Dear, Kanye: ‘A Little Jolt of Truth’ – Love, Chris

In the years since Kanye West’s then-bizarre (now commonplace behavior) storming of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards stage to vocally protest everyone’s favorite come-to-life My Little Pony doll, Taylor Swift’s, win for Best Female Video over Beyoncé (among others), it’s become standard fare in our “reality”-television media-saturated world to witness celebrities (even worse – musicians. We’re supposed to be above this nonsense, right?) “acting up” in public. From diminutive Canadian halfwits egging their neighbors’ houses to wanna-be R&B tough-guys taking their adopted role too seriously and beating the crap out of their girlfriends, many perpetrators of popular music have been something less than… admirable in their personal lives of late.

Is poor behavior from pop stars a new thing? Of course not – nobody’s going to hold up “classic-era” Keith Richards, Slash, Sid Vicious, Jim Morrison, et. al. as bastions of purity. What is new (or at least sort of new), however, about West’s outbursts is that they challenge in very tangible ways the notion of what defines “musician” in ways that haven’t been quite so front-and-center in our culture since the ‘80s and the first cries of “Rap isn’t real music!”

Veteran crooner Michael McDonald could be said to represent the exact opposite of the youth-dominated demographic that drives the bulk of recorded music sales. But many in recent weeks were drawn to his eloquent comments after Kanye West once again semi-interrupted an award winner (this time, the established and widely respected Beck, for winning the Grammy for Album of the Year over, among others, Beyoncé – see a trend here? What the heck, Kanye? Weirdly obsessed much?): “When Kanye gets to a point where he can actually put a couple notes together either vocally or two bars of valid music playing an instrument, then he might have a right to criticize someone else… Beck is obviously a consummate musician. He plays instruments, many instruments. He can make his own record without having a fleet of computer operators on board.”

For his part, West backtracked somewhat (I guess?), saying he was just providing “a little jolt of truth,” but then adding that “the Grammys sometimes give awards to people who you wouldn’t think should win in the category.”

McDonald was far from the only musician (or “other”) to attack West – in truth, picking apart Kanye West’s innumerable and unfathomably stupid actions has become an international pastime (check out Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson’s reaction to the Grammy debacle for a serious verbal beat-down: “You make yourself look small and petty and spoilt. In attempting to reduce the importance of one great talent over another, you make a mockery of all musicians and music from every genre, including your own. Grow up and stop throwing your toys around. You are making yourself look like a complete tw_t.”). But a larger point arises…

We in MI want more “music makers” – it’s what drives and sustains the industry. But wistfully longing for the days of accordion or piano or guitar virtuosos to come along and “save” the market is a pipe dream. So how do you distinguish between practitioners of new and evolving music forms from… well, just half-baked egotistical jackasses? A person can’t, as a blanket decision, dismiss forms of music that don’t speak to him or her personally, and the fact is there are plenty of extremely talented artists within hip-hop, EDM, and so much more. Evolving and emerging music forms, and the skillful artists within those genres, are where the future of music and of the MI industry lies.

Unfortunately, there are also straight-up losers who make musicians and the whole music industry look terrible. As many in the past week or so have noted: “Kanye’s most recent album: 49 songwriters and at least 25 producers. Beck’s newest album: one songwriter and one producer.”

We all want to encourage the creation of more music makers and to involve as many as possible in the culture of music. But if you need nearly 50 songwriters to help you create a whopping total of 10 songs, maybe you should at least stay the hell in your seat when the dude with a 25-plus-year career who managed to write, perform, and produce 13 acclaimed songs without a team of helpers steps onstage to take what’s his.