Reply #30: I think the climate has changed due to the corporatization of music.

[SmileyBoy]

This is the first time in history (past 20 years or so) where popular music and marketing have been intertwined. Instead of a popular group or artist being so because he/she decided to break the boundaries of the musical mores (Elvis, Beatles), or that he/she had strong popular feelings embodied in their songs (Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan), You've got popular groups (or who are SUPPOSED to be popular) obtaining their popularity due to reasons other than their music. Their looks, for example (Nelly, N'sync, Limp Biskit, Britney, Christina). It's all marketing now. It's all focus groups and test studies to see what the lowest common denominator is with the best looks, and try to appeal that to the widest demographic of people you can find. It's all about wanting to reach a more massive audience nowadays. And the more massive the crowd the corporations try to appeal to past a certain point (say 90 percent of young people), the more dilluted the music is going to be. Because the corporations for the first time are having a say in how these artists music should be written and performed. The artists don't have 100 percent say in it anymore. And of course, the corporations (MTV, ClearChannel) are all behind this dillution of music, and it's really wounding the spirit of American and Western music, IMO. And in that proccess, the factors of musical talent that are supposed to embody popular music and why it bacame popular has been co-opted.