Is America Just Stupid?

[fallenangel]

A lovely little article by Iann Robinson. All fans of: Linkin Park, Good Charlotte, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, etc. etc.... Study carefully.

[quote]Sometimes, when Im tired, I step back and look at the raging battle between the underground music scene and the world of Commercial Music and I start asking myself: what are we fighting for? Day in and day out I hear kids bitching about why such and such band isnt huge, why do video music channels suck so badly, how come Mastodon and Slayer arent really played on major radio stations? We like to chalk it up to some grand conspiracy within the walls of MTV and Clear Channel, but what if thats not it. What if were fighting an opponent thats just too stupid to understand what theyre doing? It might just be that 90% of America is too fucking stupid to appreciate or understand underground music and were all just screaming at a wall trying to get them to see it our way? Whats a huge seller in the music world right now? Usher, Britney Spears, Maroon 5? It seems to me-- and people like me-- that anybody with the propensity for rational thought could see that these artists are cardboard cutouts raised and groomed to sell a music productnot music. For awhile Limp Bizkit was huge, so was Disturbed and SalivaI mean for fucks sake: SALIVA. These bands suck on so many levels it seems to us standing in the corner with the Obituary T-shirts on that they should be laughed at. Instead theyre trumpeted as metal, as something thats part of the same scene as Slayer and Celtic Frost---BULLSHIT.

Most of the time large scale success is reserved for bands that are just awful. Success may happen on a small level for bands like Lamb Of God, Cradle Of Filth, Shadows Fall and Mastodon but after awhile the raw power and unforgiving music of those bands scare the audience and its back to Disturbed shouting Oh waah ahh ahh in front of sixty thousand screaming jocks. Do you really want to be part of what I call Ignorant Metal. Usually its surrounded by frat guys hiding in metal t-shirts and their idiot girlfriends who are dressed up in fifties gear and shaking the oh-so-irrelevant metal horns, and yes once Paris Hilton and the guy on The Amazing Race start using the metal horns, they are IRRELEVANT. I sure as hell dont want that representing me. Some say that the video channels and radio stations have the power to persuade the American masses. If theyd play good music, everybody would be into good music. What if thats not true, what if trying to get mass-mall-America to buy underground music is like feeding a Grizzly Bear a saladthey dont know what it is, what to do with it and they sure as hell dont want it.

I used to hate the bands for making the music but now it seems like they just dont know any better. Maybe getting angry at Breaking Benjamin or Cold for not being good bands is like getting mad at kids in the Special Olympics for not being professional athletesits just wrong. Some of you might think its just the metal scene but look around, this championing of mediocrity seeps into every music genre. Remember when hardcore and punk were scary, brutal and spit in the face of the status quo? Now look at it, its a homogenized fashion show with bands that really try to prove that theyre aggressive but it all ends up sounding like hardcore for girls. Why is that? Why didnt Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Black Flag and so on become huge? Is it a conspiracy or is just that America is too stupid to understand those bands and needs something easily digested and pretty to look at. When Nirvana hit big everybody thought Oh, ok, heres the entrance of great music into the mainstream. Well, no, that didnt happen. The Melvins, Sonic Youth, The Pixies and such didnt get hugeinstead it was Bush, Stone Temple Pilots and Candlebox. The so called indie scene didnt get huge with Guided By Voices, Superchunk or Husker Du. That scene didnt get big until bands like The Strokes, White Stripes and Interpol came along with their re-hashed retro sound and polished good looks.

It seems like popular culture in America is just too shallow to appreciate the music that might actually make a difference so why try and force the issue? Look at Europe, Japan and South America. So many bands go there and play to huge crowds, with fans that go apeshit when they arrive. Bands can play two thousand seaters to stadiums in those places and then they come back here and play to 500 people why is that? Dont get me wrong, I love America, I just think were wasting a lot of energy trying break down walls that are better left up. Fuck em, let them have the bad hardcore, nu-metal, shitty indie and the rest of the paper thin bands that try to front like they matter. Keep the underground music world within itself, let it grow naturally, dont be cliquishlet anybody come in who wants to but if they want to leave, show em the door. My whole point is that why fight to be part of an American landscape that doesnt want us around and are too stupid to understand what were doing anyway. I dont really want popular acceptance that muchdo you?[/quote]

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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[jhonenfreak]

For some reason, that statement about the "irrelevant metal horns" reminded me of all those singers who take can a good rock song and remake it into a piece of crap. The whole image of rock music is being changed by people who don't even know what rock is. Why listen to [i]alternative[/i] rock when you can listen to the real thing?
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[fallenangel]

The metal horns stopped being "cool" twenty years ago. That's not to say I'm not guilty of it, but the way so many kids use it like "dude, check it out, I am teh r3b3l!" is kinda...sad. "I've lived in suburbia my whole life, but I'm flashin' the metal horns, so I'm wicked dangerous"

Bad covers make the baby Stapp cry (eventually substituting "Stapp" for Jesus will become boring, but I ain't tired of it yet ).
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[DaBear]

truth is, hes right. underground though will always be just that. I used to listen to the second (and now the oldest) rock station ever. which was "underground" at the time in 1967, Phillies WMMR. thier just as guilty as all the rest now. thier still good but its the allmighty dollar! if it sells ...sell it! it like on Jurasic park when the one scientist was freakin' out about not wondering if we should just knowing that we can. so we package it and put it on a plastic lunch box and there you go. Bar bands will most likely always be bar band (good or bad). underground will always be just that, and pop (diddie diddie pop) music is just what it is too, and all too soon the asses realize that it does just that.....POP!
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'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.' - Ronald Reagan

[Jailcrow_of_Mandos]

You're incredible Fallen- simply incredible. It was so odd, though, to emerge from my loser goth year (yes, a single year for me to grow up and get a life ) to find that Cradle of Filth had become popular. They make me laugh now, those silly Goths...thinking they're scary- especially now that 'pink is the new black.' never thought I'd see little satanists going around in pixie colors.

In any case, ahem >.>, it's a great article. I would be crushed, I think, if Blind Guardian ever made it big. The music would lose its meaning, because so few would understand the stories behind the songs =( I'm such a Lord of the Rings nerd :huh:

[fallenangel]

Iann is usually right about everything. Even though he's an MTV VJ, he has the balls to post articles like that and admit all the station's faults. He has a few more articles on http://www.metalsludge.tv

Sad, but so very true. I always wonder that with "artists" like Britney Spears, if you ask people, 99% can't stand her... and yet millions of people bought the records. [i]Who are these people?[/i] I suppose most are 12-year-old girls, given the fact her concert figures are tanking as her audience has grown up, and the new 12-year-olds would rather go around in pink babydolls that say "Good Charlotte". But I still don't get it. Maybe all the teen pop fans are the ones who grow up to not really like music. They just fall for the catchy hooks and heavily produced voices when they're young and have no interest in more "real" music.

I like it when a band isn't overly popular. Without all the fangirls screaming if their name is mentioned or the "OMG I LUV DEM!" posts.
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[Hybrid]

I couldn't agree more with that article. Since I am a person, I can support fallen's theory by saying that I cannot stand britney. Also my sister cannot stand her either(she's twelve by the way and would much rather listen to linkin park and evanesance, just toname a few), and niether can my mother or father.

[BAMFManiac]

*applause* great article, fallen. i always liked ian. he did the news amusingly.

um there are a bunch of girls in my grade (junior) who idolize britney. they'll write essays about her and wear tshirts of her tours and get so pissed if you say anything bad about her (not that that stops me). and yes, unpopular bands are more fun because it's more personal... and less screamy fangirls.
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i fought the war, but the war won

[catgurl101]

ahh. thats really hilarious. i like that article. avril and britney are s**t head preps. i hate preps. especially preps who think they are goth/punk.... i hate preps that always judge people whether they are rich or not. oh well. good article fallen. i learned something.