by antiGUY

Somehow the Darwin theory has missed the music industry. Survival of the fittest just doesn't seem to apply to the record industry; because talent does not always equal success. What the Hell is here to explore some questionable "Artists" and why they have become popular, let alone got a record deal in the first place. Don't worry if you disagree you will have the opportunity to plead your case for these "Artists". What the Hell is also a place where antiGUY sounds off on entertainment topics that are pissing him off at the moment.

Call me crazy but when I go to a live show, I expect it to be live. I can sit home and watch videos or listen to a CD if I want a canned performance. But with every advance in technology, true live performances are becoming harder and harder to find. Artists and their handlers just have too many tools of the trade to help provide a less than live performance. 

The recent Ashlee Simpson and Eminem SNL performances play a little into this but TV performances really have to meet a lower standard. It's pretty common for lip-synching to take place in this venue. Iron Maiden once made fun of the fact when they were asked to perform on "Top of the Pops" and they required the band lip-synch, so the group protested by clowning around trading instruments during the performance. 

The real problem comes when people pay good money to see an artist perform live and they instead get a bogus show. This practice is more and more prevalent with pop singers and rap stars, but some rockers do it to.  And with all the "studio magic" available in this day and age and the fact that artists are getting signed before they have a chance to really "earn their bones" with live shows and develop their talent, it's becoming more and more necessary for these "artists" to hit the stage with any number of tricks to cover up their shortcomings. 

I ran into a veteran keyboardist the other night after a show. As usually happens, the discussion revolved around music. He has an impressive resume with rock artists as well as a long stint with a 80s "new wave" band. He was joking, relating the story of when he first joined that group and the other members were amazed that he actually wanted to play all of the keyboard parts live, instead of relying on prerecorded tracks. This shows that the problem isn't new by any means. Using prerecorded backing music tracks is one thing but when did canned vocals become acceptable? Would you rather see them dance around stage or concentrate on really singing? Do you feel cheated paying upwards of $50 - $75 to see a "live" performance that is anything but live?  Are standards now that low? 

The music business faces two divergent trends. The lowering of standards for the artists and the rising costs of attending concerts. So in the end you are getting far less bang for your buck. I always keep my ticket stubs and I went and saw an artist the other night perform at the House of Blues. The general admission ticket cost $35.00 (not counting all of the Ticketmaster "convenience" fees and facility charges, which came to $10.35). Then I looked back to the first time I saw this artist play an arena in 1988. The ticket price then was $12.50 for some really good seats. So in 16 years the price of tickets almost tripled and you get a far smaller scale show. But a far worst example is KISS. I saw them with Anthrax in 1987 and paid $13.50 for the ticket. Ten years later I went and saw the farewell tour and paid out $85 just for the ticket, don't get me started on the convenience charges!  

So if I paid out $85 to $125 to see say the "Jay Z and R.Kelly" tour and found one of them using canned tracks, I wouldn't be a happy camper. But again, within some genres the standards appear to be lower. We see this with Eminem's appearance on SNL this past week. Em was clearly using, at minimum, backing vocal tracks. But his fans didn't seem to care. In fact, a lot of them excuse it by saying "that's standard with rappers," and "they always use recorded tracks for the chorus". My question is, if you are getting a fake show why would you pay top dollar to see what you can see on MTV for the cost of basic cable? 

We are getting less credible artists that cost more to see. The rising cost of concerts is a big issue, it really hurt the 2004 touring season. When the tours came out and jacked up the prices even more this past season it finally hit a brick wall and a lot of tours suffered or were even cancelled because people reached their breaking point.  

This is indicative of the music business as it stands today on the whole. The business wants big immediate payoffs and as a result the quality drops. Because it's easy to appeal to the lowest common denominator with a pop artist with a limited shelf life and tally up millions in sales. All the while artists that have some artistic integrity and credibility are not given an honest shot at a career. Sure they may get a record deal but if the album doesn't sell like hotcakes, many are not given another chance at building a fan base. The concept of artist development is no longer the rule in the music biz. Get in, get out and cash in. Bands that could be really profitable for a record company in the long run are not getting the chance at a career. Even bands that reach what used to be a hallmark of success, a "gold record," are getting dropped so the labels can fill the market with gimmick cash cows.  Some would argue the business motivation behind this are sound but as we've seen over the past few years where the market has been over saturated with "pop fluff", when the bubble burst the labels didn't have much to fill the void. So when sales slipped because the kids grew out of boybands and poptarts, the labels scratched their heads wondering what happened. 

There are numerous examples of the soundness of smaller collective profit for a number of credible bands that can establish a long term fanbase and just may have a big breakthrough hit if given the chance. One band that fits that mold is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band that for years were anything but on the mainstream radar. But they were allowed to develop as artists and grow their fanbase over a number of years and albums. It took the Chili Peppers four albums before they even went gold. In today's world they would have never remained on a major label that long. But their fifth album became a monster hit, going platinum seven times over. The follow-up went double platinum and the album after that went five times platinum. So you have 14 million cds sold with a band that would never have had the chance in today's market. 

I know there are a lot of considerations that go into the equation for the labels. It is not cheap to break a new artist. And when given the choice between a pop star they can invest in with the hope of a massive return or a rock band that may be profitable but nowhere near the payoff of the pop star, they are going to go with the pop star. But the problem they face now is people are bored with the pop stars. You can try the wolf in sheep's clothing approach and dress a pop star up as a rocker like Ashlee but then you risk exposure for trying to pull off that slight of hand when the artist's limitations are exposed. 

Even multi-platinum artists are not able to cut it live these days.  In the 80s it was not inconceivable for an artist to have a gold album and be out headlining theatres or even arenas. Fans didn't think twice about spending a little over the cost of a CD to see a live band perform.  Over the past decade, this has changed drastically. Even a band like 3 Doors Down that sold 6 million copies of their debut album was playing halls and large clubs, not arenas and when some of today's platinum level artists want to play arenas they have to do so in a package tour with other platinum level artists.  People knock Linkin Park, but they are one the few "new generation" bands that can pack arenas because they purposely keep their ticket prices down. 

As you can see the latest lip-synching fiascos are only but a symptom of what ails the music business. The pop bubble of the 90s had a lot of negative effects on the business and this is just one them. The bubble has burst but unlike when the "Dot-Com" bubble burst, which made online companies that wanted to survive, reexamine their business models and wake up to reality, the music business still appears to want to keep their head in the sand and look for scapegoats.  It boils down to the age-old rule that 'you may be able to cash in on a trend in the short term, but if you want continued success you really need to focus on quality'. Because people will only buy so much crap before they get sick of it.