SUPERVILLAINS OF MUSIC
dCastillo
1,963 Posts
add to this list:Clay AikenBarry WhiteBob JamesBilly IdolCherCat Stevens
Comments
Why not?
jessica simpson
Doom is actually a superhero in denial.
Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood
Ha ha!
C Dolores Tucker
Co-sign on the Tipper Gore
Scion
and
Soul Strut
This dude created Mo'Wax and the genre it spawned. Hot or not?
Add to list:
Steven Tyler
Blackeyed Peas
Paul Stanley
Kid Rock
Phil Collins (post-Against All Odds)
do not deserve to be called supervillains. Minions at best
But what about "what the people want?"
I can help you get "that sound" that "the people" like.
I don't believe anybody on earth knows how to decide "what the people want" ??? or to make records people will want to buy. If anybody did know how to do it, he would make only hits and all records would eventually be made by him. I think pretending to be able to do this breeds an atmosphere of omniscience that becomes impenetrable.
What if someone told Mingering Mike he was doing it "all wrong?"
Fuck the audience, or rather, fuck everyone in the whole world who isn't in the band. The label, the imaginary audience, friends, loved ones -- all of us. Fuck us. The band are the people for whom this is the most important thing, and everyone else can go jump in the lake. Really, honestly. It's none of their business what the band chooses to do. None.
Great. New. Genuine. Startling. These things don't come from committee decisions, they come from crazy thinking and wrong-headedness. Accident, perversion and single-mindedness. Greatness and newness are only possible if artists work outside the areas proscribed as pre-ordained "good" strategy. Having a preconception about what is permitted may prevent "mistakes," but it sure as shit prevents greatness and originality.
The dollarbins are full of records nobody has ever loved, without any mistakes on them. Errorless, interchangeable pieces of predictable, mistake-free shit.
I cherish music that it is unique to the person making it. I welcome an ordinary lack of objectivity and I am thrilled when I encounter an insane, mono-maniacal, obsessed lack of objectivity. The very notion of objectivity pre-supposes that there will be some external standard of acceptability that might be met, if only one were "objective" enough to recognize it. I dispute that contention.
I don't think there is any point to objectivity in a creative enterprise. A purely commercial one, okay, but not one with a creative intent. There is nothing objective about making or experiencing great art, ever.
And now, there's still you
How could Horn have been responsible for Mo' Wax when created Frankie Goes To Hollywood?
really rottens. mascots, even...
TRUTH.
Lavelle, but he's just a bad techno DJ. Frat Boy Slim by a nose.
Beastie Boys are evil.
explain?
I was just listening to that "lights out" album yesterday, but I don't know anything about the guy.
The same way that Tim Buckley made "Greetings From L.A."
I am confused.
Beginning in the late 70's the Music Biz has evolved from a somewhat creative to a totally commercial endeavor. 90% of the folks who buy/listen to music will follow whatever trend they are steered towards. It's not hard to pick out "what the people like" when it's really their only choice without doing some research at their end...and most folks don't want to do that. Today's commercial music is like McDonalds, it's easy to get and it satisfies the average person's taste.
I attended a major record label's sales meeting 3 years ago in Austin. They plainly stated that their target audience was the 11 year old girl. Their logic was that the 11 year old girl's parents would buy them whatever they asked for, they were easy to manipulate musically and they were not savvy enough to be downloading off the Internet for free. The Music Biz is now so commercial and so calcualted that you'll never see the kind of output that Capitol and other major labels had back in the day, where they would take random chances with obscure/unknown artists. And I do believe that this bottom line dollar mentality has squashed creativity in MANY industries.
You can still find creative people making creative music today, but they are, for the most part, outside the realm of the Commercial Music Biz....and that hasn't always been the case. And there is SOOOOOO much out there via the Internet that it's almost impossible to get a handle on it as a whole. Word of mouth has replaced the cut-out rack.
As Bill Hicks liked to say..."All Marketing people just kill yourself now...No, I really mean it KILL YOURSELF NOW!!!" (Wow, Bill's a marketing GENIUS, he's going for the Anti-Marketing audience!!!)
that album reminds me of aerosmith, in a good way...
This is true. But it's also a double-edged sword. With technology it's now easier for every Tom, Dick and Joe to make and distribute his own music, thru both digital and traditional avenues. Because of this phenomenon, you have even more mediocre and less-than-mediocre trash to sift thru in order to find the few creative people making creative music that you're talking about.
It's definitely a catch-22 type of situation. Not to mention the effect that all this less-than-mediocre music has had on the overall bar of quality within the indie market. In '94 and '95, you could afford to take a chance on an indie hip-hop 12" and the chances were good that you would have found a gem. Nowadays, not only are the chances of finding a gem that much slimmer, people are gun-shy and don't want to even take the risk of picking up something new unless they've heard it.
It's a very tough time for the independent, especially within the hip-hop realm.