Show over Soul

Show over Soul

When was the last time you turned on the television to watch modern day music videos and saw a video that did not revolve entirely around sex or at least have sexual connotations? Can you name a current female performer who does not wear flashy outfits or revealing clothes to try to make people like her more? How many top ten music hits can you name that do not have sexual connotations in their lyrics or talk about relationships? Chances are that you had a hard time answering any of the above questions and even if you could answer one, it probably took you a while to answer. On the flip side of the coin, how easily could you rattle off singers, songs and music videos that are almost entirely about sex or at least try to use ‘hot’ men and women to add sex appeal to the music, or rather add to the potential of people buying an artist’s music. We all know that sex sells but at what point is there so much use of this basic law of product promotion that the product itself suffers? Simply put, the music industry has taken all of the emphasis off of good music and placed it upon an artists image so that an artists popularity is directly correlated to how much they are considered sexy.

It is easy to see how much sex is really used to sell things such as music. In today’s world it would appear as though people and things have to look at least somewhat sexy in order to be likable. There are so many sexual references in the average product promotion that the common person is almost ‘sexed out’ to the point where it takes more than a pretty girl or handsome guy to make an advertisement in any industry stick out. We are so bombarded with advertisements that try to link their product with sex or some kind of beauty that we are hardly aware of how many of these pitfalls we see each day. Using sex to sell a product is one problem in and of itself but at what point does the product being sold actually suffer in the name of promotion? Nowhere is this instance more abundant than in the modern day music industry.

If you ever go to Best Buy and take a walk down their pop music section you will notice that over half of the album covers will feature some kind of a close-up picture of the artist looking attractive. Female artists will often be scantily clad and looking at you while male artists range from dressed up to shirtless with a muscular physique and often look tough. This fad in the music industry of putting the lead singer up front now takes place over the old ideal of album cover which would normally feature a unique work of art or a picture of the entire band. Chances are that if you purchase a pop CD that the content on the inside foldout will be much the same as the front cover. I find this somewhat strange because when you are purchasing a CD you a buying an audio stimulus device aimed at affecting and pleasing your auditory senses, not your sense of vision. This goes to show that when an artist is signed by a record company the company will use the tactics it believes work best in order to sell that disc.

There was a time where an artist actually had to be an artist in the truest sense of the word, meaning that they put their musical studies first and foremost and if the artist or band was attractive, it was an added bonus. During the time when recording devices were considerably lower quality and at best could record what the band played, an artist would actually have to be able to play live with their band and be recorded. There was no way to do only segments of a song at a time or go over parts that were messed up, how the music was played it how it is heard. Nowadays anyone can download a simple music program that would allow someone without any knowledge of any instrument and no education in the ways of music theory to begin making their own music. When recording technologies such as these first came out they were intended to be able to take an artist’s music to the next level by allowing them to change certain aspects of their music without having to perform their song each time. Instead the technology has developed to the point where modern music is more basic and rather than having to hire and train band mates a pop singer can simply hire a producer to make all the actual music while they simply provide the ideas and