Rhythm Tracking
RIP Pop Culture
I guess what we call "pop culture"
is pretty much over. This is something I've been sort
of predicting for the past 10 years as new technology
changes the rules and thereby the landscape itself
changes – but into what?
The instant access of photos, gossip, music, films,
TV shows, nude photos, and rumors and hearsay and
the instant gratification that comes with them have
all led to a brave new world of ... nothingness. The
thrill of the hunt has been taken away; finding that
special song, or getting a glimpse of a band, an actor,
or a TV personality has become too easy. All the effort
has been taken away – and it was the effort,
the mysticism, the inability to have what you wanted
that drove your desire to get it, and made these things
seem more important.
Now you have everything you want, and now nothing
is important unless you're a 12-year-old girl running
after Hannah Montana and The Jonas Brothers, and even
that does not get the intensity that Elvis, The Beatles,
David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, The Jackson 5, or even
New Kids On The Block managed to muster in the golden
decades of pop. It's sad, but the drive and the desire,
and thereby, the interest has been removed by Internet
access; we become the infant who takes the new toy,
stares at it for five minutes, and then throws it
into the pile, never looking at it ever again.
It's not just music that has been infected by this
doomsday virus, as all aspects of the economy driving
pop culture machine have been taken down.
Take TV. Viewing was once a sacred joining of friends
and family, gathered around the tube, for big events:
a band on The Ed Sullivan Show, a moon landing, a
president resigning, war coverage, Kennedy shot, John
Lennon shot. These events remained high profile for
years afterwards. Now, with the new technology, 9/11
itself drifted from view after a year or two, buried
by Britney's bush (not the president). Once upon a
time, there were TV stars, and they were what made
the TV networks the corporate machine they became.
Now there are "reality stars." The kids
from across the street are on the tube farting, vomiting,
passing out in the front yard, yelling like maniacs.
Why watch this on TV? All you have to do is look out
the window, and the window is commercial free.
TV delivered a big night for the Super Bowl, a no-brainer
in the dead of winter when all competing programming
was hamstrung with reruns because of the writers'
strike – which was the final deathblow for the
movie and TV awards industries. The writers have guaranteed
their own demise; the strike caused the Golden Globes
and Peoples Choice Awards to flop harder than they
would have anyway, and now that the air is out of
those balloons, they'll remain empty. The end result
was the worst ratings in history for the Academy Awards,
which will mean less money for the studios to spend
on new projects, thereby less writers working –
good. That's what they deserve. They blew up their
own machine, and now they can live (and die) with
the results
The viewer numbers were also horrible for the Grammys,
and the industry's inability to create new stars led
to a wax museum parade of Cher, Herbie Hancock, Tina
Turner, Cyndi Lauper … say what? The record
industry deconstructed itself years ago with the elimination
of the hit single concept and its tie-in relationship
at radio; the industry also rushed to eliminate the
caviar of vinyl records, replacing them with the easily
duplicated dog food known as the compact disc. The
end result? What's left of the record industry will
dine on its own entrails for a few more years, and
then curl into a fetal position and die.
Radio is another joke. The thrill of hit records being
identified individually ("Here's The Supremes,
rising to #8 this week on the Super Hit Survey")
has been replaced by 20 songs in a row, a half-hour
block of commercials, and then the same 20 unidentified
songs again. And then they'll tell you that this is
how people prefer radio. What people? Listenership
at radio is headed for that final Titanic iceberg
any second now, replaced by iPods, iTunes, and iDontCareAnymore.
And that's my take on pop culture 2008; good luck
with that!
Rhythm Tracking by Jimi LaLumia
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