Music Enemy #1

The 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. Holy fuck. This was one of the most surreal things I’ve seen in a while. I don’t listen to the radio, nor do I watch much television, so every once in a while, I’ll check out MTV to see what the crazy kids are listening to these days. They’re not crazy – they’re retarded.

A few bright spots:
- Ok Go doing their treadmill routine. [video]
- The Killers weren’t bad – still not my bag. [video] [When You Were Young - new single from Sam's Town]
- Shakira dancing. Lord. [video]
- The Jackass crew making fun of Fall Out Boy when they came up to receive their award.
- Lou Reed adlibbing while presenting an award, saying MTV needs to play rock and roll videos again – “you know, two guitars, drums, and bass!”
- The Raconteurs as house band: Not only did they play “White Light/White Heat” with Lou Reed to start the show off, but they even had Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) with them later on, doing a kickass rendition of “Cheap Sunglasses”.

Outside of all that, it was painful. However, as it was with Titanic, I had to watch it so I could have an opinion on it. Apparently, Jared Leto has a band, and it’s emo goth something. Nominees in the rock video category included Leto’s band, Panic! At the Disco, A.F.I., Green Day, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. First, RHCP needs to stop. I saw the video of them visually placing themselves in the midst of rock and roll mavericks (for the most part) of the past and I almost threw my guitar at the television in disgust. Green Day – eh – I don’t have too much of a problem with them, but I still don’t dig their music. Panic? I wish this band were as dead as disco. A.F.I. won, but for the life of me, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between all five songs as they previewed them before giving out the award. Oh, and the All-American Rejects played live – they played the same song that the other five bands recorded (and were nominated for).

I’m not going to go too far into my commentary on the hip-hop realm. I’m a big old school hip-hop fan, but we’re far away from that era. All I know is that I couldn’t understand a fucking thing anybody was mumbling – and I’m not talking about the performances – I’m talking about the presenters.

To top it all off, Jack Black was as funny as cancer. He needs to stop playing a caricature of himself – in movies and everything else that he does. It’s getting out of hand – the Groundlings need to have an intervention.

An intervention is also needed for MTV. People blame the big six record labels for the miserable state our music is in, but they have superiors. As far as popular music goes, there are only a couple eras that are a complete wash. One would be the late ‘70s, which was knee deep in shit like Elton John and Kiki Dee duets and “I Just Want To Be Your Everything”. The other would be the last 10 years. The reason for the latter is the lack of integrity from the information outlets. Rolling Stone, MTV, and Clear Channel have single-handedly (tri-handedly?) ruined the world of music in the last decade by turning the focus onto image and controlling what the public sees and hears. It’s this type of money-driving power that keeps the labels afloat.

There’s no way to remove the crap from the pop charts – they’ve always been dominated by cookie-cutter artists that the masses can swallow with no water – but with the technology age, there is an opportunity to take a piece of the pie away from the elite. The 600+ indie labels are gaining power, but without true competitors for the mass communicators in television and radio, it will only get worse. The rich get richer, and our minds get poorer.