Watching the recent Emmy Awards with a major hurl about to happen every time the fawning hosts gushed over and interviewed every person showboating down the red carpet about “who they were wearing”, made me think what if there had been Jimi Hendrix out there in his military garb, or Bob Marley, or Keith Moon, or Led Zep, or Lennon.
“Oh look, John Lennon’s heading this way! John! John! Over here! John, who are you wearing tonight? Yoko?”
What’s obvious is that “back in the day”, sure, image mattered, and many of us were dedicated followers of fashion, whether it was by washing the Brylcreem outta our hair and combining it forward, or wearing ridiculous flares to be a Mod, or, the next day, deciding to wear a kaftan and embrace Eastern philosophy, or start wearing love beads, a bandana and having a great big peace sign around your neck which would have made Mr T’s bling look Bobby Blue Bland.
The difference between then and now was that image never overtook the music- the playing, the performance, the songwriting, the rehearsals, the recordings.
The image complemented the music whereas I can’t really think of any “awards” shows or Red Carpet Moments “back in the day” other than when the Beatles played in front of the Royal family, and John asked the rich people up in the balcony to “rattle their jewellery”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O9Ef1PkVj4
Today, those rich people are the artists.
The badly off Have Nots are the fans with a rabid showbiz media force-feeding them a vicarious world of flouncing celebs which they gobble up.
These are not music fans, nor are they teenagers, or the pre-pubescent set who can be so easily manipulated.
These are, largely aunts and Moms and lonely and desperate housewives who, and surveys show this to be true, the biggest audiences of television talent shows, and those who follow and live the lives of every two bit “reality star”.
It’s not really that different from having had some of our folks know and feel for their favourite character on a soap opera, whether it be “Coronation Street”, “Neighbours”, or “The Young And The Restless.”
This vicarious living was only for, maybe, an hour a day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K52IJ6k1_g
It didn’t suck one into a giant vortex of dumbed out shuck and jive, shock and awe and be hapless idiots happy to dive into ice bucket challenges because everyone else is doing it and asking what this person named Al or Al’s uncle has to do with any of that.
We have, somehow, somewhere, become mindless followers of mediocrity and slaves to the word “viral”.
In any industry today, every marketing goon squad has gone viral about their product “going viral”.
Again, “back in the day”, how much “marketing” was needed to sell a product, and what the hell did “going viral” actually mean?
How and through what mediums did The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Dylan, the Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Woodstock, Peanuts, Mad Magazine, Tiny Tim, Glam Rock etc manage to “go viral”?
For that matter”, how did the Beatles “go viral” and result in Beatlemania?
Yes, manager Brian Epstein dressed the boys up in suits, tried to smoothen out the rough Hamburg edges and have them shake their heads after every “Ooooh”, but surely, their music did the rest- Paul’s count-in to “I Saw Her Standing There,” the opening chords to “I Wanna Hold Your Head”, the opening drum roll which led to that cheery, “She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah”?
Every single by the Beatles, every opening track on every album had a vocal or guitar riff that connected with fans- “Hard Day’s Night”, “Taxman”, “Drive My Car”, “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Come Together” etc etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6J7wdk4s4
It was all the “marketing” needed to make their music “go viral.”
Clips, even news clips, as opposed to music videos, made “going viral” pandemic.
It makes one wonder if, in this conscious, contrived, creatively constipated way of over-thinking simple things to death by, let’s be frank, marketing simpletons and strategic boffins, we are robbing products- like music- of its innocence- its rawness and natural born boogie to survive without the bells and whistles and Red Carpet Treatment.
Hans Ebert Chairman and CEO We-Enhance Inc and Fast Track Global Ltd
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