Popdose: Hey, You Kids Get Out of My Yard!: Holdin’ Out For A Hero
DwDunphy
· 1 year ago
You are under a false conception. "Rock stars" of the past made great music but also lived wild, rebellious and often screwed up lives. The fans ate up the soap opera but still had the music.
Today is different. Today we have the rock star but no music and, in many cases, no product whatsoever to fall back on. Britney survives not on the music but on the neverending fall from grace. The story keeps her alive. By that account, Paris Hilton is the biggest star of this decade, probably of this century. Disregard that coaster often mistaken for a CD. Had she never made that, she would still be THE rock star because she has the story. That's really all this generation wants - Kanye vs. 50 Cent? Every American Idol? Their fame and longevity feed not off their accomplishments but off of how long it will take before they're smashed into their primordial dust.
We are of an age where accomplishment was once a creative endeavor. This new age is about slow motion destruction, about how long it takes before the one-hit-wonder implodes. It is a demolition derby on a multi-million dollar scale.
I'm now going to take a couple of Tylenol PMs and pretend things were "normal" again.
mojo
· 1 year ago
CW McCall gave us some of the most immortal lines in pop music history, to the point where I can recite them from memory 30-odd years later, and I was just a pipsqueak riding in the family Pinto when I heard them: "I said, 'Pig-pen, this har's the Rubber Duck, and ah ain't-a-gonna pay no toll.' So we crashed the gate, doin' 98, and said 'Let them truckers roll,10-4!'"
If those aren't immortal song lyrics, I don't know what are.
(not.)
mojo
· 1 year ago
Also, Re: stars & stories...I love the way the immortal Tomm Looney refers to Lindsey Lohan, Britney, Paris and Nicole Ritchie as "The Four BImbos of the Apocalypse." I think he is buying into your aforementioned "Y2K" theory.
Farrakhan Faucet
· 1 year ago
I agree with all the comments, but this phenomenon isn't isolated to the celeb-u-sphere. Look how quickly the bloggers build up and tear down bands (Tapes n' Tapes, Clap Your Hands & Say Yeah, Scissor Sisters, etc.). Bands can no longer snowball fanbases album after album because people don't buy albums anymore. MP3s evaporate from the memory just as fast as they're buried in a playlist or lost on a melted down iPod. There was something timeless (and now lost) in flipping through a stack of old albums or CDs, throwing on a forgotten album, re-reading the liner notes and staring at photos of the artist who aged just like you have. And lets not forget about the soul crushing death of high-fidelity. Why kvetch about bit rate when you can listen to a premium CD for the same price as the download?
GrayFlannelSuit
· 1 year ago
No one wants to be famous anymore, they just want to be notorious.
Darren
· 1 year ago
Close. I think the media...radio, press, etc. are only paying attention to those for whom notoriety is the only option. Kid Rock needs to promote the release of a new CD? Have him start a fight at the local IHOP. A couple weeks later, get him to sucker punch Tommy Lee. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of artists who, in a past decade, would have been stars die on the vine.
Old_Davy
· 1 year ago
Excellent article, and you bring up some very valid points. I think the most blame can be put upon commercial radio. Your favorite radio station used to be a friendly place where new artists could find mass exposure and build an audience. But now radio has devolved into a dehumanized machine that only plays what the marketing department tell them that people want to hear (i.e. the same old crap over and over and over and over...) "But the RESEARCH says that people LOVE to hear the same three BOSTON songs all the time!!"
Music publications have also gone south from actually writing about music to being concerned about fashion, health, extreme sports, politics, trends and just about anything else except music.
I've long ago abandoned radio in favor of the internet. Music blogs (like this one) are where I find the new bands of today, and ... HEY, REM HAS A NEW ALBUM COMING OUT NEXT WEEK. Thanks music blog. Guess I won't be hearing any of it on the radio anytime soon.
(Yes, I do still purchase actual CDs.)
People only want fame, and they want it for doing nothing (the Paris Hilton syndrome). Why else would they humiliate themselves on TV in front of millions of people? Why else would they put their families through hell and ruin relationships? Some of these "game shows" have gotten so horrifically despicable that it is almost to the point of being morally offensive.
Last but not least, Adam Schmitt rules, baby!
Eric S.
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the Adam Schmitt song. Somehow, I completely missed him during the 90s (Of course, if you weren't grunge you didn't get on the radio and Internet blogs hadn't really kicked in yet). I discovered him while reading the great power pop book, "Shake Some Action", that Not Lame put out. They ranked his "World So Bright" record #9 on the list of the 200 greatest power pop albums. I immediately picked it up and liked it enough that I quickly bought a copy of his "Illiterature". This song isn't on either of those. What else should I add to my collection (including the CD that has this song)?
Darren
· 1 year ago
He put out "Demolition" (from which this track was taken) a few years back on the Champaign indie label Parasol. The tracks from that CD are available on iTunes, I believe. I seem to be one of the few who prefer Illiterature to World So bright...my fave tracks being "Three Faces West" and "Me & You".
Old_Davy
· 1 year ago
I think "Illiterature" is a harder rocking album overall, and "World So Bright" is a bit more pop. "Dead End", "Remembered Sun" and "Everything Turned Blue" are my two favorite tracks from WSB. "Waiting To Shine" and "Flow" from "Illiterature" are also excellent.
I also have "Demolition" but must admit that I'm not that familiar with it. I've probably listened to it only once or twice, which is not to say that it's bad, just that my music listening time has been severely limited over the past few years.
rwcass
· 1 year ago
The Format are awesome. I need to buy something by them.
All Comments
Today is different. Today we have the rock star but no music and, in many cases, no product whatsoever to fall back on. Britney survives not on the music but on the neverending fall from grace. The story keeps her alive. By that account, Paris Hilton is the biggest star of this decade, probably of this century. Disregard that coaster often mistaken for a CD. Had she never made that, she would still be THE rock star because she has the story. That's really all this generation wants - Kanye vs. 50 Cent? Every American Idol? Their fame and longevity feed not off their accomplishments but off of how long it will take before they're smashed into their primordial dust.
We are of an age where accomplishment was once a creative endeavor. This new age is about slow motion destruction, about how long it takes before the one-hit-wonder implodes. It is a demolition derby on a multi-million dollar scale.
I'm now going to take a couple of Tylenol PMs and pretend things were "normal" again.
If those aren't immortal song lyrics, I don't know what are.
(not.)
Music publications have also gone south from actually writing about music to being concerned about fashion, health, extreme sports, politics, trends and just about anything else except music.
I've long ago abandoned radio in favor of the internet. Music blogs (like this one) are where I find the new bands of today, and ... HEY, REM HAS A NEW ALBUM COMING OUT NEXT WEEK. Thanks music blog. Guess I won't be hearing any of it on the radio anytime soon.
(Yes, I do still purchase actual CDs.)
People only want fame, and they want it for doing nothing (the Paris Hilton syndrome). Why else would they humiliate themselves on TV in front of millions of people? Why else would they put their families through hell and ruin relationships? Some of these "game shows" have gotten so horrifically despicable that it is almost to the point of being morally offensive.
Last but not least, Adam Schmitt rules, baby!
I also have "Demolition" but must admit that I'm not that familiar with it. I've probably listened to it only once or twice, which is not to say that it's bad, just that my music listening time has been severely limited over the past few years.