Large Man Upsets Producers of Horrible PopTV Show
Acon Tributor | 03.12.2001 15:57
A blow is struck against manufactured music as a purported e-mail campaign appears to have undermined the 'ideal' image of saleable pop people.
"Pop Idols" (ITV, most sat evenings) was inaugurated on the trail of the inexplicably successful "Pop Stars" earlier this year.With publicity provided by the tabloid press, the format was much the same; a set of nasty cynical judges grill, sift and discard a crew of young, hopeful, naieve, chancers until they come up with a formula designed to take as much money from the public, particularly young children, as possible. This time, however, they may have made a mistake in allowing the public a considerable say in choosing, via phone-in, their so-called idol, and the signs are that the same public is getting a little tired with the invitiation to partcipate in their own manipulation.
Quite why the judges are so ultra-nasty is a mystery, for the lack of talent on offer is self evident. One judge described the controversial large man as a "fat geezer". Another opined that he was only in the running as part of an e-mail campaign designed to wreck the show (which i cannot verify). At this point I started watching for real, having only left the TV on at all due to laziness. Now, Many of the female contestants had been praised, not for their singing talents (the point of the show ) but for thier conventional good looks, in as boorishly condescending a way as imaginable. Something seemed to be very wrong...
Sure enough, when the votes were counted, the large man had narrowly won through, and he will be in the finals, whatever that entails. The question is, what will the producers do next ? A film entitled "Game Show" was made some time ago, which dealt with the true story of a quiz in the USA where the most successful contestant simply did not fit the stereotype, to the embarrassment of the studio. Lets keep an eye on "Pop Idols" and see what happens.
PS LATE NITE SHOW, THE WEB REVIEW, HAS JUST AWARDED JOHN PILGERS WEBSITE [www.pilger.carlton.com] 8/10.
Quite why the judges are so ultra-nasty is a mystery, for the lack of talent on offer is self evident. One judge described the controversial large man as a "fat geezer". Another opined that he was only in the running as part of an e-mail campaign designed to wreck the show (which i cannot verify). At this point I started watching for real, having only left the TV on at all due to laziness. Now, Many of the female contestants had been praised, not for their singing talents (the point of the show ) but for thier conventional good looks, in as boorishly condescending a way as imaginable. Something seemed to be very wrong...
Sure enough, when the votes were counted, the large man had narrowly won through, and he will be in the finals, whatever that entails. The question is, what will the producers do next ? A film entitled "Game Show" was made some time ago, which dealt with the true story of a quiz in the USA where the most successful contestant simply did not fit the stereotype, to the embarrassment of the studio. Lets keep an eye on "Pop Idols" and see what happens.
PS LATE NITE SHOW, THE WEB REVIEW, HAS JUST AWARDED JOHN PILGERS WEBSITE [www.pilger.carlton.com] 8/10.
Acon Tributor
Comments
Hide the following 17 comments
Great
03.12.2001 16:54
Moody
very good point/much more to it that that
03.12.2001 18:01
Did you know that the vast array of music magazines published in the UK are all printed by three companies.
PLC, EMAP and Future Publishing these three also have interests in other "sectors" of the music business.
They also publish hundreds of other magazines covering every aspect of modern day life, with shit loads of undeclared conflicts of interest.
Future publishing for example owns a big computer retail chain, and of course one of the best selling computer mags
in which they publish supposedly independent articles
bigging up the store.
apart from making vast fortunes by manufacturing CD's and publishing music, the big bucks are made by using the (crap) music to market a whole range of goods from Sony Walk mans,
to designer label clothes and even cars and yuppy life styles.
The Spice supposedly picked up a millon each just from Pepsi.
RECLAIM THE MUSIC
LB
Luther Blissett
down with the pop rats
03.12.2001 19:16
yes, i saw it all; it was hilarious, and im relieved to see im not the only indy reader who watches junko saturday evening telly !
its about time someone stuffed those smarmy pop judges with their revolting remarks, and what a pleasure to see the master plan going wrong in front of their very eyes! glad too that conceited christian nut didnt get through. o hell, who cares who wins! they'll all be forgotten within a year at most, so if the big chap can get some money to put in his pension fund for a rainy future, i sort of wish him luck.
fortunately he seems fairly robust about the judges deluge of insults ; rock n roll is a heart- breaking career after all.
auguste
more of the same
03.12.2001 23:24
So there we have it. The music and the means of making music dominated by business degree students and marketing departments...
"Don't belive the hype!"
;-)
mustermann
The recording press
04.12.2001 00:01
In other words, they're not making money by selling the magazine, they're making money by selling access to potential buyers to their advertisers.
The role these mags are playing in inducing us to keep junking and replacing technology in response to manufacturer's needs seems obvious. Even tools to create with are subject to the whims of the almighty Global Marketing Department.
It only took a few years for modular digital multitracks to kick the props out from the market for analog; I saw hard-disk systems do the same to digital multitrack tape in even less time; pretty soon the HD manufacturers will go 96kHz/24bit and we'll all be told that our tools, which still work as well as they ever did, are now crap and we've got to mortgage the ranch to replace them with the next soon-to-be-obsolete toy.
I've got nothing against trying to improve the fidelity of recoding technology, but this constant churning of the market can't be a good thing.
The more you're in debt for the latest round of shiny new toys, the more reason you have to avoid doing anything new and of uncertain sales potential in favor of cranking out more of the same old crap that made so much money the last time, and the more reason you have to go along with reducing music to a product as standarized and repetitive as a bag of McDonalds' fries.
To make things worse, the thugs and gangsters who once ran the music industry have largely been replaced by a lot of lawyers and MBAs and things. The result hasn't been a visible improvement in the industry's business ethics, and it's turned out that the thugs and gangsters had better ears and broader minds.
The Shnoz
right but what are we going to do about it
04.12.2001 07:55
Music week magazine is almost the bible of the worlds music
business in Europe Although it's UK based it gives a good idea of what is going on, who is selling and how much.
It tells you who has left which major company and joined whoever. and so on, if you want to know how the music business work Music week and is a good read. Does FONO
still exist, I was subscribed to both some years ago..
It seems that everyone (so far) agrees on this and as long as no one mentions that the Jews are running things oooops we might be able to get onto what to do.
As Schnoz says lawyers are king rats and it's been like that for a while if you record a song that is similar to say the
a stones track, as did the Verve, Bitter Sweet, you don't get mick jagger on your case you get the publisher what he called levy/Levine, something like that. That's one of the dirtyest parts of music , it all goes back to the 1950's when people like Freddie King were on the scene , Clapton nicked his style, their music was called the dirty blues
and white people , especially women weren't allowed to listen to it. But then along comes John Mayall, Derek Clapped Out, amd the Rolling Stones to make this music acceptable to white people and bang the start of a multi million pound business starts off. They set up all kinds of categories, Pop comes from popular which means of the people. A lot of the songs
supposedly written by white folk in the sixties were actually ripped off from black folk who wrote them in the 40's and 50's but had not registered them, what was the point ?
But once they had been registered by people like Levy and co
even playing them backwards or any thing deemed similar they want not just a share of the rights but all of them and if you didn't ask permission and it makes money they go for the copyright as well.
The Irish are well known for rebel music and good luck to them , but a lot of the songs they sing are english, english folk was limited Pentangle, Steeleye Span and a few other groups. Irish music is massive right around the globe, heaven forbid english rebel songs on the radio. Punk was a sort of music revolution which wasswallowed whole by the music biz once they had made a few million it was dead, even if Green Day and Off Spring are still going on the punk pop scene. I made a 72 with both of 'em ten years ago.
Now we get to the stage where we have arse hole record exec's like the dickhead from limp biscuit, street creds ? fuck dat scumbag !!!
But what can we do about it ??? it's our music and it's our popular expression I am very interested in opening a forum
on music and other aspects of media multi media if anyone on
indymedia is up for it that is.
The TV is shite, football is shite,going to the mainstream cinema is shite, the pubs are having a hard time.
If we could start real 'independent music' (Alan Mc Gee's Creation is supposed to be Indy) real indy film clubs and what better place than the local pub, after all to show a film you just need a decent sized room a large TV and a video, and lot's of people make music in their bedrooms or round their mates houses, all the people on my label anyway.
LB
lairdbairn
e-mail:
lairdbairn@ziplip.com
Mr Blisset
04.12.2001 09:58
What is the background behind being named after the esteemed Footy player? or are you really the man? left football for a career in subverted politics?
Lots of Love
Paxman
Paxman
whats in a name 2 paxman
04.12.2001 10:22
some of these links might not work but a lot do.
Luther blissett is a multiple there are at least three on IMC and hundreds around the world so you might not get the same one next time, but as i said whats in a name ???
did you ever hear of DJ PAX he was one of the best people i ever met , unfortunately died earlier this year .
respect to him and all the best to your self .. LB
Blissett
Open Pop Info page links
Guy Debord
Open Pop Star Itemised Links
Open Pop Luther Blissett Links
Blissett english
Luther blissett
Radiohead in America
04.12.2001 13:13
Now I'm not sure on the details - maybe other readers will know more about this? But as far as I understood it, they used many internet sites in order to 'sell' their new releases which they made available for download. They avoided the typical routes of marketing i.e. building up advertising on the radio/television. And instead built up their fan base almost exclusively through web sites.
When playing live shows, they avoided the typical American venues also, and therefore the pitfalls of Ticketmaster, and instead played 'strange' venues - or just places they could erect a stage.
The tickets for these shows apparently sold out straight away, making them the most successful British band in America since the Stones or some such claim.
My general point is that maybe there is space to avoid all these bastard Record Companies and maybe bands/acts can start to take control of their own affairs a bit more. If this is correct then there is nothing to stop a bands' reputation growing through discussion forums on the internet, and other such means. As I said at the beginning though, my understanding of this is not complete and I would welcome any further comment on how Radiohead achieved there apparent success.
Berty Bassett
Re: Radiohead...
04.12.2001 14:03
Radiohead didn't need to advertise or get big radio play because anyone without their head rammed way, way up their anus already knew that Radiohead was really, really good, and whatever they put out was probably worth buying.
chris
PS Pearl Jam also tried the "fuck ticketmaster" thing and as I recall they failed miserably - ie they weren't able to put together a tour that avoided Ticketmaster venues. C'est la view.
chris
e-mail:
cprice@imsmaxims.com
Re: Radiohead ( cont'd )
04.12.2001 14:11
chris
chris
pop culture has realised debords fears.
04.12.2001 14:50
Think how entire decades are now reduced top the pop trash of the day "I Love 1987", with just a bit of the poltical thrown in as background.
As for the cynical money making antics of the record producers, it reaches proportions guaranteed to make you cry: for example, the Spice Girls were deliberately concocted to appeal to a fan base of age 10, with an image designed to a concept of what that age group thinks it must be like to be grown-up. Truly terrible.
But, the fact that people en masse have rebelled on the occasion by voting for Mr Big (Rick, his name, by the way) is cause for relief. The more you read about Rick, the more you warm to him; seems he had to pull out of school becuase of bullying over his size, and that messed up his exams. He needs the cash i imagine, so he'll get my vote !!!
Acon Tributor
yep the link is there
04.12.2001 18:33
here it is again ..
LB
Luther blissett
yep the link this their
04.12.2001 21:05
with about 20.000 other blissett orientated links..
RECLAIM THE MUSIC
LB
Luther Blissett
Don't have a cow!
04.12.2001 22:05
Robbie Williams
Obviously, "Robbie Williams"
07.12.2001 14:30
Acorn Tributor
da phonk
12.12.2001 01:57
Robbie Williams