A few days ago, P+P’s own Chris Nelson, Tricia Romano, and I got carried away on an issue that is, in my opinion, just as exciting as the presidential candidate yeehaw going on. We bombed each others’ inboxes in a vicious, and very important!! debate: Are today’s mainstream artists more about style over substance (no talent required!) than their predecessors? Or is this just an age-old problem in the entertainment biz?

Gaille:

Hey TriciaI believe style/fashion is infiltrating (and degrading) mainstream music more than ever before. I’m suggesting that mainstream is in its worse state because image-first artists own the airwaves almost single-handedly.

I think of that Blues Traveler video for “Run-Around” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pCDs_0zbNo) and see how the underlying message (rockstar frontman who’s obviously “cooler” than the real singer) is amplified a million times more now. When the typical young fan turns on her radio and listens to someone, she doesn’t want to hear out the lyrics, the instrumentals, or the vocals. She automatically visualizes the artist or band’s faces and how they are dressed.

In the 90s, the bulk of fans didn’t care about what TLC (R&B), Fugees (Hip Hop),  Madonna (Pop), Pearl Jam (Alt), Radiohead (Alt), or Nirvana (Rock) was wearing or how they were looking. Now, if you want to be a fan of someone, you have to at least check if they are “in” with fashion somehow.

This also compounds the animosity of the indie folk, who pump their fists in the air and scream out “pop music is evil.” That frustrates me too.

Bottom line—mainstream music has sucked for a while, yes, but it has been exponentially compounded because of style-over-substance.

Is that still a viable topic you think? Maybe if I can sharpen some points and focus more on just one movement (say, the Bay Area “Hyphy” movement, or the punk spin “Scenester” movement). Let me know.

Gaille

Tricia to Gaille:

I just don’t think this argument holds water at all:

“In the 90s, the bulk of fans didn’t care about what TLC (R&B), Fugees (Hip Hop),  Madonna (Pop), Pearl Jam (Alt), Radiohead (Alt), or Nirvana (Rock) was wearing or how they were looking. Now, if you want to be a fan of someone, you have to at least check if they are “in” with fashion somehow.“

–

I am at least 10 years older than you and let me tell you, we DID care about what they were wearing.

In Las Vegas, despite the fact it was 100 degrees out, we wore flannel to copy Nirvana. We bought Doc Marten boots and copied Soundgarden and Pearl Jam’s looks.

TLC’s style was a big part of their popularity; when you wrote their name I couldn’t tell you a  single one of their songs but the image of them in their cartoony outfits just popped up into my head. Immediately.

And Madonna’s success was completely intertwined with the way she looked. Her videos were a major event because we wanted to see what she would look like as much as what she would sound like. i remember collecting the black wristbands and wearing them and wishing my dad would let me wear lace leggings.

in fact, fashion has been doing its thing on pop music for so long, i don’t think we have enough room to list all the grievances. I mean, Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, Duran Duran. People who followed these bands followed their fashion, too.

Radiohead is even a part of this argument; by being anti-fashion, they were aligned with people who were also anti-fashion. Do you think Radiohead would have been half as respected if they looked like Tokio hotel?

Fact is fans DO care what their bands are wearing; it’s just some are more bold about admitting it than others.

So, this argument is completely off the mark IMO. you could take the opposite tack and write a definitive list of stupid looking outfits worn by big bands?

Chris to Tricia & Gaille:

I feel like the disconnect here is that all of the acts from the 90’s being discussed were classic gamechangers of their respective genres who ALSO JUST HAPPENED to be trendsetters as well when it came to style. The newer acts Gaille is referring to (and here’s my crotchety 29-year-old-man moment) suck.

Old: style+substances required to achieve popularity.

New: only style required.

It’s not that people didn’t care what was being worn in the 90’s, caring about it was a by-product of liking the music. But commercialism has so far infiltrated the mainstream, and vehicles of delivery are so varied across so many mediums, that an artist can be sold to the masses without ever having to release a solid, full-length album.

The scenesters, the indie-rockers, the hipsters…it all seems so fragmented because music culture is so fragmented now.  Genres are meaningless and one of the easier ways to identify with the scene is not through the music as much as it is adopting the style being perpetrated.

Am I close to a midde-ground here?

Tricia to Chris and Gaille

Sort of… but i think it was just as fragmented then, and that wearing the clothes of your chosen band was a way to indicate where you stood. However, I was in high school before the rave boom. I was there for the first Lollapalooza and everything that was not mainstream was just ‘alternative.’ There was no sub-sub-genres.

The argument that the bands today aren’t game changers is purely subjective and I am sure if you spent time talking to 16 year-olds they would think they are part of something more badass than they actually are.

I mean, are sTp and Pearl Jam any less lame than Fall Out Boy in retrospect? i mean I’m sure there were people in our age group who saw culture club and thought ewww. And Duran Duran are actually pretty bad. Simon Lebon can not sing. But they were fun.

The other thing is—this is an apples and oranges argument. The music industry doesn’t even resemble itself anymore; No one sells records and the only way to subsist is to be fragmented. a band that sells 300,000 copies is considered formidable, whereas in my day it was a joke and a failure.

To quote you: “Genres are meaningless and one of the easier ways to identify with the scene is not through the music as much as it is adopting the style being perpetrated.”

Doubt this is the case at all for the 16 year-olds you are talking to. We can see it now for what it is, bad, stupid music, but those fans really do believe in the wholesale packaging of their band. All you have to do is go to their webpages.

The other thing is: because we are so fragmented, it’s nearly impossible to have that game-changing band come around like Nirvana did in 91. I have been waiting for a feeling like that for a long time and it’s not gonna happen in the current music industry where every body is just fighting for tiny crumbs in a very frag’ed universe.

Chris to Tricia

I poop on you.

Gaille to Tricia & Chris:

Forget a genre, true.

Isn’t this generation’s mainstream “musicians” much less talented than 90s and earlier? I’ve asked myself why time and again–best answer is the disproportionate evolution of style-over-substance.

I’m by no means arguing fashion wasn’t a part of their popularity back then (I hope I didn’t come across as arguing that).

… just that it’s a much more larger part of why they are even allowed to lay a track in the studio (Miley plus all the trendy Disney kids, Rev Run’s son JoJo, Linday Lohan’s sis, etc.)

At least most 90s mainstream carried some quality along with fashion (or anti). They were able to back their looks (or set trends) with at least a good shredder, vocalist, or lyricist in other words. TLC had a femme rapper who was eloquent and street at the same time. Madonna can hold tons of better notes (and dance moves btw) than Britney. Pearl Jam’s lyrics were always bone-chillingly real (Alive, Jeremy, Daughter are some favs). And Nirvana’s musical talent speaks for itself (the legacy of not only Kurt, but the 2 surviving formers who continue to make an impact in music).

Now that I think about it, boy bands might be the exception, but sadly they have own past generations as well-I deem they are an inevitable part of pop culture.

So now an artist can set trends (or maintain the current ones) before they even open their mouths. I wouldn’t be surprised if labels had casting calls that required one headshot pic and maybe a 10-second demo. Maybe.

Exagerrating. But yes…I admit that this is too unstable an issue to even discuss. I can dissect all day…and I accept I’m limited by my musical years as compared to you guys.

Boy, do I wish I was my mom’s friend in the 60s (sigh).

Gaille

Tricia to Chris & Gaille:

Ok, I’m gonna argue with you again!

The phenomenon of studio-created, image-first artists is as old as the hills (so is nepotism). Lots of artists were studio /label creations. Monkeys, acts from the 50s and 60s and some people will even make the argument that this doesn’t make an artist less of an artist or more valid.

Britney Spears has a far better voice than Madonna, and this is a proven fact. Go watch Youtube videos of her as a teen/little girl on Star Search and your mind will be blown. i had no idea myself until i saw it. the problem is they write very simple songs in a lower register for her, which works better if you are dancing and lip syncing. Also years of smoking, partying, and shaving one’s head can’t do much for the girl’s voice. The dancing is subjective! I think Madonna is very awkward IMO.

“So, now an artist can set trends (or maintain the current ones) before they even open their mouths. I wouldn’t be surprised if labels had casting calls that required one headshot pic and maybe a 10-second demo.”

Maybe. This is a product of the interwebs. Which we didn’t have in my youth. (I’m an old).

t

Gaille to Tricia & Chris:

Right on…lol, let’s keep it going!

Let me clarify, I am not debunking the fact that packaged artists existed back then. I’ll even go as far as saying that Temptations (who I love) were a bunch of puppets for Motown (at one point).  In that sense, they were no different than Fall Out Boy or whoever.

I am suggesting that labels have increased the frequency and priority of image over everything else (mainly talent). The substance of these artists are undeniably dwindling and it’s not because we (as humans) devolving in terms of vocal chords, the ability to strum/pick a guitar, or conjure catchy-but-meaningful words.

So yes, back then there were label-controlled acts. Heck, that’s a theory in and of itself—labels started not just to distribute, but to make money and with that in mind ABSOLUTELY would package image, dance moves, and then some to make things more profitable/commercialized.

But talent was NOT eating dust from the image concept as it is now. Ditto goes for nepotism, which I believe is salsa to image’s chips. It is obvious to me at least that putting image at the forefront has been at its high, so much as for me to not tolerate it any more. These kids may be ride-or-die for the bands out there, but I bet we can pick out more quality differences between our fav bands as compared to them doing the same thing (“Uh, well his voice is, uh, less squeaky?”)

On the subjective note of the Brit vs. Madonna, I haven’t seen the vid til now…quite impressive. I still hold to enjoying a decently rangeful acapella (Evita) from M over a nasaly one from B.  And the dancing…oh man. I’ll take M’s flexy/jerky 90s moves (I even loved “Human Nature” ) over the mechanical pop numbers by B (Except “Toxic,” lol) any day. I love it!

And if people would go as far as to argue that studio-packaged are just as valid as the true-roots musicians, then that’s all subjective too. I’d say the Temptations were quality artists for our listening pleasure, but the issue then lies on whether they were being true to themselves as artists. But it would be painful to hear someone defend a label-creation like Tokio Hotel have the same talent as a packaged band from the 60s or 70s. Ugh.

Chris to Tricia & Gaille:

What the hell, let’s just publish this email chain and call it day!

Tricia to all:

Amen!