So last weekend I was violated. There I was, nestled on my couch haphazardly watching the Packers beat the tar out of the Steelers. The first half was nothing special, and the commercials were OK, but about halfway through the show, pandemonium broke. It was like ""Schindler's List,"" ""Saw"" and some deranged form of ""Tron"" all mixed together in one big devastatingly depressing event. I am speaking, of course, about the Black Eyed Peas' halftime show.
I don't even know where to begin. I wholeheartedly believe that I'm suffering from some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of viewing that shameful excuse for entertainment. There's no doubt in my mind that from here on out every time I hear ""Where is the Love,"" I'm going to cringe and run sobbing into a corner. Fergie's ""singing"" of the Guns and Roses' hit ""Sweet Child of Mine"" was not only horrendous, it was downright disrespectful. This, in combination with some sick and twisted form of live auto-tune, a re-hashed electronica-style dance routine, and Usher's brief lip-synch followed by an unnecessary display of the splits truly shows the dire situation facing the mainstream music industry of today.
This devastatingly low point in musical form reminds me of something I studied just last semester. I was in a class called the history of music. It's an easy A and is actually pretty interesting stuff, though that is beside the point. The point is, a few hundred years ago there was this point in human history appropriately labeled ""The Dark Ages. In a nutshell, it was a period of time when mankind was basically busy killing each other over religious holy sites, and said ""to hell with art"" for a few centuries. All creativity essentially ceased to exist and the music scene was probably even worse than it is now. Thankfully, a little thing called the Renaissance took place, and a group of guys banded together and decided to fix the atrocity that was the dismal musical situation of their time. Think of it as a time period equivalent to the 1960s Rock and Roll revolution, just with fewer amplifiers and more violins.
Just look at the Billboard Top 100 and you have to agree—we need another Renaissance. It's hard for a guy to even go to the bars anymore without some form or another of audio rape occurring. I have roommates who play this modern day synthesized garbage, and am literally forced to leave the room until the noise pollution stops.
If you're like me, and are nearly brought to tears when Ke$ha or Katy Perry comes on the radio, just imagine what it's going to be like in 10 or 20 years. It's a scary thought indeed, and action needs to be taken.
Basically, we can sit around and play the denial card, hoping something will change, and we all know how well that worked for Europe when Hitler reared his head. No, someone needs to play the part of Great Britain before we're all turned into the French and are forced to surrender to the underground for good. I don't know how this modern day Renaissance is going to take place, but I do know that there is strength in numbers.
There needs to be some sort of coalition formed right here in Madison with one goal—purge the world of all the nonsense that the mainstream music industry is throwing our way in one great musical revival of our time. I know there are other like-minded people out there, hiding and waiting. Let's do it for Page, Lennon, Simon and even Garfunkel. Let's do it for Beethoven and Mozart. Let's do it for ourselves.
Want to join the Coalition? E-mail Andrew at aplahr@wisc.edu. I'm serious.
