moral equivalence. This is the sort of argument that is trotted out every time some artist does something incredibly undignified for a wadge of cash. "Oh, they're all the same really, they're all about the money".
It's not true. There are plenty of artists who don't put their name to underwear, bedsheets, toothpaste. That don't appear on prime time tv shows hamming it up in crap "comedy" skits with their sister. That don't accept OBE's and simper to the camera while accepting them. They don't make sure they say nothing of any consequence ever for fear of losing one sale.
All artists have to compromise with the business side, it's true, but Kylie is just about the cash and nothing more.
It's not true. There are plenty of artists who don't put their name to underwear, bedsheets, toothpaste. That don't appear on prime time tv shows hamming it up in crap "comedy" skits with their sister. That don't accept OBE's and simper to the camera while accepting them. They don't make sure they say nothing of any consequence ever for fear of losing one sale.
All artists have to compromise with the business side, it's true, but Kylie is just about the cash and nothing more.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
You've captured what I'm talking about in your post. Yes, information overload is a problem. Relatively few people are willing to seek out all their options. That's as true of pop music as it is laundry detergent, movies, cars, computers, TV shows, and every other product. There needs to be a common, mainstream marketplace-- not monolithic, but loosely centralized-- offering a spectrum of choices as broad as possible, choices which are Newton's apples, so to speak-- options that fall into your lap.
Such an ideal marketplace has never existed because on a practical level it can't. A record store doesn't have space in its windows to advertise every new album that's released. It has to focus on big sellers like Justin Timberlake or whoever. Radio stations have to select songs to add to their playlists, and there are only so many they can play. Labels can only spend so much on producing bands. Et cetera. Resources are finite.
My point is that, flawed as it was, the distribution of these finite resources for the mainstream-- not the enthusiast who knows his stuff, but the mainstream-- is now much worse and will continue to worsen. The primary sales channels will be filled with Kylies and the Morrisseys of the world will increasingly be shunted off to the side, there to be discovered accidentally or to die in neglect.
Going back to my original point, the official praise given to Kylie represents one more move in that direction, which is why many people are upset.
Oh, you mentioned Universal, by which you meant the Universal Music Group I assume; UMG is owned by Vivendi. That means Vivendi controls the following:
A&M Records
Barclay Records
Decca Records
Deutsche Grammophon
DreamWorks Records
Geffen Records
Hollywood Records1
Interscope Records
G-unit Records
Vagrant Records2
Island Def Jam Records
MySpace Records
Island Records
MO Records (Montreal)
Jazzland Records
Lost Highway Records
MCA Nashville Records
Mercury Nashville Records
Mercury Records
Motor Music Records
Polydor
Philips Records
Stockholm Records
Triple Crown Records
Universal Classics Group
Universal Motown Records Group
Universal Music Group Nashville
Universal Records
Universal South Records
Blackground Records
Motown Records
Republic Records
Cash Money Records
Bad Boy Records
Casablanca Records
Street Records Corporation
Univision Music Records
Urban Records
Verve Records
Look at the names on that list. A & M. Polydor. Motown. Mercury. Island. Think of the history of those labels. Think of the thousands of albums released. Think of the many decisions made by some of the labels (the active, not the legacy labels) every year about which CDs to release and which to pass on. Think of the subsidiary bosses who get calls from Vivendi's accountants saying "We've slashed the budget by 50%" or "Only sign artists who have multinational appeal" or "We're going after the tween market". One company controls them all (...one ring to rule them all...). The list is only going to get bigger, and eventually Vivendi will get swallowed up by a bigger fish, ceding even more control. Again, I'm not saying this is how it is now-- we're at a midpoint on the curve, hence the expression "Decline of Western civilization".
Last edited:
redpathetic
Somehow Anesthetized
An intelligable reply, Worm. Thanks for explaining this without being offensive to those who do like Kylie's stuff for the most part.You've captured what I'm talking about in your post. Yes, information overload is a problem. Relatively few people are willing to seek out all their options. That's as true of pop music as it is laundry detergent, movies, cars, computers, TV shows, and every other product. There needs to be a common, mainstream marketplace-- not monolithic, but loosely centralized-- offering a spectrum of choices as broad as possible, choices which are Newton's apples, so to speak-- options that fall into your lap.
Such an ideal marketplace has never existed because on a practical level it can't. A record store doesn't have space in its windows to advertise every new album that's released. It has to focus on big sellers like Justin Timberlake or whoever. Radio stations have to select songs to add to their playlists, and there are only so many they can play. Labels can only spend so much on producing bands. Et cetera. Resources are finite.
My point is that, flawed as it was, the distribution of these finite resources for the mainstream-- not the enthusiast who knows his stuff, but the mainstream-- is now much worse and will continue to worsen. The primary sales channels will be filled with Kylies and the Morrisseys of the world will increasingly be shunted off to the side, there to be discovered accidentally or to die in neglect.
Going back to my original point, the official praise given to Kylie represents one more move in that direction, which is why many people are upset.
Oh, you mentioned Universal, by which you meant the Universal Music Group I assume; UMG is owned by Vivendi. That means Vivendi controls the following:
A&M Records
Barclay Records
Decca Records
Deutsche Grammophon
DreamWorks Records
Geffen Records
Hollywood Records1
Interscope Records
G-unit Records
Vagrant Records2
Island Def Jam Records
MySpace Records
Island Records
MO Records (Montreal)
Jazzland Records
Lost Highway Records
MCA Nashville Records
Mercury Nashville Records
Mercury Records
Motor Music Records
Polydor
Philips Records
Stockholm Records
Triple Crown Records
Universal Classics Group
Universal Motown Records Group
Universal Music Group Nashville
Universal Records
Universal South Records
Blackground Records
Motown Records
Republic Records
Cash Money Records
Bad Boy Records
Casablanca Records
Street Records Corporation
Univision Music Records
Urban Records
Verve Records
Look at the names on that list. A & M. Polydor. Motown. Mercury. Island. Think of the history of those labels. Think of the thousands of albums released. Think of the many decisions made by some of the labels (the active, not the legacy labels) every year about which CDs to release and which to pass on. Think of the subsidiary bosses who get calls from Vivendi's accountants saying "We've slashed the budget by 50%" or "Only sign artists who have multinational appeal" or "We're going after the tween market". One company controls them all (...one ring to rule them all...). The list is only going to get bigger, and eventually Vivendi will get swallowed up by a bigger fish, ceding even more control. Again, I'm not saying this is how it is now-- we're at a midpoint on the curve, hence the expression "Decline of Western civilization".
My problem with Morrissey's speaking of her with such peevish negativity, is that he makes me feel I must choose sides and I don't feel inclined to choose a side that is peevish. If he could just stand up for what he believes in by being it, instead of pointing out constantly how others don't live up to the standards he holds for himself,...see I think of his peevishness whenever I think of watching/listening to him, because I like Kylie so much and wish he would at least like her a little, not solid negativity which he shovels out. It's turned me off. No matter how good his music might be, it's stained in my memory of this repetitive pointing a sarcastic finger instead of simply being what he believes is right and good. I've had enough of people being blaming and peevish.
Right now, there is a thief that I'm pissed off with, but that is because he barges into the place I volunteer at, and steals, about twice a day, anything he can get his hands on, and he's managed to take a lot of stuff, some of it personal, some not, some expensive items, some not, of course I'm going to blaming, when I have proof, I know he does this, but others can't see it, and so it's very frustrating because it is I that look like I'm being abusive to him when really it's the other way around. I won't let him in the door when I'm there after the last theft. If someone else lets him in, I confront them about it.
If I were a singer though, and Kylie is only a singer too, well, I would sing, not be confrontational.
D
Dave
Guest
I still think that her award for contributions to music is nothing to get too worked up about. For one thing a lot of people do really like her, and she seems to make them feel happy, as opposed to the bands that most of you here like. Cause I know most of you are you are into the proto-emo scene, Joy Division and so forth.
I'm kind of surprised that Bernard Sumner hasn't earned some sort of award. I'll bet he's been the vocalist on more genuine (UK, though) hit songs than Kylie. She barely sells records in the US, by the way. I'm not even sure what the "can't get you out of my head" song is called. I think that New Order has been featured on one of those videogames where people shoot the prostitutes, even.
I just feel that things are always in flux moving one way or the other and if formats are restrictive and getting more so, I still think that things will swing the other direction at some point. That's just the general situation. But also specifically there will always be people that are seeking, and that come together with other seekers to talk about music and what's new. I don't really think that you can oppress people to that degree permanently, where you are repackaging everything and reselling it through a smaller number of available channels. I think people will rebel, though I'll admit, the taste of the general public is probably as bad as it's ever been.
I'm kind of surprised that Bernard Sumner hasn't earned some sort of award. I'll bet he's been the vocalist on more genuine (UK, though) hit songs than Kylie. She barely sells records in the US, by the way. I'm not even sure what the "can't get you out of my head" song is called. I think that New Order has been featured on one of those videogames where people shoot the prostitutes, even.
I just feel that things are always in flux moving one way or the other and if formats are restrictive and getting more so, I still think that things will swing the other direction at some point. That's just the general situation. But also specifically there will always be people that are seeking, and that come together with other seekers to talk about music and what's new. I don't really think that you can oppress people to that degree permanently, where you are repackaging everything and reselling it through a smaller number of available channels. I think people will rebel, though I'll admit, the taste of the general public is probably as bad as it's ever been.
nugz
SUPAHSTAR!
D
Dave
Guest
heh. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called!
haha, well some of these alternative people could learn from that. Say the name of the song a lot so that the consumers know what to buy. it just makes sense.
redpathetic
Somehow Anesthetized
I used to think it was called La La La.
La la la
La la la la la
La la la
La la la la la
I just cant get you out of my head
Boy your loving is all I think about
I just cant get you out of my head
Boy its more than I dare to think about
La la la
La la la la la
I just cant get you out of my head
Boy your loving is all I think about
I just cant get you out of my head
Boy its more than I dare to think about
Every night
Every day
Just to be there in your arms
Wont you stay
Wont you lay
Stay forever and ever and ever and ever
La la la
La la la la la
La la la
La la la la la
I just cant get you out of my head
Boy your loving is all I think about
I just cant get you out of my head
Boy its more than I dare to think about
Theres a dark secret in me
Dont leave me locked in your heart
Set me free
Feel the need in me
Set me free
Stay forever and ever and ever and ever
La la la
La la la la la
La la la
La la la la la
I just cant get you out of my head
I just cant get you out of my head
I just cant get you out of my head...
Last edited:
malvachat
My eyes are now open
Without the La's it would be nothing.
----------------
Listening to: Simon and Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence
via FoxyTunes
----------------
Listening to: Simon and Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence
via FoxyTunes
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Dave, you sure know how to hit below the belt. Joy Division, "proto-emo"? You will no doubt be happy to know I was until a moment ago curled on the floor in the posture of a man who has been kicked in the groin.
However, the pain was much softened after making it all the way through your post. Because, at the end, you answered your question better than I could have. Despite your generous and evenhanded thoughts about diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, even you couldn't avoid the blinding truth:
Even in a perfect pop world, there is a place for Kylie and I'm sure she'd outsell Morrissey regardless. From a business perspective, though, the playing field isn't level, and that fact is something with which we all deal with varying degrees of acceptance-- until a day comes when Kylie is given a ridiculous award and the straw oh so gently breaks the camel's back, as it has done many times before in many different settings ("He has just received the cross of the Legion of Honour").
Personally I don't care much about Kylie. I'm just trying to explain my own sense of why Morrissey has been mouthing off about her. I don't think he's being bitchy-- okay, okay, he is, but there's something behind his bitchiness worth thinking about. I'm commenting about this because the case of Kylie is glaring to me, as an American, since she is not popular here and when she has been pushed into view by her handlers it was in the service of startlingly cold-blooded marketing ploys to "crack the US market". I suspect my reaction is not unlike those of, say, Polish or Turkish people watching as Sylvester Stallone helicopters into their capitals to "boost his foreign box office".
Last edited:
Anaesthesine
Angel of Distemper
There is something behind Morrissey's bitching - there always is. Many people find Kylie unlistenable - myself included. Maybe the problem is that we take pop music too seriously. I know I'm from the school of "Revolution" rather than "Silly Love Songs." It's easier (and more lucrative) to entertain than to push the envelope.
Sinead O'Connor said that she finds Kylie "unlistenable": "I know Australian fans might want to shoot me for saying this, but that would be a far better option than to listen to one of her albums."
It does seem bitter when the likes of Morrissey and Sinead O'Conner pile on but, love them or hate them, one thing they cannot be accused of is frivolity.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Well, sure, I find Kylie unlistenable too, but not because I take pop music too seriously. Dumb music has its place too-- I proudly listen to dumb music just as readily as I do "serious" music. I can't imagine where, or when, or how many colorful pills I'd have to pop, but I can just about envision the possibility of once or twice in my life enjoying Kylie Minogue at a dance club. The problem is that pop music-- in the mainstream-- should offer up both the kind of music we can take seriously and the kind of music we don't. The choices should be plentiful and real, not narrow and forced down our throats. Out of a million people who took the Pepsi Challenge with Morrissey and Kylie Minogue I'd wager 900,000 would prefer Kylie. I could live with those numbers. But we don't even have that!
Also, from another perspective, the question of taking pop music seriously or not is an interesting one because if we say, "Ah, don't take pop music too seriously-- it's just pop music", it begs a follow-up question of what it is our culture does, in fact, take seriously. Our lives are stuffed to the gills with pop songs, movies, TV shows, and news outlets that blur the line between information and entertainment. Are we all firmly aware of what is serious and what is trivial in our world, or are we just abdicating the responsibility of being serious about anything at all? Who are we taking seriously, if not Kylie Minogue?
Similar threads
- Tags
- austratastic!
