Mostly I’m just angry because I had to find pics and movies instead of watching teh movie I wanted to watch.
You can’t attempt that rant and then discount Amy Winehouse…nor can you discriminate against men. Well I guess on your page you can do whatever you want, but not here 😉
How are you defining “made it”?
Headline:
Lady Gaga, Susan Boyle top UK Pop Charts in 2009
and
that’s no lady!!!
Madonna “made it” as a youngster, but still seems to be around (I only know this cuz she seems to be at teh pub often)…
and since they’re “from” Portland now they get two..
and she might be an evil robot overlord, and she’s not ugly…but since we have no standards tonight 😉
and for die past half hour I’ve just been watching Pixies videos 🙂 now back to whatever the heck I was talking about…
Oh yeah Kim Deal…worshipped by millions…
I think Francis lives in Eugene now, so they get like 7 videos…
talk about unmarketable…Frank Black as rock star…I don’t see it.
They’re such kids here…
I love teh Pixies…
I may have lost my mojo or just forgotten what I was on about… 🙂
dude! that is THE most confused/confusing gayest stream- of-consciousness- post ever!!!!
lovin it!!!!!
the gossip, madonna, sinead, lady gaga…. ur sooo GAY 😉
seacrest out!
It was a response to Matt’s post about ugly women ”making it” in music. I was merely disagreeing with his poorly written, unthought-out and wrong-headed ideas 😉
my use of unthought-out there was kind of wrong-headed as well…I’m not editing it…
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
as opposed to all the pretty boys in music….. hmmmmm
i thought all the fat, bearded ugly guys had to be in a band or at least learn how to play a guitar in order to get laid at all…. no, I’m not kiddin…. that is the gods-honest-truth….
ok…. we’re all confused
I’m less offended by your blank generalization than I was by Matt’s…at first I racked my brain to think of exceptions and of course the first person I came up with was Santa Claus…He does have Mrs. Claus though and possibly some other good qualities (though maybe when he was young he was beardless and thin, yet still jolly).
I then thought of Peter Jackson (rich and artistic), Paul Allen (rich and rich and still never married), there was also that weird guy from “The Hangover” and that’s really all I could come up with…Did I miss any other fat, bearded, non music playing dudes that get laid – ever? I guess money would be the other mitigating factor…
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
wait a minute…wait a minute!!! There’s some kind of analogy hiding here…Matt was claiming that Joni Mitchell would not exist today because she’s too ugly and I was thinking last night that the real commentary has to do with people’s (his) perceptions and treatment of women, but Julia just confirmed that the women are worser…no doubt…I havn’t been this angry since Ani DiFranco married a dude for the second time….
I’m going to go play my guitar now…
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
look at all these comments!!! its as if people are actually reading your blog… well, at least three of four, including the blogger! 😉
joni mitchell wasnt ugly (isnt she still alive?) she just need to slap on some make-up! get a better fashion sense… mix it up a little, ask lady gaga for some advice….
srz for the crazy comments! I had too much caffeine and sugar today plus i suffer from too much personality…. (as if u didnt know that…)
i get free espressos / espressi at work… so…. voila: even crazier jules!
Allow me to retort…
For those of you who don’t read, nay, are not allowed to read my blog Squires’ reply would probably have seemed a bit strange. Let me start off by saying i was the first to acknowledge that it was not my finest work. It was rushed and i did not really develop the ideas the way that i normally would. Excuses aside, here was the jist of it:
“People like Janis Joplin or Joni Mitchell simply would not be able to make it today. It doesn’t matter how good your voice is, or how good a songwriter you are, you have to look the part today. You have to be marketable.”
I then asked people to name a musician today that is not good looking and has ‘made it’. Also refining this discussion to female musicians only.
It would have been easy to refute this with a little thought…hell i could bury myself…but you jumped the gun and missed the boat :o) I would have led with my failure to properly define ‘made it’. I’m not talking about sales and charts and crap like that…i mean the musical equivalent of a petit je ne sais quoi. You can’t describe it but there is something about them to let you know they have ‘made it’.
But i think you must have missed the point anyway when you say “I was thinking last night that the real commentary has to do with people’s (his) perceptions and treatment of women”
Far from it. My commentary was on the music industry and proliferation of talentless whores filling the airwaves of tv and radio with mass-produced, highly digitised garbage while for all we know there may be modern day geniuses out there being overlooked because they can not be sold to today’s market. I simply chose looks as the easiest way to illustrate this in today’s musical mainstream.
Let’s look at them one at a time.
Of course i can discount Amy Winehouse and the plethora of acts that sound the same as her at the moment. Why do we recall her name and not her peers/imitators? Because of her lifestyle choice and drama played out in the tabloids…absolutely naff all to do with her talent or lack thereof. I like her voice, but she is nothing special.
Lady Gaga – Has man bits. Therefore excluded from discussion. Irrespective of this, i don’t think you can say opening for New Kids on The Block and The Pussycat Dolls defines you as having made it.
Susan Boyle – Who? Q.E.D If she turns out to be as big as Abba i will retract my statement. Until then, i will not accept the winner of a televised pop idol contest as having ‘made it’.
Madonna – I don’t really know which way to attack this i prefer so i’ll just go to town on it. Ok the key to this one would be that i was talking about musician’s today. When i said Janis and Joni could not have made it today i am implicitly suggesting, if they were to begin their careers now and in comparison have asked to name a musician today in the same light. Not someone who has been around since the dawn of time. If we want to ignore this fact i can focus on her ‘talent’ if you’d like? What do you think we will remember about Madonna? Think hard about her career…all i come up with is ‘Like a Virgin’. Not really renown for it’s lyrics or the way it was sung..it was pure shock factor, as was the rest of her career. The book she did, her later erotica work…it was all based on sex and shock value. That is to say, nothing to do with musical ability. If that still doesn’t work for you, then yes i would have shagged her as the material girl, ergo, she ‘was not’ ugly.
The Gossip – Bands with female frontpersons are a bit of a grey area but i’ll allow it. I’m sorry, you will have to really stretch the boundaries of the English language in coming up with a deifnition of ‘made it’ which includes the Gossip. Simply being from Portland and having a record deal doesn’t cut it for me.
Sinead O’Connor – Has had one hit off a song written by Prince…i could probably have a hit if he penned something for me. She sung the song fairly well, but nothing to really differentiate her from the general Irish population who can make a cough sound tuneful. Can you think of another song by her? The only time we hear of her is when she slags off the pope or makes ingenious use of a crucifix a la the exorcist. Not sure she’d qualify for ugly either. Try harder.
The Pixies (Kim Deal) – ummm late 80’s, early 90’s i probably would have gone there. Seriously the whole persona she had pushed her up a couple of notches in my opinion. She made the rock chick thing work. But she had/has talent for sure. irrespective the era they hit it puts her out the discussion.
Black Francis – Dude, he’s a dude.
What else have you got?
category:
OH NO SHE DIDNT!!!!
i like joni mitchell(singer-songwriter?)
her lyrics are certainly inspiring, shes a cute hippie chick… but srsly her voice isnt all that great…
madonna… shes more of an entertainer, isnt she?!
all in all:
a moot point…. or maybe, if i was joey tribbiani, i would say ur point is moo, as in a cow’s opinion…. moo 😉
@ J: Hopefully noone in the office accused you of suffering from “too much personality” that’s business speak (or passive/agressive talk) for act more professional OR worktime is not playtime OR stop screwing around etc etc Be careful 😉
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
OK…at first I was excited to respond to this, but you had to bust out “petit je ne sais quoi”…when that’s been invoked we’ve stopped dealing with facts and it’s just my opinion against yours. There is no solution. Nothing is quantifiable. We might as well discuss the question “when I’m dead, what will I be”?
or I could just spend the next 20 minutes commenting on how you forgot to spell check, but If I do it then you’ll probably do it to me…I’m gonna lose that battle long term 😉
I had another fallback argument, but I’m not prepared to use that yet 😉
So I’ll re-retort in brief and possibly skirt a lot of your arguments, because I still think you’re focusing on details and ignoring some larger issue(s) here. In any medium you will always have a mainstream v. artstream argument. If you were into books you would be complaining that people were reading Stephen King instead of Dostoevsky. If you were into movies you would tell me that Jim Jarmousch or Michael Gadron should be mandatory viewing for 8 year olds. This is not a new conversation or idea.
People are stupid and easily mis-led! You are mad at them for this. Somewhere in America there’s probably been a poll asking how many of them think the earthquake in Haiti was caused because the Hatians made a deal with the devil. There is probably some ridiculous number (say 8%) of americans that believe this.
What can you do…regulate ideas…regulate religion…regulate breeding?…regulate music…that’s the ticket!
…somehow it feels like we’ve had this argument before and our sides were reversed…
I still think your dismissal of Amy Winehouse makes you as bad as the people you’re complaining about. You are ignoring on the music and focusing on the celebrity. Can’t you ignore the celebrity and focus on the music? I know they sometimes intersect in song. i.e. a writer/singer starts making songs about their celebrity or their politics or their religion it doesn’t mean I have to hate the writer or their other songs even if I don’t agree with the lyrics of one of their songs.
Rage: Fuck tha police!
me: I don’t wanna
Shane MacGowan: I will stalk them in the back streets
I will stalk them in the bars
Rape their women and scare their children
Burn them in their brand new cars
Me: I love you shane, but you ought not to do this…p.s. ya UGGGGlllyyyy
anyways back to Winehouse. I remember when I first heard one of her songs. I didn’t know who she was and it was one of those rare magical musical moments for me when I go WOW! This is amazing! I didn’t know anything about her, but I knew I loved her voice and I loved the song.
p.s Did Billie Holiday ever “make it” while she was alive or has her legend grown through the years – ala, Pixies, Joplin, and Joni Mitchell?
(Did you notice that fine seque I just managed? Can it still be a fine segue if you have to make note of it?).
to bring it home simply (get dressed ma! We’re goin to town) I’m not sure that the Pixies, Joplin and Joni Mitchell really “made it” in your vague-ish sense of mainstream making it.
They are all legendary, but is that necessarily the same as making it mainstream? Primus, Grateful Dead, Phish, Ani DiFranco…have any of these people “made it”.
Few hits between them, but rabid followings no doubt…and since conveniently I can’t cite awards/sales/tours I have no way of using anything solid to back myself up (btw did you know Melissa Etheridge has 2 grammys and an oscar?).
If Courtney hadn’t killed Kurt that Nirvana would probably have record sales on the level of the Poison, Tull, ZZ top, Frente, Styx etc. If those bands put out an album this week there are still a few thousand people who would camp out in front of their local record shop to be the first in town to own it. In those peoples minds those bands made it and still do.
If Nirvana was a new band would the mainstream play them today? Would that make you like them less? If you had to make an effort to find a band that was new to you would you like them less? Are you annoyed that you have to work to find new music or do you need TV and radio to deliver stuff to you?
You are not at their mercy anymore. Empower yourself! It’s the 60’s all over again 😉
Dammit, why can’t the kids be more like me? Why, when I was your age things were different…
oooh! Jethro Tull did a Christmas Album. Gotta go download it now.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
….I’m sorry, what?