In the age of Justin Beiber and Nicki Minaj, what hope is there for the world? Where have all the talented people gone? Believe me, they exist. In fact they are pushing the limits every day, taking musicianship to heights once inconceivable. Why do we not hear about these people?

You can surely find them on the internet, trying to get their voices and instruments heard, but why is it that they have to struggle to promote their art, while the auto-tuned, monotonous songs of today win Grammys at the drop of the bass?

Nowadays, you can just grab any extroverted young person, throw them into the lion’s den that is a record label, and watch as they make millions off a completely computerized song with a standard hook and bump-bump beat, and a single repeated line about sex in a club or getting wasted. Add a few ‘la-la-la’s or ‘yo-yo-yo’s, slap on some skimpy outfits or skimpily clad women (or both) and voila! You have the latest platinum hit!

Excuse me for being bitter, but the fact is, not only are people being exploited here, but the youth are being conditioned to believe that this glorified promiscuity, alcoholism, and mindless consumerism is the way to be and perfectly normal.

Preteen kids are dirty dancing and religiously singing about taking a random woman home for a one night stand. Fashion now dictates that women dress with less clothing than prostitutes, more make up than clowns, and shoes that can be used to stab someone.

Oh and of course, they must be skinnier than a starving child. Meanwhile men should treat women accordingly, like they are cheap and disposable. This is pop culture today. If you think I’m being too harsh, I hate to break it to you but you’re being ignorant and biased.

You would think that the way it works is a song is played on the radio and most people like it, so the record sells, the song is requested frequently, and that’s how it becomes the biggest hit on the airwaves. Wrong.

Big time record companies hype up an artist, very often creating their look, their sound, their lyrics, and get radio stations playing the same song a dozen times a day.

So you fall for the biggest trick in the book. It’s manufactured popularity, and your brain is simply conditioned to that kind of music, that kind of behavior.

In the 70s it was mostly disco on the radio, so that’s what people loved then. That changed in the 80s, along with the fashion. It was grunge in the 90s, and now we have the most mindless kinds of music yet. It’s mind control, and you’re so deeply under the spell that you can’t see its effects.

Gone are the soul searching, loving words of Michael Jackson, gone are the thought provoking lyrics of The Beatles, gone are the skillful, soulful sounds of Hendrix and Clapton, gone are the orchestral wonders of the great composers our ancestors knew to appreciate.

One day, mark my words, as this zombie apocalypse staggers towards its climax, there will be no musical instruments. Those of us who refuse to resort to this primitive womp-womp-wub-wub atrocity that desecrates the word ‘music’; we will take pleasure in the sound of silence.

For now, I urge you to remember, we have access to thousands of different kinds of music. Do not waste it on mindless drivel. Open your ears and your mind, listen to the symphony of sound that comes with real instrumentation, the fuzzy old recordings with all their colour and feel! You don’t know what you’re missing.

By Alice D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvmm45mZ7fg