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To Hell With Sexy

Posted: 05/20/2007 06:44 PM | permaLink

Tags: humor soapbox pop-culture

I read this article on CNN.com the other day, and it really pissed me off.

To paraphrase the article, apparently talent is just not enough for women to be successful as entertainers - now, they have to be "sexy" too. A music industry executive (a woman, no less) is quoted in the article as saying:

"The music is not about just music anymore, it's about the look, the 'it' factor if you will ... it's marketing."

Is there anything more harmful music than to put more stock in how a musician looks than how he or she sounds? I don't think so. For one thing, professional musicians now must have to devote time and energy to maintaining their "perfect" physiques, which could only eat into the creative process. Should a talented musician have to endure withering comments from fashion critics? Should an extremely talented musician lose out on a recording contract because they just didn't have this year's 'it' look?

To hell with the record industry, the beautiful people, and those that support them. They are the Great and Shallow, and their legacy will be the corrosion of the musical arts in America.

They can keep their shitty Pussycat Dolls, and American Idols, and blonde, brainless lip-synchers galore. I don't want any.

They can keep their lame, quasi-sensitive poor excuses for rockers, too. Those guys aren't fooling anyone (with a brain anyway). Weakness!

Music can change lives. It's capable of awakening and inspiring people. If the trend of valuing phyiscal beauty and style above talent continues, however, music will cease to be a powerful force in our lives.

It's up to us, as consumers, to demand substance and to ignore fluff. So turn off American Idol or whatever, and crank some REAL MUSIC!!