Not even vaguely true.
You don't know what you're talking about. As usual.
Google The Monkees sometime. Or the original meaning of Payola.
The Monkees were, in effect, the converse of the Brittany Spears situation -- they were a reasonably talented group of musicians who could have done fine had they been produced as such, but actually entered into an agreement to perform in a television series as comics -- a contract they regretted before it was over. It was not a situation where an untalented individual (Spears, Marriah, Madonna) were thrust into the music business then promoted as musicians. No doubt, the Monkees weren't the Beatles or Rubenstein. But they were capable musicians who were constrained by their contract.
Today, many "artists" are chosen based not on their musicianship but on their value as a promotable asset. Meanwhile, artists of great quality (like Over The Rhine) languish because they lack the stage show production support which generates music sales.
As to Payola, this is a different subject altogether. There has always been payola and always will be.
Payola never implied poor musicianship.
Today, the producer is everything. A Clive Davis can take a raw turd like Brittany Spears and make a star out of them. Most any Americal Idol winner to date has been at least as strong a candidate at Spears or Mariah, and some of the second choices -- Fantasia, Kathryn McPhee, and Carrie Underwood all are better talents than Spears ever could be, for example.
Some bright people in the music business -- including Simon Cowell -- have figured that out. Talent is a necessary but not a sufficient component for creating a music star.
40 years ago, musicianship was everything and a producer would simply mold it. The producer's role really expanded with The Beatles and George Martin. Today, most acts have become totally about the producer and the hunk of meat who becomes the talent is secondary.
How many really, really talented popular musicians can you name from the last 10 years? Unfortunately, even in classical the role of the producer has started to escalate in the way it has with popular music. |
