What a hue and cry there was by the media including righteous radio stations in America that followed John Lennon’s throwaway line that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and the apology he was forced to make as the boys still had a long way to go with their music.
Compare that episode with the antics of Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna plus others like the Kardashians and how these are embraced by the entertainment media.
It shows how sex, drugs and rock’n roll have been replaced by sex, ego and TMZ.
Where once the music media had real journalists like Cameron Crowe who actually knew the musicians and so understood their work and which they wrote about so intelligently, today, there is no journalism.
It’s National Enquirer-type of sensationalism where no-talents are given their 15 minutes of fame, checking in and out of rehab are made to look like the epitome of cool and stage door mothers pimp their kids.
When it all fails and Humpty Dumpty falls and becomes an omelet, The Apology Tour takes place as has been the case between Chris Brown and Rihanna and their Forgiveness double act.
Someone should just put Brown into a ring with Mike Tyson, someone who’s paid for his huge foibles. Iron Mike will give Brown a lesson in respecting women though one has to wonder if by her actions reported in graphic detail by the new entertainment media, Rihanna is worthy of any help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPGZh_XRQts
She seems more than capable of making a mess of her life with no need for help. And here lies the problem:
Where before there were managers like the great Andrew Loog Oldham, below, Peter Grant, Brian Epstein and Neil Aspinall protecting their young acts, today, it’s the media managing and choreographing how they want their stories to come out and pick and choose those they can Sponge Bob off.
Right now, the “family feud” between Sinead O’Conner and Miley Cyrus has reached SNL stupidity and has become part of those pat, smug monologues by talk show hosts with canned laughter trying to make the unfunny sound “funny”.
These hosts- Leno, Letterman, Fallon, O’Brien- are part of the problem- muppets with hands up their bums and being fed what lines to say.
Simply put, Sinead O’Conner and Miley Cyrus are two train wrecks, the former being the original Mother Superior who jumped the gun and never lived up to the incredible talent who made Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U her own whereas the latter is the new Britney Spears when Brit Brit was running around without panties and shaving her head bald.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI-ZEbagboo
Again, these two idiotic women have given a media that feeds on this crap something to milk to death for another few weeks, until, like the relentless stories to prove the aging wannabe Lothario Simon Cowell’s stud-like powers, it all becomes overkill and way too much information that could only have been readily given.
That’s the other problem and ruse: Publicity used and paid for to either keep a dead brand on life support or ensure that a tiresome personality remains high up on Google Search.
When musicians were musicians and were rocking all over the world, sure, hotels were wrecked, the Plaster Casters, below, enjoyed their work, groupies traveled with the bands, taking acid was a private thing and the sex lives of Hendrix, the Beatles, the Stones etc stayed between the sheets. Plus, except for Marianne Faithfull and the Mars Bar episode, no one really cared.
It was all about the music and with the hairstyles, fashion statements and rumors of their almost mythical personal lives being the subject matter to their songs.
Or, so we told ourselves that it was like “hearing” John say, “I buried Paul” at the end of Strawberry Fields Forever when he was actually saying, “I’m very bored.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiD8oBKO78Y
Now we have a puny Canadian kid being carried up The Great Wall Of China by his coolies and trying damn hard to be a tough black man. It must be hard being a white has-been at 20.
Last week, someone at my place wanted to watch E! and get her fix of entertainment news. She’s young and star struck- and American.
Discussed on the show was if the new “Britbrit” video was “sexy enough” and how it included whips, leather, “hot dancing”, undies etc- but was not as “outrageous” as the Miley video.
Jeez, it all makes Madonna and copyist Lady Gaga look as straight as Mary Tyler Moore and Mrs Cleaver.
There is now also some competition between the very young and the wannabe young again to be more outrageous than the other to remain relevant.
It’s probably why Kim Kardashian received so much publicity this week by walking out of her hotel with her tits hanging out.
Who tipped the media as to exactly when this woman famous for being famous and pimped by her mother would be coming out of her hotel?
Exactly and one has to wonder when her “kinda marriage” to Kanye West will fall apart. For how long can a mutually financial friendship with even a baby in tow named North West- carry on?
As Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes have proven, a stage show lived out in public as a true marriage can’t go on forever no matter how much leaping about one does on prime time television.
In his frustration about everything going around him, Lennon screamed, Gimme Some Truth while in For A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson’s character bellowed, “You can’t TAKE the truth!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlzrNKN3rZI
Somewhere along the line, this truth we want in our daily lives has got blurred and it’s not just with Facebook profiles is this truth twisted for public consumption.
You really can’t believe what you read anymore so here’s hoping that honesty will return in the form of lyrics and when songs meant something as it wasn’t about bullshit.
Sure, have the catchy Pop of Katy Perry- the new single is brilliant much like many hits by ABBA were- but let’s not cop Marvin Gaye riffs and add some whoops and let’s have songwriters who are storytellers.
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