The Big Yawn


Read a piece in the paper a day or so by yet another entertainment writer, sniveling about what he referred to as anthemic songs. In a nutshell, his soapbox was covered with spittle over artists and songs he felt are vastly overplayed, over-rated, and entirely unnecessary. I think the spark for his piece was the latest single from Lady Gaga “Born This Way”, and he blasted songs from the past few decades including “I Will Survive”, “Greatest Love Of All”, and others similar (as in NOT recorded by some unknown indie artist only he and twelve other people worship).

At any rate, it gets a bit tiresome after awhile, all these “experts” blathering on about songs we need to be protected from. The problem is, most of the songs he referred to have sold multiple millions of copies, and the artists (for the most part, rehab stays excluded) have sold out arenas and stadiums to adoring fans since releasing many of the aforementioned songs.

Here’s my humble philosophy on this – taste is subjective, opinions don’t seem to be. Most critics feel that mass appeal is a symptom of poor taste, and therefore endeavour to shield us all from these offensive performers.

Really? Let’s put it this way – even the worst bubble gum music from the 1960’s STILL finds airplay somewhere. Yet have you seen a review from the 60’s anywhere? We all still remember the Gloria Gaynor hit “I Will Survive”, but are newspapers and websites ANYWHERE still running poor reviews of the song?

If someone can sell 20, 000,000 copies of a song, and sell out a 20,000 seat arena, I’ll listen to the critics when they can do the same thing with one of their reviews.

'Nuff said…

Chow for now!!