If It Bleeds It Leads --- If It Sells, it Smells

Ah, the monster that is the modern music industry. Given that there has largely been no real "new" music to grace Top 40 stations in the past 45 years, the shift of focus has been to that of spectacle, rather than innovative substance. Looks like the filmmakers behind "Video Killed the Radio Star" were correct in their prediction; visual spectacle has superseded any attention to musical significance.

Making it in today's music industry seems more of an issue of being at the right place at the right time and how far you're willing to go into crazy territory.

I used to think Lady Gaga was pretty cool, trained at Juliard, writing her own songs and everything, supportive of gay rights, but now her music is pretty much shit and her spectacle is just that --- all style and no substance, unless you count flashy pretention. She's not doing anything new or innovative; she's recycling the ideas and musicality of the 80's stars (see her feud with Madonna, anyone?) except with a bigger budget and more media to manipulate.

What bothers me I guess is that at least the 80's were tongue in cheek and obvious in their cheesy, over the top emulation of form over function. This recycled version is taking itself way too seriously and actually thinks  the garbage it is churning out is new and unique, and teens are taking that trend, too.

Seriously, get off my lawn and write something new that at least is fun.

Alternatively, a band outside of the Top 40 and yet still mimicking tropes of their own genre (be careful if in a public setting, there is swearing in the video) but really let's be honest I just actually love these guys, check them out instead:

Multi-platinum selling Finnish export Nightwish record with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the same choirs that give sound to soundtracks like Lord of the Rings. They're the first of their kind of symphonic metal. Used to have an opera soprano as lead vocals, I like their new lady Anette better.

Heard of them here? Nope. Thanks, Billboard 100.

Spinmasters and the Magic Bullet

As a public relations major, advertising and marketing often make an appearance in my studies. Even if I wasn't studying the inner workings of the media world, I would still be bombarded daily with the final product. On average, the typical American person can see up to 5,000 ads in one day. (According to CBS.com, anyway)

Let's break that down. 5,000 ads. That's 208 ads an hour, or, around 4 ads a minute,or, a partial (half) an ad per second. Are you kidding me? Seriously? This probably has a lot to do with how media saturated our daily lives have become; television, radio, the internet, smart phones, tablets, e-readers, video gaming consoles, newspapers, billboards, product-wrapped automobiles, etc. But come on, that is still a sickeningly large amount for one individual to be exposed to in a 24 hour period. So what's with this obnoxious amount of advertising? Why do we allow this to permeate our society so thoroughly that America has become a marketing utopia?

According to our readings, "The desire for transfiguration of the self" was key to the flourishing of carnivalesque advertising. The transfiguration of the self. As Americans we have always been in search of a self-actualized identity, cultivating a perception of ourselves that we desire others to see, even if that is not what we truly are. We've painted on Blackface in search of exploring the exotic other, of drawing out the darker (no pun intended) aspects of our suppressed Puritanical culture (sexuality, blasphemy, political commentary, alcohol, etc.). We've played Indian to express our nationalism, clinging to what symbolism was already here when we arrived and were searching for something to classify ourselves apart from Europe and uniquely American. We are still left in search of self actualization because all these things existed apart from ourselves (White America) without us. What if the new mask wasn't visible to others? What if we could take a pill that would alter us, and only we would know, but it would still allow for us to become what we wanted to be on the exterior? Would we believe in magic, to obtain that sense of power? That is the magic of advertising, the willingness to suspend disbelief that someone finally managed to concoct the elusive magic bullet, that will solve our problems for us. A faceless identity we can cling to to allow us to become ourselves.

As a monesary aside, treasure seeking also contributed (and still does) to the success of "ancient" advertisement. Who doesn't want more money, to buy more "more"? Typically, the most elaborately constructed self has the most money, who then in turn buy more things and promote the idea of self worth through materialization.

Ultimately I think public relations analysts and advertising/marketing technicians are probably the most honest of humans. They recognize that human nature is openly shallow and keen to organize, avoidant of cognitive dissonance, and fond of routine. They freely acknowledge this and have found a way to profit off of it, for the better (in an ethical public relations career) or worse (see the sleazy PR guy stereotype) of those who buy into the ideology that products can make you feel good and add to your daily life.

Or that's what I tell myself so I can sleep at night.

Lassoing the Past

On my first field trip since I was 11 years old, we went to Sinclairville, NY for the Wild Bunch Wild West Show, hosted by Bill Frost and his wife of 32 years Lucile. In addition to a full scale Wild West town built right in their front yard, complete with a Boot Hill (where bad guys go to die), horses, and a beware of Guns and Children sign, Bill and Lucile also are host the the "greatest collection of authentic cowboy saddles you'll find on the East Coast", with items dating back to the early 1800's.

Bill himself is turning 83 years old in October, not that you'd know it by looking at him. Certainly, age is showing in this cowboy's movements and words, but get him talking about his passion and you'd swear you were looking at a man over fifty years younger. Knowledgeable, kind, and sincere, Bill spoke to us about his saddle collection with such enthusiasm you instantly liked and admired the man. He walked us through each and every saddle, pointing out special ones of pride here and there. Rumor has it he owns a saddle ridden by the Annie Oakley herself, of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show fame. As skeptical as my generation is, I want to believe it is really hers, both because of the ruby embedded in heart shaped metal worked into the leather, and because the man who currently owns it is so proud of the idea that it could be hers.

But more than any saddle of Annie Oakley's, the one that touched my heart more than anything else was the last saddle Bill showed us; it was large, black, worked with silver metal and studs, and it had belonged to his father. The story he told us involved something you'd normally only hear in a movie. His father had sold it long before Bill himself was ready to collect cowboy saddles, and it disappeared as sold items do. Decades later, having heard he was the man to go to for the selling of Wild West paraphernalia, a woman showed up at Bill's house, looking to sell the saddle in her trunk. Little did she know that the trunk held Bill's fathers saddle, and that he would have "shot her for it", like any joking cowboy would. But the sentiment was not lost on me, and I could tell how much rediscovering his father's saddle meant to the old cowboy.

What I took away from the field trip was that authenticity mattered to these people, and that you could be a cowboy or cowgirl wherever you were, whoever you were, as long as you stuck true to what it meant to be one. In Bill Frost's case, being a cowboy meant knowing everything there was to know about the Wild West and having the authentic items, but also having the functional use of roping, riding, and gun tricks to back it up. It didn't matter to him that he lives in Western NY; he was true to the idea of the Old West, and in return it was true to him, and continues to be the core of his life. The authenticity in his actions, and the ability to acknowledge a vast difference between what was an actual working cowboy and the flashy trick-ropers of Wild West Shows were what allowed for the Cowboy of the East's self actualization.

But that idea of the cowboy, of the Old West, is a cultivated one, centered around the beginnings of mass pop culture entertainment. Buffalo Bill's Wild West show had only the tiniest sliver of authenticity to it; the scalping of one unfortunate Indian scout validating decades of spectacle and crafting an idea that would breach generations of pop culture, writing a version of history that evoked fond nostalgia for the Old West, right down to our 82 year old Eastern Cowboy and his whip-cracking grandson.

Native American Indians joined up with the barely-legitimate spectacle in order to preserve some form of their own culture, and to have it publicized by their own people in favor of false "White Indians". In a way, I think this was one of the earlier forms of public relations; the Indians assessing that if they presented themselves in a positive way, in a manner that would associate their people with something white culture liked and even adored (the Wild West Show), it would create cognitive dissonance for people to think of their Wild West Indians negatively in future legal procedures, and hopefully give their people a chance for more presence in the national arena.

That willfulness to preserve the more fondly remembered aspects of culture, of cultivating and placing emphasis on a connotative meaning rather than the actual history of events and people exists in all of us, I believe. Either way, any man who can spin a 30 foot loop weighing a pound per foot over his head at the age of 82 is allowed his nostalgia in my book. Truly, if this formulated lens of looking at the Old West creates people who have such shining ideals and manners as Bill Frost, and these people believe in "Cowboy Honor and manners and way of life" because of this crafted American identity, there might just be a bit of authentic silver lining in the the falsification of history. Or maybe, like those who loved the Wild West shows, I'm just a sucker for noble sentiment.