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Saturday 26 February 2011

Music: Revamped or Ruined...?



It was the beginning of 2nd year, and as per every September since 1987, my birthday. I hate birthdays, they involve a lot of fake screaming, too much cake eating and never enough vodka. On this particular champeigne year (my 19th, born on the 19th of the month) though, I opened an unexpected present from a friend: A beige- coloured shirt with the words, "No one cares about your blog" sprawled daringly across the front of it.I looked up, daunted. She smiled, knowingly, "It's totally you--bitchy, sarcastic." I laughed in agreement. It portrayed my thoughts perfectly-- blogs and live-journal, facebook, and Myspace were overly self-indulgent and pointless... and sure to fade after 15 minutes. And the shirt I held re-affirmed it, laughing in everyone's faces.
Naturally, here I sit, February 2011, writing a blog, my blog shirt stuffed in my pajama drawer. Turns out that while Myspace and Livejournal shared soft, quiet deaths, Facebook and Blogging still insist on taking a part of every modern person's life--even those of us who once rolled our eyes it. I guess all of us give in to the ways of our day eventually, whether we like it or not.
Even the senior citizens find themselves playing catch-up with today's ever-growing technology changes. Whenever I see a person above 50 fumbling with the small keys on a blackberry, I am torn between patting them patronizingly on the shoulder, and asking them for their BBM--And I don't even have a blackberry. I then wonder if they know the horrible mess our most recent pop stars are making of their (and more so their children's) once classic music. Have they heard the most recent, unashamedly explicit "Relax"? The once unforgettable tune known for its catchy beat and clever lyrical subtlety is now being exploited for its sexual content at least once an hour on Hot 89.9. Or how about "Right 'Round," which is currently dominated by the sluttastically wonderful but primarily musically untalented Ke$ha? Do these 55 plusers know anything of today's remix of "Video Killed the Radio Star"? Though the latter still remains the most catchy even after a devastating remix, I have a feeling that the generation before us (or before them) would cringe at the saddening downward spiral that the quality of present-day music seems to be taking. And rightfully so. I feel my soul shrink every time "Dirty Bit" from the Black-Eyed Peas gets another go on the radio.
I admit that we all cave and enjoy the things we are surrounded by, if indeed we are surrounded by them long enough, as exemplified by my writing this blog and old people with blackberrys...but is this all that's left of a once-awesome music industry? Is it all downhill from here, leaving us to learn to love an already-done, poorer quality of music? What do you think?

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