For months I have listened podcasts based in the US talking about the demise of the music industry. Last night, as I tried to watch the American Music Awards, I understood.
As I tried to listen to the 'songs' being
performed it became evident that not only was the production bad, the vocals shocking but, not since the sixties, has there been such a plethora of bad, corny lyrics. Only four and a half decades ago the pop music genre itself was pushing boundaries.
I only managed to watch about an hour and a half of the show, most of it shaking my head in amazement, but in that time for me the best performance was ironically a duet by Rihanna and Neyo (I think that's his name). I say ironically, because Eishman finds her voice extremely irritating and always reaches for the dial when one of her songs are played on the radio. Her voice is almost as irritating as Celine Dion live, unable to hide behind the recording process, man she sounds bad!
To top it off, for me, Beyonce was given some international artist award (See how interested I was?) that has only been given to 5 previous artists ... to the best of my recollection they included Led Zeppelin, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson & Aerosmith ... surely Beyonce isn't in this league?
The sad thing is, there are so many independent artists writing and performing, thought provoking, inspiring, melodic and entertaining songs across the genres that struggle to get recognition while this bunch rake in the millions and praise themselves. There are artists all of Africa creating innovative pieces of music, hey
Anna? Even here at home there are artists across genres doing great things. I have been listening to music from the
Podsafe Music Network for some time now, and have enjoyed discovering musicians from all over the world doing things for themselves, eeking out a living for the sake of their art. Something that used to be regarded as a right of passage for a successful musician.
I am an avid Idols watcher, even though it does bug me that the franchise is churning out karaoke 'stars' who can't read, never mind write music, having watched the AMA's last night, perhaps Idols SA ain't all that bad ... maybe ... (On a side note wasn't it great hearing a contestant finally, after many seasons of trying nailing Allanah Myle's Black Velvet?)
To top it all off, the non-descript presenter, clearly wasn't joking when he mentioned that he was also a writer ... on strike.
It's been a while since I shared a South African musical gem. The irony been that along worth 'real world' work pressures, much of my free time has been taken up with experiencing various of our country's crop of talented musicians live. No regrets there.
