Minaj

Recently I was flicking through Freeview and stumbled across the music video for the slightly Gilliam-esque titled 'Pound the Alarm' by Nicki Minaj. The video, and the song, as can be expected are an absolute abomination. The song is just your standard post-dubstep affair, that someone has created on an Apple Mac in a back room somewhere in LA; while the video is pretty much a porn film, to the extent that it almost feels like a self parody of modern music videos that also come as close to being porn as they can. Minaj thrusts her breasts around in such a manner that would have, as our nans would say, someone's eye out if she wasn't too careful.

The music industry has always had it's silly bits. The 'bands' that have no musical integrity whatsoever, and just exist for the music industry to make a fast buck. Back in the old days they would play on Top of the Pops, have a one hit wonder then fade into obscurity. Some did sustain themselves yes, think of the Bay City Rollers, but mostly they just faded away and, even if they did sustain themselves, they are just looked back on as 'oh wow I can't believe I used to own all the Bay City Rollers LPs'.

But something interesting has happened to the music industry over the past 10 years. This 'crappy' bands have now started to dominate. Music is, of course, a lot down to personal taste; but it is obvious that the industry has faced a huge decline. Illegal downloading has effectively killed it off, and the industry only has itself to blame for failing to change with the times (DRM on music that you actually have bought legally, for example). Rock music has almost fallen completely by the wayside, and has become underground; leaving old bands that have been around for years as the ones touring the festivals and stadiums (the headliners for Reading this year were The Cure, Kasabian and The Foo Fighters). Turn on Radio 1, and I bet you won't hear a rock song. Hip-hop too, for example, has declined in quality; as the industry realised it's popularity in the late 2000s and tried to bastardise it - often fusing it with dance music or R&B where it becomes popular in nightclubs. Proper hip-hop is still popular, but it's falling away; being replaced by 'star' names like Rihanna, Minaj and the like, who take it and turn it into something that people insist on calling a 'tuunee!!'.

The industry had to do this to survive. With no cash coming in from record sales, and with a big bill to heat the swimming pools, it had to look at other ways of getting it. Hence the reason that music videos are now more important than the song, and that 'stars' have now become cults (think of Lady GaGa and Justin Beiber's Twitter followers). Sadly this has seen a decline in 'proper music' written and performed as an art, with no intention of being a money making exercise. Not all all is lost, however. Despite all of this, it is still there; you've just got to look hard for it.