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Mainstream V real talent
**helen**
Deactivated Posts: 9,235 Supreme Poster
Where do they crossover?
Luke has strong views on this - http://www.thesite.org/community/reallife/rants/easylistening
What do you reckon?
Luke has strong views on this - http://www.thesite.org/community/reallife/rants/easylistening
What do you reckon?
Post edited by JustV on
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Essentially I don't agree with him.... I don't really understand his argument, but I don't think many people just follow what is popular for the hell of it. Sure thing its easier to listen to only the Top40 because its popular and easy, but who does that? And as for buying.. you've got to like a song before you download it surely? Not just buy it because its popular.
Tbh im not keen on those people who feel the only things worth listening to are those genre/artists that are credible. If you enjoy listening to something why does it matter.
but that just my 2p
The two are not mutually exclusive.
This just isn't true anymore. The internet means that, if you're good at what you do, the audience will find you. It doesn't matter that they're not on TV or that your Mum doesn't know how they are, if they can scrape out a living doing what they love then they've made it.
What is a 'true creative'? Isn't David Bowie a true creative? Or Tom Waits? If you are creating something great, people will find it. And write articles about how you're woefully underrated and that Simon Cowell is the great Satan...
I'm resisting the whole wannabe account bemoaning Hip Hop losing it's edge an becoming too popular thing...:razz:
Also, I hope that thesite added the "Since discovering socially-critical comedy a lot of his time has been spent thinking." bumpf to his by line and he didn't write that line himself
Indeed, evidenced by the fact that people suddenly start criticising a band or musician the second they become popular, or at the very least have to let everyone know that they knew about them before they were big. These people whinge about the state of mainstream music all the time, but the fact of the matter is that they revel in being part of that special group who've heard of a particular band, and in a wider sense "real music fans."
That doesn't mean there isn't something in it though. I suspect the average person buying a Bright Eyes album, for example, is going to consume more music than the average buyer of Susan Boyle's album, for example.
I also think there's a tendency for the big companies to patronise the public, and assume that they won't like anything too original or challenging in some way. Take films, for example. There's this tendency atm for Hollywood to remake a very good foreign film (particularly horror movies in recent years) in English with big American actors. And the justification is that a lot of "middle America" won't watch a film with subtitles. And of course this tends to be the case, and they feel justified in their decisions. But one interesting statistics is that the American version of the Grudge did better than the Japanese version in Japan. So why could this be? Could it just be that the American release had an advertising budget many times that of the original, and a cinematic release that was far wider than the original? But they won't put the same advertising budget into a distribution deal for a foreign film because of this patronising view of their audience. I also suspect there's also more money to be made by having the full rights to the film, rather than just distributing someone else's (although they're more than willing to get behind independent American films). And it wouldn't surprise me if it's also about maintaining something of a monopoly over the audience (I can't think of an American award ceremony in which the "Best Film" award essentially assumes that it's in English, and then has a separate award for the rest of the world). There's nothing like a few good subtitled films to get American audiences looking a bit harder at the odd foreign film instead.
Obviously in any sort of art, there is the really experimental stuff that people will either love or hate, and will probably never get into the mainstream. But there are a hell of a lot of stuff that is just good music or film or whatever, that the big companies don't think is marketable for whatever reason, and the majority of people who aren't massively into their music won't spend the time looking for. This is the sort of stuff that generally makes it into the mainstream eventually if they want, at which point, all of the "real fans" will criticise them. Which isn't necessarily criticism for criticisms sake, because it's not unheard of for men in suits to start pissing about with a successful formula because they think it will be more marketable that way, rather than allowing the people who built up the following in the first place to have complete creative control. I suppose you can understand it. It's usually a lot of money at stake, and I guess that's why a lot of artists (particularly film directors, because there's even less flexibility when you're talking about the sorts of budgets Hollywood works with) prefer to stay with the lower budget independent stuff, and only spend as much money as people will allow while still maintaining full creative control over their product.
Taste isn't goverened by who made it, where it came from, when it was made, how many other people like it - it's about how it makes YOU feel. These snobs seem to worry less about how it affects them and more about whether or not they fit in with a certain crowd.