Skip to content or view screen version

Art and Industry: Feeding The Hand That Bites

Marc Haley | 17.10.2001 07:46

on the popular music industry: dealing with the commodification of artists (and a few who transcended): rock critic format

Art and Industry: Feeding The Hand That Bites
Art and Industry: Feeding The Hand That Bites


Art And Industry: feed the hand that bitesBy Marc Haley (editor, resistance is sex magazine)



Tori Amos appeared out of the cultural mainstream in the early late eighties with a solo album you never heard; Y Kant Tori Read?. Since then she has invoked Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell in an urge to write a new paragraph in the iconography of the female singer/songwriter...and ending up rivaling Billy Joel in the area of pianist as rock musician…five years after a shaky beginning she cast her eyes inward and produced little earthquakes of the soul that shook the music world: she was the media dah-ling of those pre-grunge years that are now fading into our collective memories. Her channelings of Bush and Mitchell became more tinged with her own stylistic feeling as years wore on. But this story is about art and the dollar, and the degredation of art forms and artists into commodities for the stock exchange... Human beings are artists, and vice versa. As humans, artists (I will be so bold as to include journalists in this group) are prone to emotional disasters, diseases, car wrecks, muggings and heartaches as well as successes. Kate Bush made it from obscurity to stardom in her youth; scoring her first gold record at a salty eighteen years old. Fiona Apple followed. But Fiona Apple and Tori Amos share an attribute that Kate Bush happily skated by: those aren’t their NAMES. Fiona Maggart and Myra Ellen Amos could not be viable commodities being themselves. As a rock critic I am inclined to ask, sincerely and with much meditation behind the question: What the FUCK is THAT all about? Le Capitalizme causes stink and rot and influenze, people dying in garrets suffering for art like poor Mimi! (of la Boheme) Capitalism is schizophrenia, this has been objectively proven by Sartre, DeLeuze, Guattari and other giants of le philosophie. And so these young women cannot make money being themselves, they are forced to self-commodify to respond to an art world that has ceased to be vital and dynamic and has become a buyers’ market. The iconnically masterful Riot Grrl Gwen Stefani has a kabbalistically POWERFUL name and therefore was able to capitalize on her selfhood but the theme of capitalism and the inherent self-denial it asks of true artists -- “I’m ’JUST’ a girl” is the cause of much sorrow and heartbreak on ALL levels of the artistic world, from the lonely self flagellations of the painter to the populist rants, chants and dances of today’s rock singer/songwriters. What is one to do when success is dictated not by the barometer of artistic control and integrity, but the negating and demeaning social guillotine of capital and the earning potential of the artist-as-industry-chattel?? This is seen in the insidious ‘pay-to-play’ methods of the 80s metal scene vampires of LA, wherein the successful bands (with the possible exception of Guns N’ Roses) made it in the street-cred hierarchies of the local scene by bringing as many beer drinkers to the bar as they could? (Small wonder that Bud Light © sponsored so many band battles in the nineties.) In short, integrity has become an antithesis in modern rock. Rage Against the Machine’s polemics and diatribes have been silenced with the mysterious absence of their driven former lead singer, Zach de la Rocha. (they rally ‘round the family/withtheir pockets full of shells). Replacing Zach is the camera-ready chris cornell of Soundgarden, and equally intense vocalist, but Rage are no more, and is this the fate of movements that strive to transcend the bounds of allegiance to the Corpocracy? The Tooth Shall Set Her Free Jewel’s story should speak to all of us who are attempting to “make it” as artists, as much for her cultural relevance as a resistor (RESISTOR!!!) as for her musical resonance. She threw off the chains of Corpocracy first thing, and lived in a van and suffered for her art for a few years, then the rest is Billboard history. And of course her songs are soulful ballads about the crises inherent in the spiritual adventure--asking who will save your soul if you can’t save own is practically a Gnostic paen. Many have criticized this young singer as being one who used her admittedly good looks to get ahead in the music world; yet her tooth, her famous and, early in her career, oft-mentioned tooth, she never resorted to oral surgery to have this “unsightly flaw” removed from her outer self. In bold antithesis to the millions of women who have for whatever reason submitted themselves to the torture-wrack of cosmetic surgeries. We must realize that: this schizophrenic value-misplacement is caused by a sinister culprit, a daemon that has drained the souls of its victims since its misbegotten inception. It cares not who it rapes or kills as long as its appetite for human blood and souls is slaked. How can we as artists, writers, dancers, thespians et al conceive of a world wherein our artistic integrity is valued more deeply than our selling power? One answer is obvious, and has slowly begun to happen due to the dimmed light of MTV as a marketer of real musical genius. (still a rocker, I gotta diss my former fave, MTV, sorry, Serena) Once grunge was co-opted it became rational to conclude that any act with real tunes, real integrity would make it big before going to MTV or any of its clones. Pearl Jam are notorious for dissing the system and acting in the idea of freedom and righteous anarchy, they aren’t selling records like they used to, but they are rocking harder than ever live—so, like, “F” MTV, they don’t decide who rocks and who sucks, musicians and music lovers do. Practice is still more important than hair. People who hate Britney Spears need to get motivated by a different emotion. Britney Stuck it out and succeeded as a singer and a good-looking woman. Wasn’t it Fred Durst who said ‘ya wanna hate me now?’ over and over? She made it big because she used her talents, the talents she was born with and the ones she developed paying dues. Dues paying has been part of the musical tradition since before Whitey co-opted Muddy Waters and sent Robert Johnson to hell begging for beer money. People better recognize. The point of this is simple, actually: as long as we let the greedy rich dictate who makes it and who does not we will be forced to listen to puerile cock-rock that sounds lame and leaves a negative aftertaste that nonetheless compels us to go out and buy, buy, buy and further feed the hand that bites. Period.

Marc Haley
- e-mail: MKnightshade@excite.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.angelfire.com/realm/mutants

Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. Utter Bollox — intruder
  2. Is this a code? — Paxman
  3. just need to ge onto his spiritual level — lyelo
  4. there's still some good music about — dwight heet