The Good, The Bad, And The Unbearably Stupid

COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC - Article from Soap Opera Weekly (1997, yoiked from SON)

2010-06-10T19:41:00.003-04:00

Firstly, I saw this off SON's forum. Fascinating and especially relevant today. I shall reprint for all of you (...one of you), and it's fascinating how even 13 years ago, network interference and the stupidity of plot-based, shock-and-awe writing was ruining the dramatic serial. Here it is:

What's Wrong With Soaps? By Robert L. Schork
Former daytime pros offer their sometimes controversial theories.

Paul Avila Mayer (Ryan's Hope), John Conboy (Young & The Restless), Bridget Dobson (Santa Barbara), Pat Falken Smith (Days Of Our Lives, General Hospital), Peggy O'Shea (One Life To Live), Al Rabin (DAYS), AJ Russell (GH), Henry Slesar (The Edge of Night).

They blamed OJ, before that it was cable, then talk shows took the rap. For the past decade, like a bad game of Clue, the networks have indicted an endless parade of suspects for the crime of killing their soaps ratings. Unfortunately, the real culprit wasn't Professor Plum or Colonel Mustard, but the disenchanted viewer. The crime wasn't committed in the conservatory, but in the dens and living rooms of America. And the weapon of choice wasn't a lead pipe or candlestick, but the remote control.

What went wrong? To be fair-there are no easy answers. Certainly, the advent of cable channels-with viewership now divided among upwards of 100 channels- and women moving into the workforce have contributed to viewer erosion. “that's just an absolute fact that the audience has more choices, that women work and their VCR's are blinking 12 o'clock,”comments Al Rabin. But external forces not withstanding, how are soaps themselves contributing to the problem? Since they posses the experience of insiders but the candor and perspective of outsiders, some of daytime's foremost innovators were asked to attempt this elusive soap diagnosis. What's wrong with daytime?

“There is too much homogeneity”, Henry Slesar says. “you can go from one soap to another and pick up the same kind of story. Soaps would benefit from being distinct from one another so that people know they're tuning in to a different drama. There's a great deal of story recycling from one soap to another, because of the recycling of writers and producers. If I see one more evil twin...!”

The soaps now on the air have such diverse premises and histories, yet they are now so homogenous. Why is there no 'product differentiation'? “I suspect the reason is because of team writing”, Bridget Dobson says. “The most intense, best soaps are the ones where there is one strong headwriter who takes full responsibility. “Without that, you tend have it homogenised”

Pat Falken Smith declares that “the breakdown in soap writing came when the the networks got angry at the tyranny of the head writers.” Long ago, the networks would hire only a head writer who would hire his or her own staff, “I was making $2.5 million a year and I had to pay writers out of that. When they got cheap and did away with the big head writers, they made a terrible mistake.” Today, all members of the soaps' writing team are employed directly by the show and/or the networks.

Creatvity by committee is a problem cited repeatedly. “Writing by committee makes it so pallid”, Dobson explains. “It's taking something that used to be chilli and making it oatmeal”.

John Conboy says that shows sometimes recycle stories intentionally. “When I was at CBS, I can remember a very well known executive demanding that I do a story that was being done on another show, that had been told on that show skillfully for six years. He demanded we do it. We had to bend the character in order to do it, and it was a disaster. I was young and I wanted the job. Had I not needed that job, I would have said some interesting 4 letter words.”

Conboy's story illustrates another problem: character assassination. Time and time again, characters are manipulated to fit a particular story, instead of the story being written to fit the characters – and that spells trouble.”If you give a leading lady a gun and have her blow somebody's brains out, and the audience knows that woman would never even pick up a gun or load it or fire it,you've jusy lost half of your audience in one day.” Conboy says. “You bring a new writer in. he gets all the back issues of soap magazines to read what happened to all these people the last 100 years, and the more they change them – their point of view or the direction of the show-the more likely the show will fizzle out”. Dobson agrees. “It's so terribly important to protect the integrity of the characters. It was a terrible experience to return to Santa Barbara after the lawsuits were resolved and find the characters had been decimated. It was impossible to bring them back.”

Falken Smith states simply: They're destroying characters. On DOOL. They've made the leading lady a monster who had glowing green eyes-isn't that crappy? I see this Marlena character as totally destroyed. She's been the one important woman always...she's a psychiatrist, and she gets possessed. It's phony and it wrecked the character, which is unforgivable. If you are going to do this type of story, pick a new character, but don't bastardize the good character you have by doing that.”

Rabin cautions that such bending of character can cause viewers to tune out by making them think.”Oh, I don't have to worry about these people because they got them into this predicament unbelievably...so they can get them out unbelievably.”

Arguably,several of the problems outlined are merely symptoms of a larger, underlying problem: interference and micromanagement by the networks and executives. “they bring it on themselves,”Peggy O'Shea says. “what's wrong with the industry is mostly people in power who don't know what they're doing, who don't know a thing about daytime. A very attractive young woman(executive) said a variation on. “I don't know why they hired me...What is this? I'm not even American. I've never watched as soap before.” And another said,'I don't know soaps, but I was a reader in something, and I just feel like a pig in sh____ here.' Well, she should; she's ( at the time this interview was conducted) running a very major soap. Oh, yes, and then there's one who's going to be teaching soap opera writing but hasn't seen soaps before, so she has to study them before she can teach how to write them.”

Many say network executives have stifled the creativity of those getting paid to be creative. O'Shea says,”it's fun to sit in on a story conference. You can bounce things back and forth, and if it's just the writers, you can go.'nah',but if P&G is sitting there ,and you're putting your kid through college you don't go 'nah'. So you sit there and try to make sense of it, for hours, and then you have to go write it up.. and the executives lose their objectivity because they can no longer look at it and say the story isn't working, because it was their idea.

”They're going to be in on writers' meetings. They're going to help plot, they're going to throw their Cincinatti morality on you, O'Shea continue,”One of them actually said to me,'How is it that one man can love two women at the same time?' all I could tell him was, 'If one man can't love two women at the same time,we should hang up our hats,we're out of business. This is a soap!' You don't need somebody giving you his fantasy, or what he would do if he were the writer. You're looking for a very specific dramatic moment, you don't need someone from Procter & Gamble giving you his latest nightmare.”

Paul Avila Mayer agrees. “All of us write our early fantasies. Claire (Labine) and I happened to have very comfortable fantasy lives; her early childhood and mine were compatible. She can start a sentence and I can finish it. But when we get the network executives, and they would want us to write the ideas that seemed good to them – meaning the ideas that would answer their emotional needs from their early childhoods. You couldn't explain to them that their fantasy life ,which seems so right to them, wasn't helping our show. Because we didn't want to write about their mommies, we wanted to write about our mommies. That's what I found most deplorable,having other people insist I write their fantasy life.

Slesar explains, “You are trying to hold onto your job and please the people who control you, and that's not the way to make a creative effort”.

“If the network executives really aren't trained writers, they tend to want you to write according to the latest polls”, Dobson adds, “and like President Clinton. You tend to do flip-flops as the polls change. So you're scared for your job. We used to call it writing on eggs – you don't take the risks, you don't take the strong stances, you're afraid...and it's not a good way to write a soap.” Conboy offers an explanation for executives' motives: “It's job justification for most of these people. They have to justify the fact that they're collecting a salary.”

Those interviewed also blame network executives for two other strategic errors:the use of gimmicks for short-term ratings boosts, and the lack of development and training of new creative talent.

“ Look at Ryan's Hope,”O'Shea says. “It started with a very romantic, lovely idea. Here's Irish Catholic Mary Ryan, who's not going to sleep with this attractive newspaper man until they're married. That's what the audience wants to see, and the show won every award in the book. And then ABC come along and make Delia fall in love with King Kong. Can you believe it? It had to be the network...I can't believe it's Claire. She's not a drinker, so it isn't like she got plastered one night and said, “Wouldn't this be fun? Somebody at the network said, 'It's sweeps time, let's get the ratings up.' Another gimmick, and it started the downslide.

“Same thing happened when they brought on movie stars. Sammy Davis adored OLTL. He wanted to be on OLTL. I said I'd love to have Sammy Davis Jr as Sammy Davis Jr; that's wonderful! But please don't take my ficticious town that people believe exists, and give me Sammy Davis Jr, whom everyone knows as Sammy Davis Jr, playing a gambler – all my stories are shot to hell. And it was painful for us. He was charming and he had fun. But he ruined the integrity of the town. The ratings went up for a week. It took away from credibility. You no longer believe Llanview exists because Sammy Davis Jr came in,” O'Shea insists.

Just as outlandish gimmicks and flights of fancy aren't the solution, these soap veterans believe going too far in the opposite direction- with gritty, slice-of-life,reality based drama- is also a recipe for disaster. AJ Russell recalls,”I had a remarkable experience. I turned on GH for the first time in a year, and I was amazed to find a young man lying in bed with AIDS. Now my estimation of this is we are going backward, to what, Irna Phillips? I'm sure you would not get hooked if all you had to watch was tears and sobs. Nothing will dissuade from the belief that daytime is fantasy.

“I don't care how relevant an AIDS story is,” Conboy says. “It took this boy eight months to die on GH. Guess what? We all knew the end of the story. It wasn't a shock that they weren't going to make him better in the last 24 minutes of the show. The audience is not being entertained by an AIDS storyline because the result of an AIDS storyline is that you are going to die. There's no upside. Everybody in the world is praying to God that they don't get it. It's very difficult to tell that story and entertain.

“Life is tough enough”, agrees Dobson. “I don't want to bring more tragedy into my life by suffering as I watch the screen. Certainly we've killed off people, but not by inch-by-inch suffering. It's the death knell for ratings. We've done it and we've learned from our mistakes. They're tuning in for entertainment,not to grieve. Rabin learned from such mistakes on Days as well. “We did a story where Mickey was in a mental institution, and John Clarke was phenomenal. He was just great, we thought we were doing this great story, the critics did, too, but the audience just turned away, because it was too realistic.

O'Shea adds,”I agree with Samuel Goldwyn. If you want to send a message. Go to Western Union. Writers frequently get pressured from organizations asking us to please write a story for public awareness, and they would offer a little award or something at the end. They should buy an ad in the New York Times. When you do slice-of-life you're going to put your audience to sleep. Nobody seems to know that.

So what does the future hold? There is a strong agreement that the industry's troubles will only deepen over time if it doesn't take a more active role to develop new creative talent. Conboy says,”there's no training ground for writers today in daytime. Writers should train writers. It shouldn't be some person who comes to the network to train writers. Training them for what? All headwriters have different styles.”

Because soaps have existed for so many years, there is little in the way of story that has not been done in one way or another. Although the experts disagree on how precisely how to make something new of the same old,same old, there is one thing they all agree: Love is the thing. Romance is the engine that propels drama, and as long as people care about the thrill of romance, they will probably want to watch it unfold on soap operas.

Arista Records only wants you to be excited for Whitney Houston's comeback when they decide you're allowed to...

2008-07-31T15:45:00.003-04:00

...because apparently we live in China. They know what's best for us.

Someone involved in Whitney Houston's new album have decided to pull down all traces of her upcoming single "Like I Never Left" which were leaked onto YouTube earlier this week. For the sake of simplicity (this does not necessarily mean they are the responsible party), we will blame Arista Records.

Arista Records seems to be completely oblivious to the concept of VIRAL MARKETING. It's this newfangled thing where people hear new songs on YouTube and the like and become excited for and anticipate the release of new tracks by certain well-known artists. This has worked well for bands who now sell records like Ok Go and "artists" like Lily Allen and Sandi Thom.
I would like to think that Arista would like the youngins to be interested in a new track by what has historically been their biggest-selling artist. But apparently not. Apparently viral marketing is evil and cannibalizes album sales. Just like that pesky CD single that got Whitney 14 weeks at #1 with "I Will Always Love You", eh Arista? You know because they released CD singles from The Bodyguard, they ONLY sold 20 Million Copies of that album in the US. What a shame. Could've been 24 Million, you know. Damn those four million cheap bastards who didn't buy the whole album, eh?

Here's a thought: If you continue to patronize and mistrust the record-buying public, they will continue to spite you and NOT buy your records. Just because you want to force people to buy what YOU want them to buy DOES NOT MEAN THEY WILL. Oh I'm sorry. Silly me, corporate America knows what's best for you. Better than you do. You DID know that you don't want to see anyone over the age of 25 on your TV set, yes? You DID know you hated scripted television programming, yes? You DID know you like ONLY vapid hip-hop, yes? What? You're over the age of 30? Oh well you might as well go into a home anyway then. Old shit.

Big Voices: Intro & Part 1

2008-07-21T11:08:00.003-04:00

I've decided to start a series about the one group of artists who inspired me to sing, and get into voice and music. I may not yet have their level of success, and I may never, but they've inspired me in one way or another. A lot of these artists never achieved the level of success they should've, but looking at what's happened to the few who have had overwhelming success, that could very well be a good thing.

And to start, let's go with one of those whose success has virtually ruined her life. Whitney Houston.

Whitney's been one of my absolute favourite singers since I was a kid. The first song of hers I remember was "I'm Your Baby Tonight" when I was just turning four in 1990 (yes, I'm a youngin'. Shush.) The song was catchy, danceable, had soul, jazz, and Motown influences with an amazing voice that rose above everything else I was hearing at the time. I made my mother record every MuchMusic Spotlight she was on, and idolised her right up until the point when the drugs and smoking did her voice in. (note: I can almost guarantee all of you that the drugs are NOT what blew her voice, it's the smoking. The smoke has lowered her voice and caused her breath intake to be extremely short. Don't ever expect her to sound anywhere as good as she used to until she quits smoking.)

Whitney is a massive talent and undoubtedly one of the biggest artists in pop history. very few artists can claim a 14-week #1 single ('I Will Always Love You´, of course), and no one else can claim seven consecutive #1 pop singles in the US. But it's not all just charts, Whitney's talent is her combination of soul, power, versatility and commanding presence that reach out and grab you. Most everyone, whether they enjoy her songs or not, recognize her as an amazing talent. I had somewhat bored of her in recent years until I turned to YouTube (ahh, YouTube, what a wonderful thing you are) and uncovered a rare a capella recording of "I'm Every Woman", from the Bodyguard soundtrack. Not only did I hear her amazing gospel vocal roots shine through, but the whole tone and sound of the song shone through for me as well in a way it never had before. Ashford & Simpson are an amazing writing team in this respect, because they always build their best songs around a choral gospel base. It's something writers and producers today should really take note of, because that's where classic soul comes from. Not the crotch, but church. And I'm not even religious.

I'll leave you with that track. Listen to the very end, the end for me is the most lifting and interesting part:

O Hai, I Can Has Melody?

2008-07-15T20:02:00.003-04:00

I'm actually somewhat happy with the state of pop music right now. It's not perfect, but it's a relief that the Usher wannabes and their crew of half-witted no-talents are finally sodding off and allowing soul and melodies and real musicians get a word in edgewise again. It's just too bad the ringleader of this is Amy Winehouse who is currently too busy tenderizing her arms to help see this change through.

I still look back to the past however, in one area. What I like to call "Vapid Gay Pop" is still in a rut. Sure we still have Girls Aloud, but that's only the British. Anyone outside the UK is stuck with the Pussycat Dolls and the latest cyclone attention whore off Big Brother with botulism for lips. Apparently it's too much to ask for one of these girls to produce something that isn't about who ate her out for dinner last night. Half the joy of songs about sex is the nuance and romance. This is apparently lost on Miss Sherzingerator and crew. Then again, it's not like she writes the songs or anything. Nor is it like any of the other 14 Pussycat Dolls sing on the albums.

I've been listening to some early 90s pop fare as of late. I turned to an old friend, Kylie Minogue. I was at her concert in Rotterdam recently, and she not only puts on a great show, but she also sings live, well, for 100 Euro less than Madonna. Her songs also have a melody, and are about varying topics. They tell stories and create a scene, and have multiple meanings in some cases, always a good sign. Granted, a lot of this credit goes to her vast team of fantastic writers, but I give her credit for not shying away from a bit of depth with her pop.

I'll leave you with a reasonable example: "What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before)".

This came out in 1992 for Kylie's first Greatest Hits package for PWL. It was a completely disaster, peaking at #14 in the UK, making it at the time her second-lowest charting single, and it still ranks as her fifth-lowest showing in the UK. (with over 40 singles released to date in the UK, that's quite an accomplishment). The song was brilliant and was completely cheated due to two major contributing factors.

a) in 1992 pop was essentially dead in the UK. Kids weren't listening to it and had turned to "cooler" dance and rock music. Kylie was seen as part of the uncool 80s Stock-Aitken-Waterman stable that ate everything in the Top 10 in the late 80s and while her success continued far later than any other SAW offering and with far more consistency, any pure pop offering of the traditional SAW ilk was immediately panned and rejected by the press and public at large.

b) Kylie went through a more dramatic bout of what's happening right now in her career. After a long period of constant success, she'd become what the radio would call "burnt", meaning the public had tired of her constant presence on the airwaves, and were less interested in purchasing her records. As a result, public exposure was low for this single, and the public's growing indifference to Kylie was so bad at this point that even a performance on Top Of The Pops didn't get this single into the Top 10.

It would be really brave to cool down the sex enough on a modern pop female to make a song like this palatable. The lack of a defined gay music scene of the sort that defined 80s and 90s pop makes this even more difficult, but I still think it's possible, and I guarantee that with the right person singing and the right promotional push, this song can easily become a huge hit. It's a shame it wasn't in 1992.

Katy Perry is a douchebag

2008-06-22T07:50:00.004-04:00

An excerpt from a reply I posted on "The Critical Condition" regarding the poster child for warped attitudes on homosexuality:

Personally, I think it's definitely got a hint of negative gay message in it. Consider her last single, "UR So Gay", where she lists off about 20 stereotypically effeminate characteristics of her ex-boyfriend, then proceeds to tell him "You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys". Essentially equating homosexuality in men as being inherently synonymous with emasculation. She seems to have a real set of hangups surrounding homosexuality that I really don't understand, although they're really a fantastic reflection of the culture we live in. It's too bad that instead of satirizing and rising above this aspect of our society, she's essentially acting as the prime depiction of it instead.

Any opinions on this? I think my reply states it all.

(Link to the original post on thecriticalcondition.com)

GET THE CHIP OFF YOUR SHOULDER, ESTELLE

2008-03-28T21:29:00.003-04:00

Estelle attacks 'blindness to black talent'

Maybe it's not that record labels are being racist (or really care one way or another that you're black), maybe it's just that there are VERY FEW BLACK FEMALES DOING ANYTHING THAT ISN'T SHIT SNAP MUSIC.

I agree, Adele isn't really "soul music". Nor is Duffy. But if you want people to embrace you and treat you like an equal, stop accusing them of passing judgment on you every 3 seconds because of the colour of your skin. Is this the only conclusion that you can come up with as to why there are no black females doing soul music? Have you spoken with Beverley Knight lately?

Chris Brown is BORING

2008-03-25T14:42:00.003-04:00

I am so entirely fed up with the R&B world bumming Chris Brown. Everyone and their dog thinks he's cute and charming and so talented and such a great dancer and wah wah wah wah wah...

Enough. He is so utterly useless and unexciting I can't even begin to explain all the way in which this kid bothers me. I'm entirely convinced that he's a drone commissioned by Usher's management company to ensure that dumb 12 year old girls stay addicted to tuneless snap music in the periods between Usher albums so that he doesn't have to ever release an album of any real quality or artistic growth and still get multi-platinum albums.

I find it especially interesting that despite the fact that there IS no difference between Usher and Chris Brown other than age, no one seems to notice. Nor do they notice that the exact same comments they made bumming Chris Brown this year are the exact same ones they made about Usher 4 years ago when ~~8701 was re-released~~ Confessions came out. No one seems to realize that Chris Brown apparently has no natural body shape whatsoever, being constantly housed in clothing clearly designed to fit only Ruben Studdard.

His whole persona is ridiculous. He's so macho and hip-hop and puts T-Pain on his albums (a rant about THAT clown later), and yet he poses in pictures like he came straight out of Menudo. There is no style, no class, no aspiration to be either. He's just drudge aimed at tweens, and yet patronising those same tweens all at once by feeding them unimaginative, derivative crap in an unimaginative, pre-treaded package.

If you don't believe me that every aspect of this boy's image and packaging are derivative and co-opted from others, take what the father of a friend of mine once said: "He'd be great if he just stopped dancing like a Michael Jackson impersonator."

Quick Note:

2008-02-19T13:05:00.003-05:00

Dear Gay Community,

You will never be fully accepted into mainstream society how you wish to be until you stop accepting groups and artists that degrade you and call for your deaths.

THIS MEANS MAINSTREAM RAPPERS!

I refuse to listen to anymore Ciara and T-Pain at the fucking gay bar. It offends my ears as well as my mind. The fact you all mindlessly listen to this shit and dance to it is so unspeakably damaging to your own cause you might as well be praising Ann Coulter and Ronald Reagan.

Thank you.

Cokeheads unite!

2008-01-21T03:02:00.001-05:00

Cherelle and Alexander O'Neal were supposed to be a sort of "ultra-slick Marvin & Tammy for the 80s!" They were both marginally successful on their own, but when their first single together, "Saturday Love" made the UK Top 10 in 1985, the duets became a regular thing. Their biggest American hit together was a 1987 single called "Never Knew Love Like This".

Slick and badly written, I did notice one thing that endeared me to it. Despite all the slickness and mediocre lyrics, there are the gospel and Motown elements to the song that today's R&B is severely lacking. There's also something quite innocent about the whole affair. Sex in a song like this is a romantic outing, not the hyper-slick uber-macho prowess being preached in today's R&B. I know I sound like an old man saying this, but it's true. There's no love in today's R&B, sex but no love. So here it is, "Never Knew Love Like This".

Judge for yourself.

Katie Melua: Part 2

2007-12-17T14:30:00.001-05:00

If only. Katie leeched off a dead woman this week and got #1. Sick.

FACT: The record industry has always been slightly out of touch

2007-12-04T02:13:00.000-05:00

This is actually not a new phenomenon!

In fact, when it comes to "giving the consumer what they want", there's actually been some improvement in recent years. Back in the early 80s, record companies got the bright idea (thanks to some phenomenal sales from albums like "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac, "Off The Wall" by Michael Jackson, and "Songs In The Key Of Life" by Stevie Wonder) that if they release more singles from an album, the album in turn will likely sell more copies! (golly gee!)

So from this point onward, the list of singles from an album gets longer, and the amount of time in between album releases in turn ALSO gets longer, due in no small part to the record label's sudden desire to market 19 singles off any successful album. Michael Jackson's next album "Thriller" is a prime example of this. From the strong four singles released off his first Epic album (Five if you count the UK-only release "Girlfriend"), the next logical step is to move ahead to 7 released as part of the Thriller campaign, PLUS a Paul McCartney duet single near the end of the Thriller era to promote the new Paul McCartney album which of course propels Thrller's sales even higher by default (and due to it being the first brand new material released by Jackson in over a year, an easy #1 hit for McCartney).

The ONLY REASON Thriller lasted 7 singles was because EVERY SINGLE was of a high-enough quality to get great radio and video play. The album was an extremely strong album, taking the dancefloor funk of the moment and improving the songwriting and melody, while completely destroying most of the grit and funk (I say most because the Van Halen guitar solo in 'Beat It' is probably the only spontaneous or unscrutinized moment in the entire album).

From then on, every album that went more than double platinum got no less than 4 singles released from it, with artists like Madonna releasing four albums in the 80s, each with no less than 4 singles released each time (surprisingly her major breakthrough album, "Like A Virgin" contained the least single releases, while her debut had 6, "True Blue" contained 5, and "Like A Prayer" contained another 5).

THIS is where the trouble comes in. Obviously, not all albums are as close to pop perfection, or as radio-friendly as Thriller. So the labels decide to increase interest in the album by tweaking the singles to sound different from the album versions. The idea was to use the remixes to help sell singles to get more attention for the parent album.

Well this would be a fantastic idea if it actually worked or made sense. The problem is the mixes used in many late 80s-early 90s videos weren't available AT ALL except for certain limited-production 12" picture disc ultra-rare green editions that 3 people in Europe would pay the $30 to buy. The album sales were shot down at this point due to record buyers being turned off by record label tricks, and word got out that the albums didn't have the hit versions of the songs they saw on MTV. Insert REMIX ALBUMS!!!

Filled with bloated, 7 minute versions of songs that should probably have ended at about 3:42, the remix album provided record companies with a way to place the single edits of their hits on a CD to sell as yet ANOTHER product to drain record buyers' coffers. It also provided any given parent album an extra 6-8 months of shelf life if a cut from the remix album happened to be an upcoming single (if that next single is indeed a hit), and provided artists with a way to cut down the number of albums on their lousy beginners' contracts in half the time the label would otherwise allow. Supposedly a win-win situation. For everyone but poor Joe Blow at the record shop who doesn't know which of the 8 versions of Pebbles' "Giving You The Benefit" to buy.

And as I look endlessly online for my dated music, I stumble upon Jasmine Guy's "Another Like My Lover", a lost gem from her contrived marketing ploy to get more money out of her stint on the obnoxiously-successful sitcom "A Different World". It isn't high-art, but it's a catchy enough pop-R&B single lost in the sea of crap that came off her perpetually-off-key album aimed squarely at competing with the equally-off-key Paula Abdul. The video on YouTube was actually very good and I was interested in finding an MP3 copy.

I find one...and everything good and redeeming about this record are gone. The heavy incessant beats, the staccato New Jack-lite production, all replaced with....New Jack-liter and the musical production levels you'd expect to find on a Wilson Phillips album from the same period. Tinny, and wimpy. AWFUL.

WHY did record execs insist on tormeting buyers like this. As if to say "we thought about giving you what you want but you have to take what we give you instead. SORRY!"

The big corporate fuck-you never ends. The record industry wonders why people started downloading their music? It's much easier to pay nothing or 99 cents for something you're CERTAIN you want than paying $15 to find out the one song you wanted to hear most of all was remixed to be released as the album's 6th single 2 years later and never got put on the album as a result.

Frustration of a Toronto musician

2007-11-02T12:36:00.001-04:00

Do you know how hard it is to get a band together in this city?

Not hard at all.

Do you know how hard it is to get a band together that isn't aspiring to be either an Emo Coldplay or a tuneless rip-off of Metallica?

IMPOSSIBLE.

I almost did it once. I had a craigslist ad that went into great detail about what I needed. People were interested. But I didn't get the one essential. A BASSIST. Project went nowhere, everyone who was interested vanished. Subsequent posts went nowhere.

Now I sit here singing Aretha and Lisa Fischer, wondering when anyone other than my exasperated roommate and neighbours will hear me. It's depressing, really. It frustrates me to think that if I listened to the same shit as everyone else listens to and nerds out over conventional straight-boy music, i'd likely be touring the country at this rate. In fact, it pisses me off. Why must the style of music I listen to equate to no credibility and no avenues to find work or gigs? It's stupid, frankly.

Why is it that the only avenue I could find to fulfill my goals would be to go on that damn Canadian Idol. The winners of that go nowhere. Can ANYONE name an Eva Avila record? Ryan Malcolm? Anyone? Thank you. I need more credibility. Pop needs more credibility. When the most credible act in pop music today is Girls Aloud (a band that won Popstars in 2003, no less), something's wrong. VERY wrong. No wonder everyone sees pop music as a completely manufactured wad of trype. These dopes who run the labels and manage the artists don't see it as "real music", they see it as a "promotional tool". Look at Samanda. They're the most blatant example of this I've ever seen. They didn't even bother finding anything new or interesting for them to do, they just chucked the Almighty Mix of "Barbie Girl" at them to sing over. It's such a waste and a detriment to the pop singers who actually care about the state of pop music.

I don't know how much it will take for people to take pop seriously again, but I can assure you it'll take time and a lot of work. I don't give up, meanwhile. But the frustration's turning to depression, and I don't know how much longer I can go on like that. Working in retail's wearing on me, and I don't think I can fake a smile much longer.

A Quick Note to Mary J. Blige

2007-10-27T13:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Mary,

If you ever expect me to buy your (albeit awesome) records ever again, stop working with 50 Cent. If you're trying to be this gay-friendly Mac Viva Glam woman, your collaborations with this mumbling jackass is not helping me believe that you give two shits about the gays. If you did, you'd tell him where to shove it.

Sincerely,

The Gays Who Think.

"featuring...": An American Epidemic

2007-10-27T11:39:00.000-04:00

Truth be told, I miss the 80s and 90s in pop and R&B music for many reasons. The melodies were better, the artists were more experimental (especially in the 90s), the results were more exciting.

The 2000s are a mess, and one example of this is related to the disproportional growth of hip-hop in the mainstream in a way that makes me question its actual popularity. But that's another story. Today, I'm discussing the "Rent-A-Rapper" phenomenon. Originally in the late 80s when artists like Bobby Brown, Jody Watley and Patti LaBelle would either rap themselves or feature hot rappers of the moment, it was fresh, exciting, a joining of two worlds and a solidification of mutual respect between generations of musicians and music lovers.

Well it's now 2007. After that first onslaught of cross-pollination between R&B and Hip-Hop in the late 80s and early 90s, rappers generally disappeared from R&B singles with a few notable exceptions (thanks in part to the continued popularity of Babyface & LA Reid as a production and their mid-90s shift to an R&B-Adult Contemporary hybrid). However, things started shifting again around Late 1995 and into 1996 thanks to two massive crossover hits. One by one of the most influential singers in pop and R&B music history, and one by a group fronted by, surprise surprise, one of the most important R&B producers of the New Jack Swing era of a few years earlier.

The first record in question was the Puff Daddy remix of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" from late summer 1995. This record was almost certain to become a monster hit regardless of any remix tinkering due to Mariah's stratospheric popularity at the time. (almost impossible to image her being any bigger than she already is, but add to it the fact that in 1995, she had the added advantage of having lots of other big-voiced female singers around her, all of whom hated her tremendously for one reason or another. BING! Tabloid fodder galore!) However, when this single was released to clubs in early August 1995, quickly what began getting the most spins from DJs was the stripped back Puff Daddy remix which featured guest raps from Ol' Dirty Bastard.
With the retooled song structure which took more than just the bassline from Tom Tom Club's "Genius Of Love" than the radio edit did, it was a total old school throwback to the early 80s, but with a modern twist. The rapping wasn't by a naff old school rapper, it was a fresh new rapper with real hard street cred or somesuch. It was a match made in a bank, and it worked wonders for Fantasy, which became the first single by a female artist to debut at #1 on the US Hot 100, and stayed at #1 for 8 weeks until Mariah's biggest rival, one Whitney Houston, went the traditional Babyface ballad route and debuted at #1 as well.
On the Black charts (yes, I still call them that, it's more representative of what the charts are supposed to be demonstrating than the current title "Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks"*), Fantasy went on to spend 6 weeks at #1, due mostly to the Puffy remix, and the track is still a staple on DJ's playlists to this day.

The other record in question is BLACKstreet's "No Diggity". Teddy Riley's newest group had had so little success up to this point that several members had already left by the time "No Diggity" replaced the Macarena at #1 (thank GOD). Built around a sample of Bill Withers' "Grandma's Hands", the song featured not one, but two rapper collaborations, though only one was listed on the single upon release. The presence of Dr. Dre and Queenpen on the record was significant as it was the first time that an R&B-pop group featured rappers on the main radio edit and landed at #1. Since then, the onslaught's been increasing year by year to the point where there were a few weeks in 2004 when there were absolutely NO records in the US Top 10 without someone featuring on it.

Today, I look at the chart and the situation hasn't improved much: Of 50 records, 16 feature someone. That IS an improvement on one week where I counted 26, but it doesn't say much for the music. It's gone from being a fresh idea to a gimmick intended to sell more records. The attitude seems to be "great record, now we'll throw some arbitrary thug on it and you'll make the Top 40!" Why? Why are R&B or pop songs not good enough to stand on their own anymore? I've had it happen more than once in the past few years where I've thought to myself "this song is great and tells a great story" and then some rapper will be tossed on and ruins the entire mood, sentiment, and story of the song. It's as if record companies don't trust that the talent of the individual will shine through, and so they need a big name to push the song onto radio playlists. As if a certain rapper is a seal of approval that will get the track played, where talent will not.

When I think of this, I think of all the massive stars that would be nowhere today if they produced the kind of music they are known for, and released their debut albums this year. Whitney Houston probably wouldn't have even been able to get an album released in the current system if she started out today, because the one thing that really sells her, the whole "black Streisand" angle, is completely out of fashion with most record buyers. She'd likely be relegated to adult contemporary radio and broadway, or be forced to shove on 50 rappers and sing songs about how she wants her man to objectify her in her Gucci thong....but don't touch my goodies, n****#. How degrading.

Sure this is great news for rap, it's bigger than ever thanks to the cross-pollination into pop and R&B and even country (thanks Nelly...really), but it begs the question: what will happen when the next round of gay musicians come around. This is really the first decade I know of since the 60s where we haven't had at least one openly gay act that's been big in America, and I think hip-hop's overt homophobia and masculinity paranoia has a lot to do with it. In the 70s we had Sylvester and the Village People and anyone connected with Patrick Cowley or Dan Hartman. In the 80s we had Culture Club, Wham! (oh come on, they were always really gay and you knew it), Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Soft Cell. The 90s you had Melissa Etheridge, KD Lang, George Michael, Tevin Campbell (the latter two rather by accident). Ever since George Michael's coming out, the careers of those who've come out in music seem to have gone right down the toilet. George Michael has mysteriously never charted on the Hot 100 since coming out, even though he had a huge #3 hit with "Amazing" in Canada just three years ago.

I honestly believe that it's been the influence of hip-hop and the homophobia surrounding it that's caused this drastic decline in the influence of gay culture on American music. No longer are black and gay music working in tandem. Instead they work against each other, with black music (being the larger demographic), winning easily. Gay music's always had to feed off black music, but I find that now that there are direct attacks at gay people within certain genres of black music, hip-hop and dancehall especially, the gay music scene is quickly distancing itself from black music, but is having a hard time finding a new direction. Unfortunately, with the current attitude of record execs, nothing is making the radio without a rapper, and no gay man in his right mind would ever work WITH a rapper unless he were gay (and let's be honest, considering the masculinity paranoia, what gay rappers will ever get that "radio airplay seal of approval" status?) or gay-friendly (and Kanye West, albeit a huge artist in his own right, isn't a consistent hit-maker).

I don't think there will be significant change in pop music until the record companies start falling apart. I believe that artists like Robyn and Prince, who have taken the approach of using the record companies as a distibution and funding channel for their music, is the future. Once Robyn breaks America again (and even though her most recent album is now about 2 and a half years old, it WILL happen), it's all over for the traditional record company formula. And the era of the rent-a-rapper will slowly grind to a halt.^

* - if anyone's actually offended, i'll gladly call it the HR&B/H-HS&T chart, but you probably wouldn't like that either.
# - yes, I could say the n-word, I am technically black. But I choose not to, for reasons I'll express later.
^ - We hope.

French Funk...this is an interesting one

2007-10-25T12:22:00.000-04:00

This is actually more of a curiosity than I first imagined it being. I did my usual YouTube rounds and discovered this extremely rare old school funk jam from...of all places, France. Even crazier, it's totally on par with anything the Americans were doing at the time, and in some cases is better. It's crazy to think that while this style was huge in the UK around this time, none of the people in the UK who tried this out actually succeeded in getting the sound of the records right. It was all sort of lacking the soul and the groove that made these records so great. Granted that may have a whole lot to do with the long history of black people in France and their deep roots going back there. But i'd hate to think that it required someone to be a certain race to be able to produce any style of music. Anyway, great musicianship is obvious on this track, and whoever Armenta is, she's sure a damn good singer. Check it out:

Yes, it's not the most lyrically challenging track ever produced, but if you played this at a club now, no one wouldn't be dancing. That's the beauty of this music. 25 years later, it's still great dance music and is still modern. Brilliant stuff.

Why I Hate Katie Melua

2007-10-25T03:05:00.000-04:00

Now before I begin, let me just say that I am in no way maligning this woman for her personality or lack thereof. Frankly, I don't give a toss in this case. It's completely irrelevant to her music, and therein lies part of the problem of Katie Melua and why her popularity continues to completely elude me.

Her singing is so completely soulless and truthfully, so entirely lacking in personality that I shudder to even hear two seconds of anything she records. "The Closest Thing To Crazy" was absolutely the worst thing I've ever heard a woman sing and three years later, I shudder to think about it. Of course, the chorus fills me with such chills I can never forget the horrendous refrain. Her ear-shattering, squeaky, her not-quite-english-attempt-at-being-that-irritating-chick-from-Sixpence-None-The-Richer scooping, and general lame voice. It's enough to make you quite ill even thinking about it, isn't it?

It was so terrible that I flat-out refused to listen to anything else she's ever done...until now. My mother, living in the Netherlands, has had to hear this twit sing whatever shit her handlers threw at her for three long years. She warned me of the dangers of this, but here goes...I am going to listen to the most repelling song my mother's ever heard..."Nine Million Bicycles". *braces self*

Lame.

The flutes make it infinitely worse. More singer-songwriter crap. Except! There's a catch! There's a thing we can't forget! (har har). She doesn't even FUCKING WRITE THIS SHIT! That's right, ladies and gentlemen! (all 3 of you)...Katie Melua is essentially Britney Spears with a guitar. Can't sing and doesn't write (much). Apparently she was writing before she became a huge star at the expense of all reason and good taste! Too bad, that of 12 songs on her first CD, she wrote a whopping two. Her last two albums she wrote a whole 5! Well golly gosh gee!
To you lot who hate pop music so much and think it's a bunch of talentless gits singing badly and dancing like Michael Jackson to overproduced keyboard music, consider this. Robyn is also a successful pop singer like Katie. She doesn't play an instrument and she's best known for doing that slightly R&B-styled Max Martin pop you all hate. Guess what? She's written every song she's ever released bar one on her new CD. And they're undeniably great songs. And her first language isn't English. And she's not "part-British" like Ms. Melua, so she even has an excuse if she did write crap.

The big problem I have with Katie Melua more than anything is the simple fact that this girl barely sings, barely writes, and barely does anything remotely interesting, and gets two mutli-platinum records. People seem to have a complete lack of respect for anyone who does anything musical in this industry without a guitar in their hands. Those who do have guitars in their hands get excess amounts of love and respect dumped on their without any real merit. Katie Melua represents this discord. Why is it that Katie Melua can record wispy, generic songs about how she loves her boyfriend in a strangely statistical way, and yet looking at any review for any equivalent Whitney Houston record, an equally generic pop song sung by a guitarless Houston is immediately slammed or given the oh-so-diplomatic "The song's somewhat soulless, but Houston's voice is great."
Real-life example of this: Jose Gonzalez's cover of Kylie's "Hand On My Heart". The original got nothing but shit reviews and lambastings from every critic on the planet. Gonzalez's is "just...really, really earnest; he presumes heartache on the first note." and "really seems to buy into the anguish of the lyrics." Oh what a guitar and a mediocre voice can do. SURPRISE! The song's still the same fucking song it was in 1989, you asshats!

So PLEASE spare me any more garbage about how great it is to have all these "real musicians" in the industry instead of those "pre-fabricated shit popstars" from 5-10 years ago. Guess what? Those singer-songwriters may write amazing songs (they don't, but anyway), but they have absolutely no interest in doing anything remotely experimental or remotely different with their music. They figure they can strum on a guitar for 3 Minutes about my baby, my love, my true...and everyone from fucking Ivor Novello to the goddamn Grammy Awards is gonna hand it over to them like they're Stevie Wonder or something. The real problem is that they probably will.

Start at the Start

2007-10-23T23:19:00.000-04:00

Let's be serious. Canada's music scene is generally really bleak unless you're in Broken Social Scene or you're signed to an American label. Why is it so hard to be a Canadian musician? Is it really that hard? Why are Canadians forced to go out of the country to get recognition.

I'm Alex Washington. I sing R&B and pop. No, I know what you're thinking. "They're basically the same thing now, aren't they?" Well, no. I don't sing all that tuneless crap that Usher and Beyonce sing. I don't do 8 Million runs every few seconds like Mariah Carey and I don't have any desire to have 50 Cent feature on my album (there are numerous reasons for this, as you'll soon discover through reading this).

I sing like the classic singer of the 60s, 70s and 80s did. I sing pop songs with soul. I had a childhood dream to be the male Whitney Houston and it's never really shaken me. Yes, I'm gay, shut up.

I love old school funk and soul. I love SINGERS. Today, we don't have singers. People don't get up on stage and sing their songs as well if not better, more passionately, more spiritually connected than on their records. In fact, they can't even sing the notes they recorded on their singles anymore. It's got to end.

Why have you never heard of me. Because what market is there for a half-black (you can't even tell for looking at me), white-raised, non-ghetto gay man in R&B music in Canada? First person who gives me the right answer wins a prize*.

My mother lives outside Amsterdam. She moved there in 2004 and has her own blog which is also excellent. Check Canucky Woman , it's quite great, to be honest. I'd say that even if I weren't her son.

But back to me. This is a place to hear all about what I hear, what I see, what I aspire to be...all connected to music. I don't know what will happen for me, but whatever happens...it won't be boring.

* - note: not an actual prize and thus you won't actually win it.