Alright, alright, so 2007 was not a great year for the corporate machine. Sales of albums slumped and only the promise of an uninterrupted string of 5th-grade level ringtone rap songs has given the labels any peace. Oh, that and the honorable RIAA totally screwed that dame in Duluth for illegally downloading the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris.” We got $220,000, and the added bonus that we can make fun of her for liking that piece of crap. So what if total album sales dropped by 20%? All we need to do now is increase lawsuits by 20% and everything’s back to quo. God bless America.
And since I know how much you all love America and use your patronage of me to show it, this post comes in a limited gold collectible edition, available for $49.95. It comes with this entire post, as well as links to the whole first season and plenty more stuff you could get for free but you should probably pay for. Don’t be like Ms. Duluth, always pay for everything. I have a 900 number waiting for your order ($3.99 for the first minute, $0.99 for each additional minute).
Normally I stick to music, but recent events have forced me to comment on this whole movie/television thing. These despicable hippie writers have been mucking around preaching free love and non-free work and it’s setting a bad example. Today it’s writers asking for their fair share, but who’s next? Readers? ’Rithmeticians? Women? This is the same thing that during the third Reich. Give ‘em DVD residuals, and then they’ll start striking for the Sudetenland. Some might say that it’s hypocritical of me as a writer to make such a statement. Well check your grammar, bro, because I’m a typer. I type. At a keyboard. My penmanship is disgusting and I can barely read, so take your cult of literacy and shove it. Plus I’m left-handed and I hate getting those smudges all over my hand.
That said, here are the awards from the machine:
Man of the Year: Pete Wentz
Everybody knows that the key to a good shill is keeping up appearances. And nobody keeps up appearances like Pete. He’s got tattoos, he blogs, he’s in a “punk” band; he’s the perfect face for a multi-product ad campaign involving modeling, pop music and makeup for boys. And when the guyliner started to smear, he went on a glorious offensive decrying the Grammys for being out of touch with the fans. The old false flag operation: bully for you, Pete!
Woman of the Year: Avril Lavigne
If you had told me last year that a young Canadian pop thang would sell a ton of records while ducking weekly rumors of musical plagiarism, I would have probably had my valet slap you. Thankfully, this is America, a country founded on foreigners moving in and stealing things, and Avril will get away with all of it. Unless, of course, she downloaded the songs she ripped off. There are some YouTube comparisons floating around, but the only real way to compare them is to buy Avril’s entire discography as well as the entire pop section and listen to everything side-by-side (buy a few extra stereos to accomplish this).
Duo of the Year: Kanye West & 50 Cent
For those of you who don’t know how to pull off a publicity stunt, consider this a lesson in Stuntin’ 101. First, have your album drop (never use the word “release”) the same day as someone else’s comparable album. Then make some sort of ridiculous gamble on the sales of the album (always the sales, never the quality). Then go crazy and hope the other party joins in at some point. A caution to hip-hop artists though, as some hip-hop beefs extend beyond the level of attention grab, and you may be called upon to brandish a firearm to get your point across. So thank you, Kanye and Fiddy, for turning a slow news week into a beautiful display of urban pageantry.
Androgyne of the Year: Prince
What a year for the Purple People-hater! After he decided to crack down on some deadbeat fans using unapproved pictures of their own Prince tattoos on the Internet, the fans got all “entitled” about their “fair use” and fought back. So what did Papa Paisley do? He produced a diss track directed at his fans! I’ll admit this was a surprise since he had freely distributed his latest album in newspapers, but then I realized that nobody opens up newspapers any more. And the ensuing schism with his label allowed Sony BMG to make a tearful statement as the victim, garnering them their first bit of sympathy in decades. And so, for proving that there can be something more unfeeling and materialistic than a billion-dollar record corporation, we present this award to Prince.
Machine of the Year: High School Musical
Look, I don’t understand children. They operate in a world of whimsy and imagination, and that does me no good (until I can register a copyright on a child’s laughter). So obviously you can understand my own sense of infantile wonder at the money factory Disney has created here. You should never underestimate the allure of high-school-oriented music made by people long since graduated towards those who are still years away from attending.
Album of the Year: Long Road Out Of Eden by The Eagles
Nothing warms my black-heart void quite like a long-since-irrelevant act jolted into Frankensteinian prominence through heaping mounds of corporate support. Much like the communist antics of Radiohead, the Eagles decided to fly without the love and warmth of a record label. But unlike those unintelligible Brits, they placed their distribution squarely into the family-friendly claws of Wal-Mart (assuming said family does not own an independent market). And since nobody can resist the siren’s call of megastore pricing and built-in McDonald’s counters, the Eagles album sold 2.9 million. Somehow, the lack of a new Eagles album in indie record stores was not grieved by indie record store patrons.
Song of the Year: “Soulja Boy” by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em from Souljaboytellem.com
It takes a special kind of frostiness to title your song after yourself, then tack on a phrase to your name as an artist, then title your album after your website. God, I can’t even imagine the sort of promotional blitz he must be at the dinner table. He says his name so often I was first inclined to believe he was some sort of rapping Pokemon. Now I know some of you still think that the music industry is trying to twist the public image of hip-hop into some sort of modern minstrel show by promoting negative black stereotypes and downplaying more innovative and intelligent hip-hop, but to those people I say: Crank Dat Soulja Boy!
Adjective of the Year: Daughtry
Daughtry, which means: “Proving the wisdom of the record industry.” From the American Idol carry-over fan base to the meticulously-selected band members, this band proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a band conceived and assembled by a record label can be just as successful as a band interested only in their so-called art.
Best New Artist: Paramore
This one was easy, and not just because they’re a punk band so catchy and juvenile that you can actually hear Sid Vicious crying in his grave. They also signed a 360-degree contract that gives their record label a portion of the profits from everything they sell, including concert tickets and merchandise. Finally, a band that has its priorities straight: #1 – making others money, #2 – the music, #3 – paying rent.
Blessing in Disguise Award: Radiohead
Yeah, I know, their new album greedily kept money out of the hands of starving record execs, but hear me out. These guys have forced small bands to accept the fact that without a staggering level of artistic genius and a massive, devoted fan base, there is no escape from the machine. With this digital gambit, Radiohead has underscored the certainty of the record industry in ways that no amount of VH1’s Behind The Music could ever hope to. And for that, we must thank them (at least until we can figure out a new way to exploit them).
In Memoriam: Digital Rights Management
The industry is still mourning the tragic cutting down of a technology that was taken from us all too soon. DRM never had it easy, assaulted on all sides by critics who claimed it was “draconian,” “an Orwellian nightmare,” and even “a gross violation of privacy,” DRM struggled all of its short life to uphold the integrity of albums against the vile intentions of those who purchased them. DRM leaves behind a small but valiant group of programmers who must now return to the much bleaker world of non-music-related spyware. Our thoughts (and identities) are with them.
