Video Killed the Musical Artist

Recently I had a discussion about this year’s Video Music Awards on MTV, and how terrible they were. I saw from many different media outlets that the reviews of the show were far from kind. Almost everyone with a voice in popular culture had skewered the program, commenting on the pace, presenters, performers and how all of it was tired and trite. Basically, the VMAs sucked. But it is not hard to see why. The show has not really been anything fun or spontaneous for a long time, and the reason is quite simple. MTV long ago stopped being a reflection of what is hip and current with pop culture and music and became an entity that creates and shapes it. Watch their broadcasts, they tell you what is hip and cool. They instruct you with what you should be listening to, how to dress, and act and form opinions on what music is good and worth listening to as opposed to bringing the latest in music as it is happening. They have changed the face of music from something dynamic and meaningful to a product that they can package and sell, and when it gets stale, they can change the packaging and resell it again.

They advertise their live programs as hip, cool, unscripted and wild where anything can happen. Yes, anything can happen, as long as it is in the pre approved script. The last time something truly wild happened, a member of Rage Against The Machine climbed up into the set decoration on the stage. What happened? After they had security and stage personnel pull him out, which took a while and obviously made some of the presenters and award winners very uncomfortable, they had him arrested. MTV arrested a man for being wild and unscripted. Amazing. So much for their being wild and unscripted. All of their wildness is preplanned, scripted and pre approved before live broadcast for proper mass consumption. They employ VJs, hosts and other personnel who are milquetoast, bland and safe and then dress them up in ridiculous clothing and call them cutting edge. If they ever came across someone who would shake things up, they would never even make it to an air date.

This is nothing new. Look at the history of MTV, you can see where this was a conscious decision and where the change happened. It happened in the early 90’s, when MTV got caught with their pants down and missed two major movements in music. They were too flushed with their successes of being successful in bringing music to the television medium. They were tight with bands of the 80’s and made the career of many artists through the exposure of television. But while they were busy patting themselves on the back, movements were already in motion that would bring a fundamental change to the network.

The changes came to two staples of MTV, rap and rock. In rap, the ascendance of gansta rap was pushing its way to the forefront of black culture, and making inroads into white culture as well. Angry, intelligent rap groups from poor neighborhoods were coming out with incendiary, and meaningful, songs about what life really was like in the ghetto. They spun lyrics with a message and a purpose. Groups like NWA, Public Enemy and Ice-T were letting the world know what it was like, how they were treated for being young black males and sending messages to the black community of empowerment and strength.

In rock, there were growing voices of disenchantment and anger. Young, fresh voices were emerging, tired of the established musical power bases and the sham and spectacle that rock had become, losing the point that it is a powerful medium that can convey messages and create a flashpoint of change. They hit the stage looking like they rolled out of bed, because teased hair and heavy makeup had nothing to do with piercing riffs and pummeling lyrics. They spoke to a generation that had been overshadowed by the preceding ones, and of how they did not care for their world, and looking directly to the mess they made of it, and the reality of what their future might be thanks to them.

MTV missed the boat with both of these, big time. While they were still trotting Skid Row, Poison, Warrant and others of the like out, groups like Nirvana, Mudhoney, Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails were out amongst the people, finding ever growing followings of disaffected youth tired of the same old sound, and the same old message. They were looking for something more as they came into their own, something they could use to change the world. While MTV was pimping MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and MC Lyte, artists like the aforementioned NWA, Public Enemy and Ice-T were also pulling in their own legions of fans and followers. Youth tired of living life like forgotten citizens of this nation, abused by the system and authorities because of their economic plight and the color of their skin. People angry of having the deck stacked so high against them, and ready for a change of culture.

So how did everything change? How did we go from what looked like a sure revolution of not merely culture, but of power? How did these to powder kegs of anger and potential change become diffused? They became irrelevant in rather ingenious and subtle ways. MTV stopped rap by absorbing them into the system, which is how you always quiet dissident voices. Ice Cube and Ice-T are actors now. LL Cool J is a fashion model. Flava Flav is a reality show joke and Snoop Dogg is a warm and cuddly product spokesman and a fun guest on talk shows. They are no longer threatening; they are part of the establishment. You know they will no longer rage against the man who kept them down; they have lunch with him instead. It’s not that any of them forgot where they came from, nor that they sold out, they just got pulled into the fold. It is historically the easiest, cleanest and most convenient way any establishment has found through the years to stop any voice that disagrees with them.

They also cleverly wrapped their arms around the rap movement. Suddenly, everyone was into hard core gansta rap. But by embracing it, they could also control it better. And when that happened, they diluted it. They started promoting more groups that were less about a message than about an image. The lyrics went from incendiary indictments of modern day life to little more than egotistical rants about how much money these pretenders made, how many women they slept with, how bad they were, how many guys they capped and how tough they were for living life on their terms. By controlling the movement, you changed the song from message to image; it became a fashion statement and a lifestyle to be sold to bored suburban white kids as opposed to a message of truth and a dose of reality of the life of inner city black men. For all its subtlety, it was a brilliant move. They completely took the power away and gave it to themselves, and thereby made themselves the purveyor of popular culture.

They stopped rock by letting it die and saturating us with it. They saturated the airwaves with second and third generation knockoffs that did not have anything to say either, but could whine and moan and play a few licks of guitar. Eventually, the airwaves were so full of third rate junk, and the flavor of the week, it was hard to find anything with a message again. The bands that said something began to quickly drop off or deluged under the tidal wave of mediocrity and the few that were left became either corporate shills or tired of fighting the good fight and just faded away. By seeing how much they could push the knockoffs and crap and how quickly it could be eaten up, a lesson MTV learned in the 80’s pushing crappy hair metal bands, they pushed their advantage even further and made the careers of more middling talent that had nothing to say, thus bringing around another round of talk questioning if is rock was dead. No, it was not, just buried under crap, but people started to get bored and walk away, both performers and consumers.

But the most brilliant move they did was to take the power away from both movements by merging them. They promoted and pimped beyond belief crappy rap/rock fusion bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn, who had absolutely nothing to say and sounded like crap, as the next big thing. These bands kept everyone distracted from anything in music of import for years, and set both movements back at least 10 years. Plus, the movement was not anything new, as this was a style of music that began with Anthrax in the mid 80’s, punctuated by a fantastic melding of cultures with the Public Enemy/Anthrax dual single, a remake of PE’s Bring Tha Noize. It had the power and strength of rock combined with the punch and incendiaries of rap when it had meaning. But, that was unfortunately short lived, and lost to the annals of time. And when these crappy bands came out and started mixing the two again, basically having the middling talent of rock at that point and the fluff of what rap lyrics had becomet, well, it was easy to see that something so bland and safe would easily be spoon-fed to the masses, very marketable and profitable and most importantly, help solidify the power of MTV as the creator of culture, not merely the reflection of it.

One additional way was to change their programming. By the point where they suddenly realized they were behind the times, MTV had expanded its programming greatly. They had many shows that reflected current music, but they were niche shows that were on during vampire hours, when no one would watch them. These shows were nothing more than lip service to what was out there other than top 40. But once they realized how behind they were, they made radical changes. They quickly began creating programs to bring in rock bands and have them perform. The creation of the Unplugged series was brilliant. Not only could you see your favorite bands in a new light, but it also provided MTV with four great aspects to their overall mission to rule popular culture. One, they made a mint selling the CD’s of these performances, filling their coffers and making them feel as though they really were creating popular culture and thus emboldening them further. Two, with everyone wanting to watch their favorite bands, the ratings for the cable station began to rise and enabled them to charge more for advertising. Especially advertising for the coveted 18-34 year old market, which to those on Madison Avenue is as good as gold. With this influx of young viewers, advertisers began to look more often, and more seriously, at MTV for keys to trends within the youth market. Three, with having these bands come in and perform, MTV was able to sidle up to them and become friends with them, offer them preferential treatment, and bring them in closer. The best way to quiet dissident voices is to bring them into the fold. And fourth, by showing some of these harder edged bands in a softer light, it took some of the power away from their anger and message. Without that power, some would forget the importance of the message.

They pushed out some of their niche shows and buried others, making sure there would be no new surprises. To keep an eye on any new trends, they put shows on in primetime. They created Total Request Live, to hear what people wanted, and made sure they knew about it long before it was ever requested. They green lighted Beavis and Butthead. This may sound like it might be an absurd assumption, but B & B did two things for them. It gave them instant credibility with young 20 something’s for being hip and cutting edge. The humor on the show was very unconventional and different than previous cartoons, along the lines of the freshness seen from The Simpsons in its first five or so seasons. By airing a show of this nature, MTV automatically culled some of the edgier acolades that B & B were generating. Comedy Central would raise its own profile in the late 90s in the same way when they took a chance on South Park. And second, due to the nature of B & B, and the built in part of the show where they aired videos that most never saw, MTV was also able to keep an eye on what people reacted to and were able to make sure nothing slipped past them. This is why they were able to be right there on top of things when White Zombie blew up. Brilliant in its subtly.

Music used to move in a very cyclical nature. You can look back through the last half century and see different movements come every 10 years or so. Sometimes it would be a little quicker, sometimes it would take a little more time. But there was always something new that came, usually around the same time something old was reintroduced in a new way. Now, I am not sure how music will change. With the rise of digital music, the variety of ways to listen to and take music with you, the rise of online content and new methods of distribution, it is hard to gauge the next movement. But, with the ease of creating music and putting it in the hands of fans now easier than ever before, the ability for a few industrious and talented artists to make a real difference, affect change and get a message out to the masses can once again be in the hands of those who create, not those that dictate.