The 2012 run of The X Factor was considered unsuccessful when looking at the viewing figures. An average of 8.2 million viewers tuned in each week to watch members of the public aspiring to be pop stars sing in front of four judges who have been successful in the music industry.
Talent shows are popular all the world over, with around 40 different countries airing their own versions of the X Factor, along with other talent shows such as Britain’s Got Talent. Many contestants appear on the show starry eyed, enamoured with the world of celebrity and desperate to become famous themselves, and you can search on Youtube for hundreds of “amazing” performances, however one performance on the 2012 Australia’s Got Talent stood out to me particularly and got me thinking.
28 year old blues guitarist Owen Campbell caused quite a stir when he took on the judges, infuriating Westlife singer Brian Mcfadden with the sarcastic words “my aim isn’t to be in a boy band, chief”. Furthermore, Campbell mistook Kyle Sandilands name for “Karl” and cheekily remarked that seeing Dannii Minogue was “a pleasure, as always.” The judges sent Campbell packing, before he supposedly apologised to the show and went through to the next round after his second audition.
When critiquing Owen’s performance, Brian Mcfadden remarked that “to be in this industry you gotta have smarts”, adding that “if you act like an arse people aren’t going to like you”. Dannii Minogue asked the question: “At 28, why is it that you’re that talented and you haven’t made it yet”, as though his choice to busk and travel must mean that there is something wrong with him. A few minutes earlier Owen Campbell had moved the crowd to their feet with a great performance, yet the judges sent him home for a reason that had nothing to do with the musical performance he had given. What were they judging Campbell on then? This got me thinking: it’s obvious that if someone is going to be difficult to work with then they will struggle to get a record deal, but is a musical act really about the music anymore, or has the music just become a small part of a bigger product? In short, how much of a role does the actual sound of the music play in influencing what we decide to listen to?
It seems to me that the physical music is becoming less and less important to us as consumers. Musicians are closely watched and their personal lives scrutinised, and there’s an expectation for pop musicians in particular to keep in shape and look as appealing as they can in order to sell their “product”. In his song “Speak for Me”, John Mayer laments the music which is currently circulating:
“Now the cover of a Rolling Stone,
Ain’t the cover of a Rolling Stone.
And the music on my radio,
Ain’t supposed to make me feel alone”
In my mind there is a confliction. We search Itunes and cd shops for something to listen to, but often factors other than the sound of the artist determine whether we buy it or not. It would be too easy just to say that music is dying, that modern musicians are in some way selling out. Frank Sinatra was an iconic celebrity, and not just because of his music, though few would doubt his talent. Similarly Elvis Presley became a cultural icon, so it seems that the idea of music and image being intertwined is not a particularly new one. And it isn’t just the musicians themselves who are obsessed with image: many fans of musical acts dress accordingly. How many people go to a Slipknot concert with a shirt and tie and their hair in a parting?
In 1979, The Buggles released the song “Video Killed the Radio Star”, but has it? Are music videos to blame for our obsession with image? On the one hand, musicians such as Rihanna must surely feel the pressure to keep in shape, and flaunt the body that she works hard to keep, but on the other hand the music video can be a great way of furthering a song’s meaning. Was music really more focused on the audible before the visual music video accompanied it?
Maybe it isn’t even image that is the problem, it could be argued that as soon as music started to be sold, then a problem would always arise and the music would become marginalised. Maybe Owen Campbell had the right idea when he was just travelling the world busking. Is the purest form of music we can find when people just play for the love of playing? The summer before last I went to see a group of 10 men called Fisherman’s Friends singing sea shanties on a beach in a cove called Port Isaac on the Cornish coast. The concert was one of the most memorable I have ever been to. The group had recently signed a record deal with Universal, and apart from one member, all of the men grew up within half a mile of Port Isaac. Local people flocked to the beach to see the free concert, which was in aid of local charities. The sun began to set and the tide began to eat up the Fisherman’s Friends’ sandy stage as the night went on. The men warmly and sarcastically joked that their lifestyle would be changing drastically now they had a record deal, and then sang songs right next to their local pub in which they would have sang to small audiences for years. Call me old-fashioned, but this is the kind of music that I would want to listen to, not the package deal that we are sold with modern day pop stars.
What do you think? Is music becoming too much of a greedy business, or has music always just been part of a bigger product? What do you think the root of the problem is?
Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends
matthewjohnthompson 