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.
I'm sorry, but then I'm not because I really needed the laugh I got thinking of your reaction to that and then reading about it. Of course I was trying to reduce something great to the level it has become. I thankfully do not know the songs of Fall Out Boy for instance, but I did see Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson when I was checking to see if Britney was okay, and yes, that's pretty much where it's led. Them and those guys that are dating Paris and Nichole. Though, I do think it's got to be better than Limp Bizkit? Has to be.
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").
About the quote, it's true. I worked at K-Mart for 2 months in the late 90's in electronics and sold CD's. Lauren Hill was the only demo CD we had that was any good to listen to, so that should help you place the year. Garth Brooks had just released a live record with 6 or 8 different covers, and every time you bought one you got to enter a contest to have him play a concert in your back yard. This one lady must have bought at least 10 copies and she'd enter the contest every time. She said she had a feeling she was going to win, but if not she still wanted every cover. It seems like two of the covers were rare. That means we only had about 10 of each of those.
That Garth Brooks record took up a large proportion of our weekly CD delivery that week and the next.
None of that was even the point though, except to say that the music Garth Brooks makes me feel the way some people feel about Kylie. Like, "How dare he?" How dare he make that synthesized fake crap with his fake accent and sell so many records and it's still not enough? I care about the history of the music of our culture and I think that the history of common people, and the real flavor of life is there, and to have it mutilated like that is offensive.
The real point though was that, at the time Backstreet Boys were still popular and NSYNC had a record but I didn't know any of their names yet. But, like imagining that people don't really vote for Bush, I was pretty sure that people didn't really buy NSYNC records. But I'd see it with my own eyes, and it wasn't just kids. Grown people would come in and look at our selection, consider the choices, and buy NSYNC. I said something a few times, because I couldn't help it.
At the time Creed had that record with the skinhead on it, and this kid that worked there told me that they were good. I thought maybe they were punk or something, and I couldn't believe the sound when I finally heard their music.
It was a horrible time for music, at least in the electronics department of K-Mart. The only good stuff was old old old. Beatles, Pink Floyd... Mase's second CD was out and selling.
That's why, in all that, Lauryn Hill looked like a genius and a savior of music. I mean, I like her music, but given the context it seemed like the most awesomest stuff ever. I bought her remix single!
When I'd try to sell a stereo I'd look at the people and decide whether to put on Lauryn Hill or Garth Brooks. Once I put both Garth Brooks discs in the CD player before putting it in the box, and they brought them back. See, I HAD to play a CD that was open, and that meant Garth or Lauryn Hill, which I opened myself, or some NBA Jams record with Gary Glitter and stuff on it. No, I never played that one, ever. Anyone that likes NBA Jams can get down to Lauryn Hill.
Anyway, my point is that I thought that NSYNC was an obvious marketing gimmick aimed at children, but nowadays people act like Justin Timberlake should be taken seriously as a musical artist! YES! I got to my point!
I can't imagine people really buy his record, and yet, if you go into K-Mart, I'll bet you can watch it with your own eyes. so, yes, the taste is worse than ever.
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".
I might be very wrong about Morrissey and his ideas about Kylie. Certainly, yes, he is aware that she's getting more than her share, whatever that means, and that there are probably some new acts out there worth hearing...
(Though when you consider that he dragged Kristeen Young around for two years, you sort of have to question this, no?)
but I think that Morrissey pretty much dislikes anyone that sells more records than he does. I can't think that this award means anything. It's of course that society is in such a place that they will give this award based, as we all know, on sales, and not on artistic innovation. But it's the government giving the award, it obviously means nothing, and I think that his remarks really were probably just off-the-cuff because it had happened that day.
There's evidence that he might see a newspaper or a television occasionally, and I think it was just something to say?
Not like the "Madonna and her African child" incident which seemed both planned and somewhat insanely bitter, this is probably just preaching to the choir, venting, making a topical reference as comedians love to do, and telling the crowd, "don't love her, love me".