Music industry needs to get real

Nowadays, the mainstream music industry just sucks, plain and simple. But, what is to be expected in a world where J. Lo and Christina Aguilera reign supreme? Just what we get, a whole lot of garbage. Thankfully, music moves in cycles, and thankfully it seems that we are deviating from the glory days of N'Sync and Britney Spears. Not to say that these artists aren't trying their hardest to stay on top. Everyone seems to be catching the bug of attempted authenticity, hiring producers like Linda Perry, Timbaland or the Neptunes to make them sound artistically inclined and musically innovative. The other day I heard a snippet of the solo project from that other guy in N'Sync, and guess what, it sounded exactly like Justin Timberlake. Not surprising, considering they both paid the same producers tons of money to make them sound good. \nOr one could just try the J. Lo approach: shouting that she's real, from the block, don't forget she's real, and above all else, angelically humble about her success over and over until some poor 13 year old actually believes her. How many of her millions of dollars do you think J.Lo actually puts back into the South Bronx, her old community? I bet it's a good publicity, but I guarantee that it's not half as much as she spends on beauty products per week. The funny part is, she doesn't even write any of those songs, they are all written for her in an effort to further her image. \nThen again, there's always the Christina approach: hire Linda Perry because it worked for Pink, make a wretched album called Stripped claiming the title has little to do with sexuality, then show up naked on the cover of every music magazine in America. Good call, that is definitely going to earn her some respect, and give all those 13-year-olds that go to her concerts someone to look up to. If the next generation of impressionable young girls turn out to be filthy little call girls, we have Christina, and all the others to thank. Not that I'm down with music censorship, but c'mon kids, let's get some class. But, who cares, right? As long as there is money to be made. \nThe music industry, much like our capitalistic society, seems a bevy of huge corporations that don't care about artistic integrity, or musical talent for that matter, but are exclusively concerned with making money, and I, for one, am sick of it. Sick of everyone whining and crying about losing money through MP3 downloads, or poor record sales, or whatever. It's called the economy is in a slump, because the President is more concerned with giving tax breaks to people who don't need them, trying to get re-elected by finishing what his daddy couldn't, and getting even richer by getting his grubbies on oil, and oh yeah, stopping terrorism too. It's the same with government, with music, with corporate industry in general. It's all about the money. The more I learn about how the world works, the more nauseous and decidedly cynical I become.\nI mean, look at MTV, that's a gem now isn't it? When MTV came out over 20 years ago, it was revolutionary and indisputably the coolest. Now it is geared toward an adolescent audience, ridden with reality television like "Sorority Life" to the point where music videos are rarely even played anymore. Wait, that' s not really fair, "Total Request Live" shows videos that the audience votes into the top ten, but that is rigged for sure. Much like the radio monopoly Clear Channel, that requires stations to play only songs off of specific promotional playlists, or perhaps the covers of prominent news and entertainment magazines, I'm sure it doesn't take much for someone to buy their way in. Why else would Jennifer Love Hewitt or the stars of Charlie's Angels make it on the cover of Rolling Stone? Oh, that's right, Jennifer Love Hewitt is a talented musician, or wait, no she's not.\nRegardless of what I or anyone else thinks, the moral to the story here is don't blindly believe anything. Look into things, don't let anyone tell you how to think or what to like, and be aware of what is going on around you. You may just be surprised at what you find out.