The downfall of the music business?

[ai0tron]

"Nope, sorry, you are just plain wrong about that. Just the fact that they like Britney makes it art. Unquestionably art. And the fact that she pisses you off just makes her more of an artist in my book. Ooh, look, controversy, makes you think. Downright dadaist, it is."

It's not dadaist, it's not concieved of as dadaism. Britney SPEARS is NOT trying to make a point about the nature of art and how or why it is accepted by society. It's concieved of as a possible money making venture. Money making ventures are not art.

It pisses me off because she is nothing but an artifically enhanced bouncing titty machine, she doesn't even make the music, **** she doesn't even really sing it, they use digital filters to alter her voice and make it higher pitched. She is a figure head, she is part of an assembly line that takes pretty little girls and makes them dance like marionets on a hideous stage of hedonistic perversion!!

It's bubble gum music and it rots your brain. Art is not supposed to rot your brain, it challenges the intellect or it should be burnt on a stake. There is something to understand and learn from ART. Don't tell me Britney caused this conversation either, she didn't, in essence a misconception about art caused this conversation and that misconception could have been you claiming that steaming pile of cow dung I just slipped in was art because it made me ask God... "Why ME??!!"

Shes only controversial because, damnit, her and her music are friggin idiotic!! That doesn't make her an Artist. She's not a good singer, shes not even that hot, shes not that great of a dancer. Her biggest claim to fame, emphasis on "biggest", is her artificial rack of lamb. If you threatened me at gun point and told me to pick one thing about Britney that was Art it would be the see through shirt that lets me catch a glimspe of those eye poppers.

She is not thought provoking other than she makes me wonder about the future of our society in a very pessimistic fashion. That does not make her an artist. She is like ANTI-art. Her and her ILK are responsible for the death of thought. She prompts women to sit in their cars chewing gum, talking on the cell phone, and sticking lipstick in their eye when they rear end the guy who was distracted at the green light by the group of artificialy enhanced booby monsters doing the, sit down in my lap version of "la cucaracha" in the back seat of a mustang convertible...

It's like, Madonna was controversial because she showed her sexuality to the world. SO WHAT, I coulda done it. I'll show my my nuts on television tomorrow, give me 20 bucks I'm telling you I'll show 20 million people my nuts. BUT I'D KNOW BETTER THAN TO CLAIM I DID ANYTHING. I freed the world with my big nut exposure. Now we can all show our nuts and not be afraid. YEAH IM AN ARTIST!!! NOT. It has no meaning, I could verily walk outside tomorrow and be naked, claiming to the world that I was an artist and accosting my arresters as violators to my rights of FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!! It would make the news accross the country, the nude crazy "artist" in Savannah.

The only thing these people could claim to make them artists is teaching people a lesson about listening to their ****ty music... And that is, DONT LISTEN TO their ****ty music.

Damnit.

 

[ai0tron]

"And some would argue that ***** is art. Candy is irresistable to some, does that make it bad?"

Sugar IS bad. #1 sugar can cause diabetes. #2 the english used sugar to take control of African Tribes. #3 Sugar is addictive. We do NOT need to ingest one fragment of refined sugar. We get all the sugar we need from vegetable matter. Sugar is a dentists dream and one of the more insidious consumable materials on planet earth. Chocolate is just a short step away from being co-co cain. Lollipops have more sugar in them than you would need for a week.

(edit) websit elink was damaging to argument

try this link http://www.thewayup.com/newsletters/021501.htm

***** is NOT art, it's a perversion that destroys people. It destroys the people who watch it and it destroys the people who take part in its creation. ***** takes away from life, ART adds to life, ART enhances the meaning of life and gives a person new reason to go on living.

 

[ai0tron]

You know what cracks me up??? These womens health magazines, and mens health too I suppose. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE THAT NEED A MAGAZINE TO TEACH THEM HOW TO LIVE????

I like the ones that are like, "try this to spice up your sex life". Try using your god given imagination. Man, get out a pencil and paper and do some drawings, make flash cards or something.

Geez.

I also like the what do I need to do to lose weight articles. I actually figured it out, there is no magic here, ITS called exercise. Get of fyour sorry ass, stop listenign to britney spears, eating chocolate, and sucking on lolipops.

Dear Abby,

I have been dating this guy who buys me everything but didn't really put out. He's handsome and I'm a pathetic bitch. The other day he told me he wants to start dating other women. I WAS CRUSHED. I want to keep getting everything he buys me but i don't want to be taken advantage of. What do I do???

-Mysteriously stupid in southern Miami.

ABBY sez, Go kill yourself you pathetic whore, lest you reproduce and spread your insipid genetics to other innocent souls.

**** Frasier, Friends, and Finding Forrester. I'd like to see 20 million americans do anything, anything at all instead of watch ER. SHoot someone, rob a bank, pick some flowers. Save a life. Exercise, pet a puppy. Get in a fight. Walk out in front of a cement mixer. JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF YOUR HOUSE.

I blame Britney Spears, Madonna, Kid Rock, and every other Jerk mE off "recording artist" who ever lived for the pathetic state of our society and the trully ignorant nature of our "problems". I blame them and I blame TV and hollywood, and all the SLAVES who get paid millions!! Millionaire SLAVES, what a novel concept!!! THEY ARE ALL SLAVES. Thats why Kurt Cobain blew his head off. Thats why musicians are drinking, shooting up, snorting, dropping, popping, and smoking anything, everything just so they can forget for 5 minutes that everything they have done with their lives has destroyed others and that they are NOTHING BUT SLAVES.

I'm a slave, your a slave. Ever hear the one about the stock broker who lost it all, killed his wife and 2 kids then took himself out?? REALIZED HE WAS A SLAVE. He realized that all his hardwork wasn't real, it didn't even exist, some numbers went *twiddle* on a big screen on wal street and his little ant like slave life came screeching to a halt.

Society is the biggest hustle ever and a COLLEGE education is the second biggest hustle ever. Pay 80,000 to go to school and learn, get a diploma that says you *are* something. Be in debt for 10 years, bust your ass, like a brick in mortor, surrounded by your debt and forced to work and work until its an addiction and you die an old sorry alcoholic coughing up phlegm and grumbling something unitelligible to a slave nurse whenever you have to use the pisser.

Yeah america the beautiful.

Get straight A's or you have a learning disability.

Whats your IQ??? Average?? Toilets are in the back of the store, when your done shine my ****in shoes.

You're not GOOD at MATH, sweep some floors LOSER.

Not the best looking person around? BETTER STAY INSIDE.

HELP ME MY NOSE HAS A FRECKLE, call the friggin doctor I need surgery STAT.

Damn, who told that bitch she could wear that shirt in public?

WHO MADE UP THESE RULES FOR BEAUTY ANYWAY???

Not obsessed with SEX every minute of everyday. DOnt want to FULFILL YOUR SLAVE REQUIREMENT OF MAKING MORE SLAVES??? BETTER GET VIAGRA. Adopt, YOU NEED KIDS.

Come on ladies, spread your legs and fire em out!!! BAbies babies babies!!! MORE MORE MORE. We need mroe babies damnit, we need more people to sweep the floors. we need more slaves, MORE SLAVES!

Your too short

Your too fat

Your too skinny

Your face is too round, to square, to traingular, to SOMETHING

Your too hairy

Your too gangly

too slow
too fast
too smart
too stupid
too nervous
too apathetic
too paranoid
too ignorant

stop trying to be perfect

just stop it

But dont you DARE **** it up!!!

5 minutes late 2 days in row?? IS THEIR A PROBLEM IN YOUR LIFE???

Couldnt sleep the other night?? YOU NEED SOME DRUGS

MOMS dead dont cry, be a man...

Women love the sensitive type though...

You're stuck in a rut
You try to hard
You try to little
You're just average

HEY STEPHEN HAWKING, I bet you love life in your wheel chair, cant kiss, feed yourself, relieve yourself, but your physics have given us so much. I mean, look at how much better the world is because of physics.....

Thanks for the BOMB Einstien!!!

I love the fear of Nuclear Winter dont you???

Oooh, how do we get past this infant stage where we dont really understand ho wbest to use our technology??? HUH? Technology will only give rise to more technology!! What you think its just gonna flatten out one day and technology is just going to behave itself???

HA. Its just gonna get worse. The next weapon wont blow up a city itll blow up a planet, destroy a galaxy, end the universe.

OH ****ING HOLY **** WHAT A GREAT GAME LIFE IS EH???

NOW THATS SOME MOTHER FIN ART!!!


Dear Lord,

Please help us.

Amen.

 

[setmenu]

aiOtron
[size=medium]![/size]


Setmenu

 

[CaptBubba]

That post reminds me of something I've read somewhere... dunno what.

Quote:

Society is the biggest hustle ever

It may be, but what is the alternative?

What really pisses me off is the whole dumbing down that is happening now, both in schools and in music.

Kids can't get a bad grade, that hurts their feelings.

After a childhood that is basicly a free-ride they are suddenly exposed to music.

Then what do they do?

Do they pick music that means something? Music that they have to use their brains to figure out, something they have never done because everything was done for them?

No, they pick the easy stuff. The stuff that consists of either "I love you" or soild swearing, and nothing more.

Same goes for visual art. They don't want to think, so they read the comics in the back of the newspaper and watch "survivior" and do nothing, because that's all they know how to do.

And then they try and get a job, but loose it to someone who actualy has worked before, and knows what their doing. That's descrimination! You can't hire the best person for a job! They scream and get the job because the empolyer doesn't have time to argue with their stupidity.

So they sit in the job doing nothing, while listening to their crappy music, and they think they they have done it all by themselves, and they are proud of it.

People like that deserve to be slaves. Society only enslaves you if you let it. The shackles are made out of paper, but people haven't thought for themselves in their whole lives so they don't think to try and break them.

And now I have to go to class, to learn a launguge that after two months I will never again use.

Dammit.

 

[zoboomofo]

Hey guys, have you got the new Celine Dion album yet? I'll give it a spin 'soon as I'm finished watching my *****. Now that's visual art.

Seriously though, you're not a slave if you believe that your job has value to society, and you see yourself inspired to enhance it imho - cos then you'll get noticed; your ideas are recognized. Then you get a promotion, and you get slaves of your own. Mmmm crack that whip! Oh, so where was I? Yeah, so I don't see things as bleakly as aiotron, over there (what happenned to that happy face, man?). Getting more in line with music, I see acts like the Goo Goo Dolls as slaves, because they're marketed as some cutting edge "Alternative" band. I mean just listen for their new track on the "edgy" format stations. I'll let you in on a secret though. They're easy listening, and they have been ever since "Name". To me, its apparent that their AR guy convinced them to make stuff that would sound good on a soundtrack to some Meg Ryan romance movie.

Its funny. I see ads in British modern rock mags that present some band as bad-ass in their bad assed poses, and cool outfits so you better buy their bad-assed album - they're fresh and American you know? Then it turns out that this band is Matchbox Twenty. Its even funnier when this same band is pumped over the airwaves in America to forty-somethings driving home, while they're waiting to hear Phil Collins sing "True Colors" or something.

Anyway, its depressing, so I avoid it. I try to stick to bands that are true to themselves, or that are at least believable to that effect. I enjoy bands that inspire me to believe that there aren't slaves in the music biz, who DO value their work, and aim to enhance culture through music.

Here's an entertaining link I found on the web while doing a search on AR men. It's a bit of a wilderness guide for would-be bands. Take with a grain of salt of course:

http://www.crg.cs.nott.ac.uk/~dxl/re...l8/albini.html

ok, so after reading this article, maybe I'm wrong. They're all slaves then

.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Seriously, I HATE all this foul-caterwauling (or as KeVlaR spelled "catterwalling") candy-***** pop-tart trash known as "pop-crap" being peddled upon ALL of us! Every time I tell y'all how craptacular this caterwauling crap REALLY is, I go ROTFFLMFAO!

 

[Audio-Me]

Is the bOrg a direct mimicking of our society???

ai0 - I like the way you think.

 

[zoboomofo]

Aww, c'mon Eagle_Driver. I can see right through you. With that attitude, I can like totally see you front and center at a BSB concert - at least shoving the little girls around

.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by ai0tron "And some would argue that ***** is art. Candy is irresistable to some, does that make it bad?" Sugar IS bad...

But my point was (and I do agree that sugar is bad), is the fact that candy is irresistable what makes it bad. It is not addictive. I found it very easy to drop.

Is love bad? Love is irresistable. Hunger is irresistable. The fact that something is irresistable is not, in itself, bad. Quote:

"Nope, sorry, you are just plain wrong about that. Just the fact that they like Britney makes it art. Unquestionably art. And the fact that she pisses you off just makes her more of an artist in my book. Ooh, look, controversy, makes you think. Downright dadaist, it is." It's not dadaist, it's not concieved of as dadaism.

I know! That's what makes it so dadaist. She's being controversial (to people like you and me, not to her fans) by being so mainstream...so pervasive...etc.

PS You need to seriously lighten up. You're giving artists a bad name. Quote:

It's bubble gum music and it rots your brain. Art is not supposed to rot your brain, it challenges the intellect or it should be burnt on a stake.

No, we are not obliged to "perfect". I don't see you dropping everything you're doing and becoming mother teresa, so why should artists be as challenging as they can be? What's wrong with being a "guilty pleasure"? My mom was watching some TV the other day, and started going off to me about "why can't they make happy stories, uplifting stories, why do they always have to be about hatred and violence?" She is the kind of person that is the target market for this crap. She wants everything watered down and "lite".

It is perfectly okay to be one of those artists that provide the entertainment to such people. It may make it less interesting, she won't be nominated for any Grammy's, she will be held in very low esteem by her musician peers, but it does not make her any less an artist. Just a worse one. I think you are being way to hard on her...and, indirectly, me, because I make music that is a "guilty pleasure", not prog, nor classical, nor grammy-award-winning music, just fun pop. And I don't think that makes me any less an artist, it's just what I do. If I were a full-time professional artist, I would make more challenging music, but I have a day-job and other interests, so it's all I'm doing. Quote:

Shes only controversial because, damnit, her and her music are friggin idiotic!!

She's only controversial because you keep bringing her up as the epitomical example of a "not artist", and that just strikes me as particularly ironic. Quote:

It's like, Madonna was controversial because she showed her sexuality to the world. SO WHAT, I coulda done it.

No, you couldn't have. Because the artistic aspect of that whole thing was the way she worked the media machine. Only someone like her and in her position could have done that. Sorry, you're wrong, again.

I totally agree with you that these examples that you are citing are the lowest forms of art, but they are still art. The fact that they are low-brow does not make them any less art, it just makes it much harder to appreciate by the high-brow crowd. There's nothing to dissect. But some things aren't worth dissecting. "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." was written in dadaist response to the "A rose, by any other name, would smell so sweet..." poem. There's nothing to dissect about it, it's memorable, it sticks in your mind. But it was foggin' brilliant. And it's art, I think even you'll agree with me on that.

Mmm...bop...shooby-dooby-dooby-dooby-do-bop...

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally posted by zoboomofo Aww, c'mon Eagle_Driver. I can see right through you. With that attitude, I can like totally see you front and center at a BSB concert - at least shoving the little girls around .

Huh? I've NEVER been to any music concerts at all - not in my lifetime

. Never.

 

[davidcotton]

Yep agree pretty much with whats been said on here (in particular about Will (annoying ****er) young. Getting to no1 in the charts now is not so much about music or musical ability its all about image and the right pr team behind you, was there any doubt about the fact that song would get to no 1? Also the fact that a) its a cover and b) the other finalist (gareth equally annoying ****er gates) have released covers says a LOT about there so called musical talent.


Whilst we are on the subject of Popstars/Idol, anyone one remember the last band to win it, Hear'say? No thought not...

Don't know what its like in the states but over here its pretty much dance/boy girl bands solid all day which is enough to drive any sane person nuts.

Also VH1 (UK) has just axed the VH1 Friday Rock show with Tommy Vance as apparantly they need to readjust the schedules despite the show being one of the more popular ones on the channel.

 

[Old Pa]

It's what happens when the wrong (read: "single motive profit seeking nonproducers") folks get in charge of musical artistic expression and direction (with a minor up side of being able to bark along with Bob Dole's dog as long as you keep the sound muted). Don't get me started on the shift to music videos for the introduction of new music. Good taste (along with good judgement) is one of the most equitably distributed of all the human virtues; everybody thinks they have got enough.

There will always be a current market for popular crap music with that portion of the population who want to be told what is good/hip/cool. Go figure. Look how they all have to dress, fix their hair, pierce/tatoo/walk/you-name-it the same. Army has no corner on uniforms (with apologies to Frank Zappa). All this stuff (but especially the music) just does not age well at all; look at bubble gum from the 70s. That bilge couldn't be put on tape fast enough. And now it's all (blessedly) gone. There is no sin in falling back on good old music.

Tyll is right (again goddammit!) that the significant difference now is the availability of new (and old) musical information on the internet so as to escape the current popular dreck. FM radio tanked when underground went mainstream and "classic rock" is trying to reduce through commercial exploitation the older good stuff. It's the internet and places like Head-Fi that fills the void. And quite nicely, too.

 

[ai0tron]

Dusty:

I am not high brow. I listen to lots of not so high brow music. I sure as hell don't listen to Britney Spears in my home, but I wouldn't automatically look down on someone who did... I mean my little cousin listens to Britney Spears, I don't try to take that away from her, I rock out to Britney when I have to just for the purposes of hanging out and having fun. She asks me all the time, isn't this song cool?? And I say this rocks and start dancing or something. If I told her it sucked and she should listen to some classical music she'd take it the wrong way, she probably wouldn't really understand the music either.

I KNOW what you are saying. I have thought to myself, I go to art school where people grade me on the quality of my art. The initial response is, you can't really do that. But I think you can!! I feel that there is a way to define art and not art. As much as the dadaists tried to envelope the acts of humanity as wholistically artistic I think they ended up proving that you can't do that. They had to become artist's in order to knock Art. In their attempt to reduce art they elevated themselves to the status of artists.

Britney spears is acting in a different vein. She is not acting as an artist, or even against art, she is acting as a business woman, or even acting against her will. Or even just trying to have fun. Trying to have fun, art can be fun, but fun is not art. The lack of fun is not art. Or maybe, she just want's to be famous because her subconscious tells her that if she is famous she can increase the number of men who want to bone her and thus increase her chances of reproducing with better genetics. Which is also not art. What is her goal? By arguing about Britney Spears have we unwittingly made her an artist??

You know, some people like to point how the kings of the worlds most powerfull nations were taken control of by artists. How often does someone tell the King what to do, tell him to hold still like you would a child? Everything has to be perfect, or it's not going to happen, no matter who asks, that I feel is an aspect of art. In fact, I think that is essential to art, the idea was created to give craftsman, and artisans, a new level of responsibility. To show how when some of them created things they weren't just making an OBJECT, they were creating things that were outside of reality. They were transcending reality by creating, trully creating something understandable on another plane.

Britney spears is just making an OBJECT, a SONG to dance too. It is not creative on the plane of an artist. She is not reaching beyond reality to try and create on a plane beyond our physical existence.

It's like the question of randomness. Is a person really capable of doing something that is trully random?? Initially I think the response is NO. I mean, no matter what we do we are acting as a result of some process in our minds right?? Well maybe. BUT, I think people can be totally random. In fact, I think that if we can't be totally random we aren't as "human" as we think we are. And if we can't come up with a definition for ART, I think the same thing.

More chess talk. Chess is a great game. I mean, it's a perfect example of how there is a vaporous kind of line that seperates people who play chess from the people who transcend the game. When you first learn to play chess, you play tactically. What can my pieces do right now?? You are thinking this piece to that place. Only the moves that are possible at that very moment.

LATER, when you learn how the game works, you begin to transcend the position, you reach beyond it, to a point that may or may not happen. In fact, masters of the game understand each other on this abstract level, so in fact they are communicating on this level. Each move has a meaning, and someone who knows how to play, but is not transcending the game, will not understand the move. When you understand the game on a level that is beyond the reality of the board maybe then you are a kind of chess 'artist'.

And so Britney Spears makes music because she wants to dance, she has point A the music, taking her to point B the dancing, all within the realm of reality. And perhaps Tool makes music because they want to communicate with us on a transcendent level. Yes, points A and B may still exist, but then there is point C, which is somewhere in the minds of those who are listening, a communicated message. Therein lies art.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by ai0tron I am not high brow. I listen to lots of not so high brow music.

Oh, okay. The "art should make you think" comment made me think that you were...even if you don't always listen to (or look at) high-brow art. Quote:

I sure as hell don't listen to Britney Spears in my home, but I wouldn't automatically look down on someone who did...

I guess that wasn't my point. Don't get me wrong, I don't relate to Britney Spears at all, but I do relate to some of the things you've criticized about her. I mean, why can't art just entertain? It's still art, dammit! Quote:

I have thought to myself, I go to art school where people grade me on the quality of my art. The initial response is, you can't really do that. But I think you can!!

I 100% agree with you on that. You can assign her zero stars on a scale of 1 to 10, if you like, to make a point. (But most people would just translate that to a zero on a scale of zero to 10.) Quote:

I feel that there is a way to define art and not art.

But that's not the same as grading the quality of someone's art. That's saying, that's not art at all. It's like criticizing a chess move. If someone gives up a queen in a totally stupid move, it's still a chess move. A very bad chess move, but it's still a chess move. Taking the queen and throwing it in the wastebasket is not a legal chess move. That's the point I am trying to make. Monkeys flinging poo is not art. A homeless man's random blatherings is not art. A sunset is not art (theological arguments aside). The ant races on television are not art. The static of the FM radio tuned to a dead channel is not art. That random collection of water droplets in the bottom of a drying frying pan is not art. Programming a computer to generate random notes is not art.

I guess part of my definition of art would be intention, so all those examples of not-art would fall under the category of accidental happenings, but I think you get my point. By what we are motivated to create art is explicitly not part of my definition. To me, only the result is what matters, you should be able to pull the artist out of the picture and still be able to observe the work of art out of context and still be able to perceive it as art. This leads me to no dilemmas when it comes to Britney. (Although I do have a problem with the likes of "found art" who will take above-mentioned flung monkey poo and display it as art. Not sure if that's art or not.) Quote:

As much as the dadaists tried to envelope the acts of humanity as wholistically artistic I think they ended up proving that you can't do that. They had to become artist's in order to knock Art. In their attempt to reduce art they elevated themselves to the status of artists.

I agree with this completely. Quote:

Britney spears is acting in a different vein.

This leads me to believe that you believe that the intent of the artist does play into your definition -- is this correct? Quote:

By arguing about Britney Spears have we unwittingly made her an artist??

No, I was just kidding about that. Quote:

Britney spears is just making an OBJECT, a SONG to dance too. It is not creative on the plane of an artist. She is not reaching beyond reality to try and create on a plane beyond our physical existence.

I completely disagree with the former, but agree with the latter. But as long as she touches someone (I.E., her fans) in a way that can be perceived as art, then she is an artist. Quote:

It's like the question of randomness. Is a person really capable of doing something that is trully random??

Meh, you know how I feel about that existentialist crap. You're talking to the wrong person. You may be an artist in existential realms, but I am not part of your target audience.