Wow. It's funny to watch the extremes being argued so heatedly.

The thing is, America is a wasteland- when it comes to its pop scene. Most countries are. Yes, even Asian pop is mostly dispensable bubble gum crap. The lyrics are stupid, the melodies are generic, and most Japanese music artists are even more quantifiably "fake" than American artists. That's how pop works. For some reason we've raised a more or less global society of non-musicians that love music, people who have no interest in the actual musical quality of a piece but rather the hype that can be spurred around it. The record labels have perpetuated this mentality because it makes it easy to sell talentless artists on their looks and not their abilities. If a person's pretty enough, they can make it as a singer or an actor pretty much anywhere you can point out on a map. It's not just America: the world loves the superficial. That's what pop music is all about. It's one of the reasons (though certainly not the only one) Utada doesn't sell well here even when she panders to the mainstream sound- she simply doesn't have the mainstream look or the mainstream personality. She's laid back in interviews, she answers honestly and you can tell she's thinking about what she has to say and isn't simply throwing words out that she knows her fans will gobble up, she doesn't shake her ass at the screen or rip her pants off during performances. She isn't "scandalous" enough to be a pop star- even in Japan, it's a wonder that she made it big and no one really has any clue why. She's certainly talented enough, but in this day and age that's not all music is about when it comes to the pop scene.

But there's the other side of the musical spectrum, also: in any country, there's the underground, the lesser-known, the DIY crowd that has nothing to do with the pop scene and often makes a point of separating itself from it in any manner possible. Because, in every country there are people who resent the superficiality of pop. America is only a wasteland if you believe the radio- mainstream music stations are a representation of what's popular, they are not all encompassing bearers of everything that is. Plenty of great artists never get radio time, or if they do it's limited and fades out quickly. Take Utada, for example. She creates catchy melodies, she writes catchy lyrics and she forcefully creates an album that is both cheeky and a serious attempt at adapting her style for the mainstream market. It still hasn't hit it big. Why? Part of it is promotion. Part of it is timing. Some if it is out of anyone's control. A lot of it also has to do with Utada's apparent personal lack of conviction. The point is, she got radio time: "Come Back to Me" had a hype building for it. And then it died. IDJ let it die. Why? Presumably, because they weren't seeing the results they wanted as quickly as they wanted. People blame it on Utada's illness, but that's just silly: in the interim between Utada recovering and returning to the states, IDJ easily could have released a second single. Instead, they've waited nearly a year and essentially dropped Utada altogether. After this tour, I wouldn't expect to see much of her in the States. But why drop her with the hype building? Most likely because they saw in her what I see in her: an artist, not a pop star. That's very hard to sell in America. Utada probably could make it big, given that she had the willpower and IDJ had the money to fund the campaign. Both are probably lacking given that Utada has stated she doesn't want to be big and the fact that we're in a recession: record labels are being very, very careful about what they send out there. They want fast results and even faster returns. Basically, they want quick, easy money, and they don't get it from prioritizing an artistic young woman with a clear head and exquisite taste for expression over someone like, say, Rihanna, who can dance and lipsync and look sexy doing it.

But to say Utada is the only female American artist that's been overlooked by the mainstream is ridiculous. Try checking out Amanda Palmer, former singer-songwriter and pianist for the punk cabaret duo known as The Dresden Dolls. They achieved limited success with their debut self-titled album, but somewhere in the middle of their sophomore release their record label, Roadrunner, decided they weren't marketable. Why? Probably because Amanda was too fluid as an artist. She has a lot of talent that makes it hard for her to write the same monotonous material day after day. There's a huge sound change between "The Dresden Dolls" and "Yes, Virginia..." (their second album). The latter sounds a lot less brooding and a lot more open to interpretation. Many fans were disappointed. I like it better. Roadrunner figured I was the minority and essentially halted promotion. Now Amanda has released a solo record, basically promoted it herself, built up her own touring company and created a way of sharing her work that's all her own and transgresses even the musical aspects of her career. She has a very personal connection with her fans, she talks to them. Her blog is more consistent and more deep than even Utada's. Her songwriting is unique and second to none, in its own way. She can even be just as shocking and "scandalous" as, say, Lady GaGa when she wants to, but she presents herself in such a different manner that it doesn't come across the same way. It comes across as natural and not artificial. Lady GaGa is very artificial: perfect fodder for the pop world (and trust me, you won't hear much about her come ten years down the road when all her antics have lost their appeal and their shock value).

You don't even have to look outside of pop music itself in order to find good artists. Alison Sudol of A Fine Frenzy is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter who gets limited airtime and plays for a niche fan base. The Weepies make wonderful folk-pop that's been played in a couple of TV shows and that's about it. Even Imogen Heap, who has a fairly loyal and consistent and even "large" following isn't a household name because she doesn't fit the pop scene, even if she makes terrific pop music.

Overall, my point is that you have to differentiate between America's (or any country's) music and its mentality. There's tons of great music in any part of the world, even for all the crappy music that gets spewed by record labels and devious corporate enterprises and the CEOs of Music Hell. But nine times out of ten that crappy music isn't even about the music or the artists behind it, it's about the person in front of it, the sex-fiend, the Britney Spears's and Madonna's of the world who can create to the extent that they can make headlines with their stunts and their tricks. If you want to combat that, you can't do it by whitewashing the situation and deeming every form of music from a specific area good or bad. You have to attack that mentality by bolstering the real artists that do try, the ones you WANT to hear on the radio, the ones that can make waves and change the situation at hand. Or, go make music yourself and try to be popular and maintain your integrity to your work.

There's nothing wrong with being mainstream, but at the moment the mainstream music scene is very, very sick.

/rant

Shuri/Eli