Most of my friends and acquaitances have a strong disdain for television. Terrible writing, boring repetitive plots, image over substance, written for a 10-year old mentality, stereotypes instead of characters, unoriginal, overacting, sexploitation, requires nothing from the viewer, etc, etc. They take pride in not owning a TV.
And yet these same folks will play and attend rock music that has terrible, boring, repetitive lyrics, costumed performers without substance, 10-year-old geared ideas, unoriginal sexploitative, and over-emoted themes requiring little more from the listener than a buzz. And these same TV-hating people own 100’s of CD’s.
So aesthetically, is most rock music really any better than most television…or might it actually be worse?
Now I’m not saying I necessarily agree with all of the above assessment, and without turning this thread into a complete lambasting of either rock music or television, can anyone explain or justify the higher artistic reputation, especially among the young, that rock music has compared to television?
My personal theory is that most folks under the age of 30 actually know someone who is or has been in a rock band, which personalizes the music environment, and that rock music attracts a whole cultural experience that television does not-- thereby helping participants in rock culture to overlook its artistic and intellectual shortcomings. What do you think?
WAG: that among those who haven’t thought it through, TV is the domain of soulless corporations and commercial pressures (all too visible every few minutes), whereas “rock” music is the home of excess, sex, drugs, wild stage shows, freedom to sing about what you want, etc, etc.
Completely oversimplified bollocks, obviously, but just read a copy of the NME to see how the musicians and their fans see themselves. Of course, I guess there’s some truth in the fact that music is more diverse than TV (in what’s on offer at least, not what’s successful).
I believe that there is a bit of an evolutionary concept to it as well. TV basically has sitcoms, dramas (police or courtroom), news shows and one or two other genre’s. In mainstream “rock” music the sound of last week or last month is different from today or tomorrow.
For example, when a new, “fresh” TV show comes out (Sopranos, for arguements sake) all of a sudden it is cool to like the show. With TV, it happens infrequently at best. With music, it happens daily. If you hate Brittney Spears, listen to Kid Rock. If you hate Kid Rock, listen to Don Henley, and so on. So with a finite number of TV shows versus an seemingly infinite number of rock albums, it is easier to accumulate many more favorite albums than favorite TV shows.
I personally watch three TV shows regularly, Sportscenter, Drew Carey and The Sopranos. The rest I catch on a time available basis. But I have bought 11 CD’s in the last 30 days (disposable income is a terrible thing to waste). I think that the argument provided by the anti-TV crowd may be partially to completely based upon the lack of variety. With music, there seems to be endless variety.
I mean, c’mon, they cancel Matlock but John Tesh sells millions of albums? Something is terribly wrong.