Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

critique

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Major label’s suck. They basically strip-mine the industry for potential singles, sign artists, release albums, and then ditch artists. Said artists might get picked up by another lable for exactly such a purpose at a later date if they’re lucky. If not, a fade to obscurity is assured. Examples? Joan Osborne, Melissa Ferrick, Elastica, Aimee Mann, Veruca Salt, ect… though, some other political issues were involved in some of those lable hops. Apparently, one must be a Sheryl Crow or a Marilyn Manson, to name a random pair, to stay in the good graces of one’s lable. In other words, you need to be hugely A/C (ever hear of an Adult Contemporary artist being dropped?), a churning single machine, or a huge cult artist. I challenge you to prove me wrong through citing examples within the last three years in the music industry. If you can prove me wrong, i shall sing your praises. Only the five/six major lables count, and don’t be fooled by imprints… Interscope/Geffen, Island/Polygram, Maverick/Atlantic/WB, Virgin/EMI, Epic/Dreamworks/Sony… ack, which did i forget? Oh well… get crackin;!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/10/1205715/

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People who review music are interesting creatures. Do we listen to them because they offer us unique and informed insight into artists we both love and have never heard of? Or, do we enjoy their outrageous opinions and biases? Obviously the answer is a little of both. Some reviewers are so immersed in a love of music that they cannot give a bad review. Should any true musical effort get a bad review? Here i’m obviously differentiating between thoughtless or overly-produced music that one often finds on the radio and the totally opposite effortless or carefully assembled music that most people would consider as art. As much as i hate the new Radiohead, and though i might give it less than two stars if i were to review it for the paper, the review itself would doubtlessly offer many positives about the album so that people who liked those facets of it would know to buy it.

That, of course, is why album ratings are arbitrary; are they personal opinion or objective rankings? I found myself battling over such thoughts earlier while i was commenting on Nelly Furtado. While there are only a few tracks on her disc that i enjoy, a quick read through Amazon.com‘s reviews pointed out to me the many aspects of her disc that my ears weren’t open to. After several revisions, my review sounds like it should be nearly four stars, but i plan to submit it as a two star review on monday. Obviously i intend for people to glance at the rating and then read the article, because the rating is probably only applicable if they share an overwhelming overlap in musical taste with me. And, god help them if they do…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/10/1205352/

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There is definitely a very significant amount of population missing from the blog world. I mean, aside from a lot of ethnicities which don’t seem to be represented, the gender ratio is all off. Girls seem to dominate the mid-level diary-ish sites and weblogs while the boys are all the infamous ones at the top of the pyramid. Of course, i’m always wrong, and there’s got to be over 5000 blogs at this point for me to be generalizing from, but i’ll again posit that the only blogs that really count are the ones that are active enough to register on Power Blogger once and a while. Really, those big-boys at the top aren’t blogs anymore, but syndicated columns using blogger as a device. Blogs themselves seem to be a bit more active-oriented … what really is the point of using blogger if you aren’t going to be posting constantly? News Publisher works plenty fine for posting as many as three or four times a day, and you don’t have to rely on any external service. So, blogger really is more of an active device. Which brings me back to my point about the gender inequality as well as the inequality of content. Much in the same way that i am constantly searching for more singer-songwriters on the web (are you one?), i am always looking for other pages with the light balance of real life and personal musings that i attempt to have. Of course, being intimately acquainted with my own life and all therein, maybe it’s just that my site makes a hell of a lot of sense to me but other sites don’t. I’m not sure. I don’t know what i’m saying really… i guess bloggers are as unique as snowflakes. Go figure.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/10/1205286/

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My review of this summer’s Ani disc (found in crush) is being published in this week’s Drexel Triangle. As mentioned this weekend, I’ve been putting off getting into thier sick little game of parody and obscure cd reviews for over a year now (ever since they turned down my excellent tori review cause they had one already), but by not getting into the play i’ve had lots of nightly meeting times opened up for me. I’m headed to my first paper meeting next Monday. Should be motivation to buy lots of new cds :)

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/10/1047343/