German Follies
The stuff people can do with musical equipment these days is staggering. There is an entire section of industry dedicated soley to DJ gear alone that lets you sample, match up songs with similar tempos, alter the tempos of slower or faster songs, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. That's just one section of the biz, the rest of it is equally gee-whiz and Star-Trek-futurist. There was high-end equipment selling for thousands of dollars, and there was software priced at around 100 bucks that any entry-level ding-dong without a shred of musical talent can use to create seeming masterpieces of sonic arranging. When I got round to that inexpensive software, I realized that the companies manufacturing this stuff are the ones REALLY responsible for every annoying cheese-pop song on the radio. They are the SOURCE of the annoyance. Where would Britney Spears be without that little software program I saw at Musikmesse that automatically corrects out-of-tune singing? Where would she be without the little electronic gizmo that creates layer after layer of her voice, until it stops being a painfully mousy little squeal and starts being an inescapable wall of sonic torment? These devices are at the core of the slick, overproduced Top 40-radio type music business. The equipment are like firearms. In the right hands, you get dinner. In the wrong hands, you get a massacre. Except in this case, the abuse of the equipment results in the murder of good taste. Perhaps we should license the use of this musical gear much in the same way we license firearms. After all, in the wrong hands these musical marvels create a godawful racket that should be outlawed by the Geneva Convetions. In the right hands, well, we've got to find some people we can trust to make music that you can actually listen to for five seconds without asking, "Who let kindergarten out early?" We can't trust the FCC to do this, we're going to have to set up an independent, non-governmental regulatory body to handle this herculean task. We'll need lots and lots of donations, and of course we will need a committee that is paid lots of money to oversee the whole thing. I will volunteer to be paid a million dollars per year to act as Chairman. It's the least I can do, really, I am making a sacrifice to protect our children from any more sonic torment. In the meantime, all those musical gadgets and software really are cool, fun to play with, and amazing to see used by "the right people". I just hope that we can get this regulatory thing set up in time to prevent the inevitable Britney Spears comeback album. If not, I fear it may be too late. Maybe it's too late already. Maybe I should just go out and make a record myself, put my money where my mouth is. It's worth a try, I can sing at least as well as Britney Spears. But nobody wants to see MY exposed bellybutton. Joe Wallace E-mail This Page | Follow Us | Return to My Column You can Bookmark & Share this article by clicking here:
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I took a week-long trip to Frankfurt, Germany recently to have a look at Musikmesse, a massive trade show for music equipment manufacturers. Sounds pretty dull, right? Not to me.
