OT: 2020 Class, Rock & Roll HOF, Who Gets In?

[Dr. von Yinzer]

Yeah, they created “120 Minutes” specifically as a depot for that type of music. It was a way to keep college kids somewhat interested in MTV without having it dominate the airwaves as it’s predecessors did in the network’s earliest years.

That’s really where the term “alternative music” first gained widespread acceptance. Before that, it was just music. However, they had to distinguish it from the hair band music that had (inexplicably) become dominant in the United States.

I like to look at rock lineage as a way to understand music and to predict where it will go next. I think it is often very easy to see who derived from whom.

If you listen hard enough, you can tell even with current bands where their roots lie. With some bands they are rooted in punk rock and with other bands they are rooted in some of the classic rock bands like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin or what have you.

I’m not just talking about Oasis and the Beatles or obvious ones like that. I think you can hear Pink Floyd elements in Radiohead’s music, for example. The music is urethral and beautiful and the tones are often heavy and at odds with each other.

In choosing glam rock or hair bands, whatever you want to call them, I think MTV made a catastrophic long term miscalculation, I truly do.

They chose a fad and a dead end genre that was always going to fade away over much more substantive works of art. Had MTV’s execs chosen more wisely, I think they could have grown music in this country much more than they did and their entire legacy would be very different.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

Music, like all forms of art and expression, is not just a golden goose to be continually plundered. You have to water it like a plant and grow it and grow it and grow it some more. That’s how it must work or it will eventually wilt.

Now, MTV eventually wised up and smartly hugged onto to rap and hip-hop. Again though, the reason why a band like NWA, for example, became so popular was because for the first time in YEARS MTV was actually playing music that at least seemed authentic and based on real life experience.

They weren’t singing about tearing up hotel rooms or banging girls at the local boarding school, they were singing about their lives and how it made them feel. And for whatever reason that connected with a large audience — even though much of that audience had no possible way to relate to the themes they were experiencing artistically.

It basically came down to what it always comes down to it music. Record companies and the many leeches around these bands want to make as much money as they possibly can, so they’re constantly searching for the magic formula and then they seek to find ways to suck it dry of all of its blood. However, the teenagers, who are the economic engine in the drives all of this, are looking to connect with some thing and that can only happen through authenticity. That observation is every bit as true in 2019 as it was in 1999, 1989, 1979 and 1969.

And that’s what gives it its magic. There’s no way that MTV could have predicted in the late 80s and early 90s how enormous rap and hip-hop would become in our culture – nobody could. However, that’s what happened because at least among the music we were getting, it was the most authentic sounding.

Now, was it truly authentic? In some cases, yes and in some cases, no. It’s the exact same thing with Grunge. They weren’t all disaffected teenagers. Some of them were failed glam rockers who found another way onto the stage.

However, at least it all felt authentic and authenticity (or the feel of it) always wins out.

 

[Pitt-fan-in-Charlotte]

Up the Irons!

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BEATING TICKET SALES FOR
DRAKE / FOO FIGHTERS / BON JOVI
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[recruitsreadtheseboards]

I am talking broader than just MTV. I mean, how in the hell did the Food Network, get away from actual food? Oh sure, they do "food" related stuff, but it chintzy contests, the same people, they absolutely do nothing with like real, emerging chefs and restaurants anymore. It is funny that Guy Fieri and Diners Drive Ins and Dives is the closest thing to a food show where people actually make food, not run around a grocery store or make cakes.

Why? Is this what the public wants? No. This is what lazy marketing people do. Laymen, people who aren't interested aren't going to watch Food Network. Whether it is a show about say Eric Ripert and Le Bernadin, or Guy Fieri hawking some hot dog dive. Anthony Bourdain left Food Network early on, as he saw what was coming.

Here is what I mean about "lazy marketing". Beano Cook once brought this up in another of his rants about local news, when we now have like 2 hours (some channels 3) of local news, yet no more sports than what was on when there was only 30 minute news broadcasts. And Beano would know since he was "in the business". He said the Program Directors would contract some marketing agency and they would send out questionnaires to viewers with "do you care about the score of the Tigers/White Sox game last night?" And in Pittsburgh, of course the answer would be "no". And the Marketing Agency would give them a report with pretty charts and "analytics" showing that there is not that much interest in sports, especially with ESPN. But there is interest in sports, locally just not a meaningless midseason baseball game.

Same with these cable channels. "Do you care about Chef XXXXX or NYC Restaurants" and people would respond "no". But they also don't care about the garbage they replaced it with. Just weird.

 

[RaleighPittFan]

He said the Program Directors would contract some marketing agency and they would send out questionnaires to viewers with "do you care about the score of the Tigers/White Sox game last night?" And in Pittsburgh, of course the answer would be "no". And the Marketing Agency would give them a report with pretty charts and "analytics" showing that there is not that much interest in sports, especially with ESPN. But there is interest in sports, locally just not a meaningless midseason baseball game.

Precisely why I never answer telephone questionnaires. Especially political ones. The questions and therefor the results are skewed to some degree from fact.