Roisin Murphy!

^i see Bjork & Cher in there.

What a great topic, BK...

I'm inclined to co-sign, even though I agree with WillieDynamite that there are some artists out there who are forging a genuine unique aesthetic/identity. (Andre3000, Marilyn Manson, Amy Winehouse or Gnarls Barkley are good examples -- and I don't think there's a way to definitively say they're strictly the product of marketing board rooms.)

And while I'm not prepared to ID any one cause for all this (and I don't buy the singularity of any of the theories presented on this thread so far), I would suggest this sort of thing is not something exclusive to the pop music industry. All artistry these days suffers from a crippling identity crisis, it seems! Who, for example, are today's celebrated visual artists -- painters, sculptors, etc? There aren't any! What are the quintessential architectural styles of the '90s and '00's, for example? They're aren't any, really. Rather, our building these days is the stuff of trite mass commercial development and McMansions. Are there any contemporary literary genres that aren't derivatives of older bodies of work? Or look at Hollywood and the number of utterly sad remakes that have been churned out over the past several years.

There are definitely exceptions (thank God), but generally speaking, there seems to be a pervasive lack of inspiration in todays visionaries across the board -- and that is troubling.
[Edited 5/3/08 11:49am]

BlaqueKnight said:

Elegantly stated. The sheeple does the following behavior =drones audience listen to pop tart acts programmed through media outlets and don't care to give a listen to underground acts.
[Edited 5/3/08 22:00pm]

I don't blame that little boy.

BlaqueKnight said:

The outfit is a trip.

You know what I miss?

I miss the Album artwork that used to come with ALBUMS

I guess the Ipod killed that.

BlaqueKnight said:

I think its a combo of alot of things, but for the most part its this OVEREXPOSURE in media. I mean lets be real, we get peoples looks and lives jammed down our throats 24/7, and sure we can say the artists/entertainers seek the publicity out themselves, true, but at the same time, they are doing it because that is the status quo of the day. I too have been trying to watch videos recently, and im still seeing the same metaphors in all the genres, its sad but music has been "raped", pardon the descripitive term, but its been raped of all its sources and reduced to a shell that creates for the "media" structures of the day. People arent making records for themselves for the most part, they are being steered in the directions to go because thats what might sell at this moment. I do think this whole mentality started awhile ago, to pinpoint it, would be right around the time of MTV's sale, and the introduction of Soundscan, these two things might have been viewed as "blessings" but this was the beginning of the end, because now more than ever, it became ALL about bottom line. The fact that you know everyones week 1 numbers and that somehow that has relevance to how good someone is, is why you have NO MORE image or even people just doing what they wanna do. And yes there are plenty of artists doing what they wanna do, but the issue is, that the mainstream and the sources are the ones that get paid to be that channel that gets it out there, and that channel is gone now, its too difficult to give people something that may have to "grow" on them, but rather just giving them what everyone else is giving them.

I think too sum this up, is video/airplay, now recently, i have been checking out music videos, and on every form of music channel everytime i turn them on, i get Chris Brown and Usher, now i understand, they are the top cats today and they have something out, but there are more than 2 other black artists out there, and im not saying dont play these cats, but how about cutting them in half and splitting that other half with Rashaan Patterson and Van Hunt, and when i mean split, i dont mean put them on at 4am when everyone is asleep, this is the trick of MTV and VH1 to play new videos by REM and Motley Crue or Duran Duran, say yeah "we play older artists" just when everyone is asleep.

No matter people say or disagree, they have to admit, the playing field isnt equal, and i dont mean black and white and all others, i mean within all genres of music, the field is not equal, which is why you get LACK of image, and Lack of new artists that last more than a "ringtone", and you get the argument "theres great music or artists you just have to search for it"