Either i am becoming increasingly irrelevant, or MTV is. Or, alternately, popular music has become irrelevant. I’ll be the first to admit that i haven’t bought very many groundbreaking popular albums since 1998, but i think this year’s Grammy’s proved the kind of glut we’re in. The Backstreet Boys nominated for best album? The Academy couldn’t even save their asses by nominated the spectacular Diana Krall album or giving the award to Santanna; we know just where they stand now.
Of course, we’ve always known where MTV stands, haven’t we? With TRL increasingly dictating what gets played in the precious little time alotted to videos we see less and less good music or innovative filming and more more more of everyone’s favourite xeroxed stars. VH1 fares no better, with songs breaking into their top10 as long as six months after the rest of the world first heard them. However, i do give credit where it’s due to both channels for giving us a prompt introduction to artists like Macy Gray, who otherwise might have never broken through. If only they’d do that a bit more often…
Of course, i could just be old now. I’ve successively outgrown both MTV and VH1, and perhaps now i need to spread my wings and fly off in my own search for really good music. Still, it’s disheartening to know that that’s the only way i might find it.