Article in our newspaper about today's music

[DeltaSigStan]

Couldn't agree more:

1/20/04

Me against the Music

Dear Music,

It's over between us.

You've changed so much over the years. In high school, you used to be such a source of comfort for me. Whenever I was going through a rough time, you were always there to console me and help me forget whatever it was that was bothering me. In many ways you were like an aural version of Prozac, you seemed to always be the answer to everything.

Today, you've become a vapid hole of inane garbage. You've dedicated your life to appealing the masses by producing cheap bubblegum popstars such as Britney Spears and Hilary Duff. Your greed for money and obsession with pleasing the "big boys upstairs" has impaired your judgement. You can no longer distinguish the difference between quality music and factory-produced crap, talentless filth designed to make millions off of an audience who still isn't old enough to buy its own cigarettes or lottery tickets.

I miss the days when you had something real going on, when R and B wasn't all about little Michael Jackson wannabes in tank tops and hats, and hip-hop had more to sing about than milkshakes and Air Force Ones - times when music was actually based on the quality of a person's singing and not his/her ability to lip-sync into the microphone and dance at the same time. I miss the days when you actually mattered to people - times when people appreciated you for what you were and didn't determine your value by the amount of money you could make them.

I'm also tired of people judging me because of you. Whenever someone asks me, "What kind of music do you listen to?" I feel as if I'm on trial. If I answer anything remotely related to pop music, I'm automatically deemed as an imbecile - a dim-witted moron who couldn't tell the difference between Aerosmith and Good Charlotte if my life depended on it. If I answer the exact same question with some band that I really never even heard of before, I'm presented with a false sense of acceptance. It seems as if all the acceptable answers to that question here in San Diego all have to start with "the," such as The Strokes or The Pixies.

So it's over. It's not going to be easy, but I know somehow, I'll manage to survive without you. Despite what all those commercials on VH1 tell me, you are not my life. If anything, you've ruined my life. Over the years, I've based everything around you and you only ended up letting me down. And now I can no longer go on living my life pretending that I'm in love with you.

So goodbye Music. I hope you'll be better to the next generation of listeners than you were to me.

- Dee Dee Chew is a journalism major and assistant tempo editor for The Daily Aztec.

- This column does not necessarily reflect the views of The Daily Aztec
By Dee Dee Chew

[Lil' Hannah]

Everyone likes to complain about music. I personally can't stand what's "popular" these days, but I just don't listen to the radio anymore and it's not a big deal. I agree with a lot of what she's saying but musicians have become such a hot commodity that it's no longer about the music but about what the musician can sell.

Have you noticed that models are hardly ever doing endorsements anymore (think about the last Revlon commercial you saw)? It's actors and musicians. Every celebrity is their own brand.

Anyway, I agree with some of what she has to say, but instead of whining about it find out about new bands and support the hell out of them.

[Munchkin03]

The writer lost all credibility in my mind by putting The Pixies (who broke up almost 10 years ago, a major influence to Nirvana) in the same breath as The Strokes.

I'm with Hannah...find new music, and support it.

[midwesterngirl]

Originally posted by Lil' Hannah


Have you noticed that models are hardly ever doing endorsements anymore (think about the last Revlon commercial you saw)? It's actors and musicians. Every celebrity is their own brand.

I read something regarding this the other day.The author said that the fashion industry got a lot of backlash when Linda Evangelista said that she"didn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day." Now companies use celebrities because they are cheaper to work with.Probably for exactly the reason that you mentioned;it heightens their profile.
I agree that there is much good music out there,they just don't play it on the radio.If you have access to internet radio,it is much better and my musical tastes run the gamut from Mozart to Metallica.

[sugar and spice]

I think mainstream music has always been pretty bad -- the Nirvanas and the Beatles of the world are definitely not the norm -- it's just that when you're younger you don't realize it. Your tastes are a little less refined.

And I think that anybody who's complaining about the state of mainstream music today is pretty uneducated. Does anybody remember the pop wasteland in the early/mid '90s, post-NKOTB, pre-Spice Girls era? Now that was sad. Compared to that, mainstream music today is fantastic. And actually, I think that in general, mainstream music today isn't that bad. There's a lot more variety than I can remember having at any point during the 1990s.

Also, I think it's sad when people complain about mainstream music being bad. So you don't like Britney and the Strokes? So what? Especially today when it's so easy to download music, there's no excuse for not looking past the mainstream and finding good stuff, because there is a lot of it out there in every category from salsa to indie-pop. I think those who complain about mainstream music being so bad are just too lazy to go find some good music by themselves.


And I ditto Munchkin -- the Pixies and the Strokes in the same breath? What is this girl thinking?

[DeltaSigStan]

Well, I just listen to stuff from before that I didn't get into when it was "popular" and am making up for now:

Pac
Biggie
Nirvana
GreenDay
RHCP