Rant.
Let me start by saying i have never heard Justin Bieber. I have never heard a Justin Bieber song. Not once. If i did i had no idea and tuned it out. I hope he and his family are well.
I am aware i would probably not be a big fan of his music which is why i don’t seek it out. And in this day and age there is SOOO much other wonderful music to listen to this is very, very easy. Not on radio of course. Radio is a dead medium. I assume everyone understands this, but some folks do not. Since radio died horrifically int eh 90s i thought this was old news, but i get the feeling that some people do not know there is any good music being made becasue they are looking for it solely on the radio. Satellite radio on the other hand seems to be doing just fine. Lord knows the internet is exploding with music.
So someone explain to me, please, why i cannot watch ANY song on YouTube, ANY song, mind you, without a bunch of people in the comments mentioning and griping about Justin Bieber? It’s obsessive. You cannot find a single piece of music on the entire site that is not compared (usually very favorably) to Justin Bieber.
“Now THIS is music. Not like Justin Bieber everyone listens to today.”
“At last, some quality music instead of that Justin Bieber crap.”
“Oh the (70s, 80s, 90s, insert bygone decade here) THAT was when they made great music. Not like nowadays with Justin Bieber.”
I would not be bringing this up if i did not run across this EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE. Every single time i listen to something on YouTube and scroll down the comments, there it is.
I have never heard Justin Bieber. I have never met a single human being who has recommended him to me nor professed love for him and his music. I have managed to utterly avoid him without even trying. But i get the idea from YouTube commenters that part of their day is spent being hooked up to a Clockwork Orange like veiwing situation and forced to listen to Justin Bieber over and over and over again. HOW?
I am not of course a tween girl, but my position is usually that i don’t begrudge 12 year olds for listening to music that is exciting to them but irritating to me. My tastes at that age were hardly anything to brag about.. My first actual favorite band was Styx and when i listened to them years later i almost threw up. I’m sure i had worse tastes before that, but before that i didn’t buy albums, i just held a tape recorder up to a cheap clock radio and recorded literally whatever the station played. I would then listen to that “mix tape” and pretty much like every song on it. I wasn’t picky.
But i digress. With that said, i do NOT want to listen to music that is carefully produced by industry professionals for the tween target audience. It’s plastic, money grubbing garbage. I get that. I do. Indeed, that sort of thing has always been among us since the 50s. It REALLY came into full bloom in the 60s when industry people saw the insane success of the Beatles and set about to reproduce it with hand picked acts, tailored made not for expression but to sell albums to youth. The Monkees, while the most famous, are far from the only ones and it got worse in the 70s. Sean Cassity? Andy Gibb?
In the 80s it got worse. In the 90s it got worse. The boy band wave of the late 90s early 00s? Proof that the Devil walks the earth.
Is there a point?
Yes. The plastic packaged money grab in the name of music has always been with us. Things are not worse now. Things were not better then. I loved a WHOLE lot of music from the 70s, rock funk, prog, mmm love it. And you can look up ANY 70s group on YouTube and read bitchy comments about how back in the 70s they played REAL music, not that Justin Bieber crap.
But oh, although i hate to burst that bubble, you are using very selective memory. Look at the top 40 list for the 70s. Muscrat Love? McArthur Park? 70s soft rock in general? Folks, there was a tsunami of terrible music in the70s. But it didn’t survive. The good stuff did.
Same with the 80s. Do you have any idea how much shitty music was made in the 80s? It boggles the mind. I love the 90s, that seemed like my decade at the time, but as the decade wore on the boy band thing started up. There was some AWflu techno cheese. Clear channel destroyed radio forever. The 00s were GREAT! Post rock, Wilco, Flaming Lips, holy crap so many of my favorite albums are from this past decade. But look at the top 40 lists. Satan walks among us, truly.
So now, what? Some kid is making more crappy pop songs and little girls love him? And this is different then the past 60 years…. how exactly?
I end with my two statement wrap up.
1. WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE SO OBSESSED WITH JUSTIN BIEBER?!?! Why HIM? Why CARE? He is the focus obsession of the largest online bitch sessions i have ever witnessed and i don’t even see his relevance. Perhaps he is the latest in a long line to suck Satan’s cock for fame and fortune, but YOU are exposing him to me VASTLY MORE than HE is. I wouldn’t even know the kid exists if y’all weren’t bitching all the time. STOP IT.
2. MUSIC IS NOT WORSE NOW THAN IT WAS BEFORE AND YOU ARE AN IDIOT IF YOU REALLY THINK SO. Now, there might have been a previous genre of music that you just LOVE and miss to terrible and nothing does it for you like that genre. Okay. I get that. But if that’s the case, honestly, do you really TRY to love new things? Are you actually searching for new tastes and interests? Cause my guess is you are not. You don’t have to. But please stop making idiotic statements about how things were better in some Then you are painting with pastel colors and now it’s all crap because you can’t be bothered to try new things.
Folks, being a musician is TOUGH. It’s always been tough. It’s even tougher now for reason we can get into another day. (The death of albums sales for instance) And yet, i assure you, musicians keep making music. In DROVES. The entire world is making music and exchanging ideas. Remember genres? You know, you liked a specific genre and that was your thing and everyone was like that? Yeah, that’s out the window. That’s awesome. Music is cross pollinating across the world and artists are no longer slaves to corporate contracts, they make more of what they want and put it all online.
Celebrate! And for heaven’s sake quite your bitching. And just for record, when a guy brings up how terrible gays are out of the blue one too many times, you know what i know? He’s gay and there’s going to be a real mess coming out one day. Yeah. You hear what i’m saying. Bieber. Behind you. His bitch. You say no way, but y’all making me wonder.
