Haven't posted in a while, I guess it's a feature of the busy person that priorities take precedence over things like blog-writing. As it is it's been a whole semester past, another semester of underachievement and resignation. But we won't dwell on that, we have other more pressing issues to counter, like the Australian Idol finals from a couple of weeks ago.
Is it just me or has anyone else realised by now that all the Idols sound the same? I don't pay any real attention to the programme, but the way it's forcibly shoved down our sensory organs every thirty seconds on conventional Australian TV means everyone, including myself, is at least basically clued in on the identity of the finalists. I don't even know their names. To me it's just Pretty Boy and Pretty Girl. For purposes of substantiating poor research [read: no research] and fulfilling stereotypes let's just call them Jock and Sass. With that in mind, let's proceed onto my reasons why the Idol concept is a gimped one.
Firstly, there's the filtration process, all the way up to the final product. Take Jock and Sass. These two have survived elimination for months whilst other ostensibly less talented individuals get the boot. It's proceeded as such all the way up to the final, where in a showdown of gladiator [red-eyed tree frogs with toothpicks] proportions one surpasses the other to become the nonpareil, the head, the Idol. But are Jock and Sass really all that much more talented than the tens of thousands of other contestants who participate? The answer is no, definitely not. Rather, they are talented enough to fulfill a mainstream purpose, but in terms of being true artists, they are anything but talented. The reason for this in turn is the type of talent actually desired of them.
If you take a look at every Idol who has ever won this competition, they've become what everyone wishes them to be: mainstream. Every album ever released, every song ever sung, all have been made at the sacrifice of any truly authentic pre-possessed talent. This is why every Idol sounds the same. In order to fulfill the demands of every mainstream cocksucker the competition and record labels involved expunge every last hint of identity the finalists have, and every person not in obeyance with their standard is eliminated. In fact the whole idea behind Idol is to gear the contestants towards sounding exactly the way the
competition wishes them to sound, not the way the contestants themselves want themselves to be. The catchphrase from two seasons ago was particularly poignant: This season Idol is GONNA ROCK! It was the mantra for the whole pre-season, the trailers all carried it, along with clips of hosts and contestants on electric guitars, the images vaguely promising some form of alternative unorthodoxy and a deviance from the mainstream sugar-pop. As supporters of alternative mainstream our house watched with some interest only to see the same old pattern manifest, as people who truly tried to be different, even the good ones, fell by the wayside. One contestant eventually made it up to the competition proper, but not before he lost all semblance of his former identity as a metal and punk rock fan in favour of...Evanescence. And true to form, who else but the most mainstream-sounding Jock and Sass made the final run; one became eventual champion.
Many people enter the Idol competitions in the hope of lending their own unique ability and flavour to the contest. In the end they become minions of the mainstream, their only hopes of progressing lying in how well they shed their previous identities in favour of feeding the preposterous crowd of convention. A recent article highlighted the poor record sales of the previous year's American Idol, competing somewhere between Santa's Techno Birdcall Christmas and Hanukkah Carols as sung by the characters of Toy Story to Woodwinds. This purely illustrates the idiocy of the mainstream. There is an evident ennui about the mainstream crowd regarding their music, yet they can't see beyond themselves to change their approach. The fact is that most people are stuck in the rut of catchy tunes which pander to their mood, which means all the artists and all the record labels are only too happy to keep pumping out the same flavoured garbage to the masses who despite their own boredom with the music scene are happy to take on more of the bullshit precisely because it caters to their immediate comprehension.
All of which leads me on to the shallowness of the mainstream. There's something innately unnatural about a person or people who won't budge themselves even though their in obvious discomfort. This is that large demographic of people who won't move away from the mainstream even though it evidently bores them. My regard of mainstream music [a lie, in fact I have no regard whatsoever for mainstream music, but for author's sake] is that if we have arrived at a point where there's a surfeit of identically-sounding people, it's high time we moved on. The current generation in fact have stymied the evolution of music purely because of the idol concept, that people can't see beyond the stars of the current nor are they willing to accept any potential paradigms. Cynical as I am myself towards many of these attempted 'paradigms', I feel there has to be something beyond what we have now, if only we were allowed to gravitate in that direction. Someone once quipped 'My father hated radio and couldn't wait for TV to be invented so he could hate that too'. I certainly feel that way about current music and what it may lead to, but if the fashion world is anything to go by [it really isn't, but again for author's sake] we are suckers for trend revisitation. Who knows, maybe classical is overdue a return. Not that I'm hoping too hard.
My end point is that we have to stop living for the now when it comes to music, and indeed with other things. This superficial way of looking at life breeds repetition and is precluding our evolution. It is paradoxical perhaps for a classical fan to be writing in this vein, but it is my hope against the world that we can at least move out of this rut of unintellectuality and discover some intelligence in order to save ourselves. If the person who said music reflects, supports and carries the people's thoughts is correct, let's hope for our sakes we do this soon, before we plunge our cumulative intelligent beyond the brink of rescue.
