Can someone explain to me why the fuck anyone watches crap like Glee?
Because at least when I went to school, the glee club was where all the geeks and losers (the ones not cool enough to play triangle in the jazz band) were relegated. Actually, I don’t even recall any high school I went to even having such a thing, but I heard jokes and rumors about other schools.
And the whole take-a-pop-song-and-do-school-choir-version thing has always sucked. When I was little I recall our choir teacher insisted we do a version of Michael Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror” and about the best thing that can be said about it is that, in the light of what we now know about Jackson and children, it’s sort of fitting that children’s choirs mutilate his work.
I know I’m late and that stupid show has been on for a while, but I guess it popped in my heard since local girl Carly Rae Jepsen has had her by-now thoroughly annoying pop song “Call Me Maybe” on the show recently and people I know who worked with her have their panties all in a bunch over it (and that’s just the men).
I realize there’s big money to be made from licensing fees, and I guess it’s one of those differences between rock and pop as hinted at in Rock and the Pop Narcotic. In theory rock should be dangerous, it should piss people off and it shouldn’t be safe enough to be made into a big production number on a family television show.
Obviously CRJ is pure pop, not rock, but the sad thing is I see so many supposedly rock acts hoping to follow in those footsteps, and as revenue from music sales dries up, more and more are trying to get their shit licensed on TV or in film for that revenue. Which is to say they turn pop no matter how heavy their sound attempts to be.
Think of all your musical heroes. The ones who actually made a difference. Did any of their shit feel safe enough for TV? Hell, people were shocked at hearing that tiny snippet of the Sex Pistols in the London Olympic opening ceremonies this summer, and that was after 35 years and they still cut away before the crowd could hear Johnny Rotten snarl anything more than “God save the Queen” which effectively edited the piece to mean the exact opposite of what it actually meant.
Sometimes I look around and it seems we’ll never have another innovative act like the Pistols (or take your pick of others like them), because everyone is so desperate to monetize their music that they bow to commercial pressure for blandness rather than put in the time and energy to stick to their guns and connect to an audience that actually likes them as is. Everyone’s jumping the gun, and there’s a million “make it in the music biz” bullshit blogs telling them how to slide down for that lowest common denominator and how to beg for press before they have anything worth writing about, how to be nice guy salesmen rather than how to have something people want to buy, how to get on TV, etc.
Basically, how to become noise rather than signal.
And anyone who disagrees must be living in the delusional past.
Bullshit.
In a world where everyone’s trying to suck the golden titties of the Hollywood machine, trying to be nice and easy to work with and palatable to the masses, the only future is to spit in the machine’s empty eyes.
And if the producers of garbage like Glee ever come knocking on your door, ask them to hold it open for you – the better to slam it shut on their grubby little fingers.
