First step toward recovery is admission, my shrink once told me. Yet after hours upon hours on that plush, red couch of his and thousands of dollars out of my dad's pocket, I am still at a loss. Perhaps I should try joining a cult. I hear Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church is having a new member drive.
In the immortal words of Diana Ross, I'm coming out: I'm a closet 'N SYNC fan. There, I said it. Ouch, the pain, the pain....
"There's no use fighting it, Chris Hoover. Just sing along," a friend of mine said. But it's tearing up my heart that I know all of their songs, word by word, beat by beat (which, by the way, is making my Asian points go up, because now I can actually participate in my family's karaoke sessions). And why yes, Justin is my favorite.
Perhaps this is the Almighty's means of retribution, or perhaps a nice, drop kick by karma, to beat down my hubris as a so-called, indie music connoisseur to a bloody, self-effacing pulp. Or maybe, it's just that one cannot deny the ever-catchy power of the sickeningly saccharine, manufactured pop icons.
During our own Pepsi vs. Coke, pre-grunge adolescent years, we've experienced a phenomenon very much akin to these present tense, teen sensations: They were called New Kids on the Block. Danny, Donny, Jordan, Jon and Joe-they graced every magazine cover; they grazed every freckle-faced, teenage girl's heart. They even had quasi-Barbie dolls made in their splitting images. And we ate it all up like a Burger King combo meal.
Then Hypercolor and flannel shirts started to invade our collective, pubescent consciousness. One by one, those New Kids and Milli Vanilli albums began collecting dust in our bins of shameful past. The same Blockheads, who bombarded stadiums and music stores to prove their allegiant fervor, slowly came to their senses attributing their over-zealous fanaticism to the tightness of their braces.
As long as there are people, there are going to be kids. Procreation is an inevitable verity. Following this assertion and past incidents, each burgeoning generation of teens and preteens will have their respective turns at one-hit wonders and fads that stem from them.
But what does all this mean to the core of the issue-music?
Though we would like to wallow in our idyllic idealism that music is art, the modern state of music perpetually reminds us that music is in fact a business. What we must realize is that these teeny-bop groups, whether they take on the names NKOTB, 'N SYNC or Backstreet Boys, are highly developed commodities. They are the results of punctilious, market research processes; they are products backed up by an endless stream of capital. To these groups and their developers, failure is not an option. And as a matter of fact, these bands do yield high returns over short intervals, thus making them even more attractive investment options.
This leads us to wonder about the future of music itself. Where will music go? If such formulaic bands are so successful, will they come to monopolize the market leaving no ground for the so-called "artistes" of the industry? Will the music executives "spend a little more time" on developing less commercially viable artists, or will they just let fiscal Darwinism take effect?
The recent Universal/Polygram merger answered the last question, when sundry artists who brought in smaller revenues were dropped by the two labels and left to fend for themselves. This move by the industry giants seems to indicate that the value system of the corporate music world is leaning more towards the companies' "golden child" executives and their fast-burning supernovas rather than espousing the dedicated producers and artists who have a decidedly smaller but solid fan base and years of experience behind them.
From a sound business standpoint (excuse the pun), this decision can be understood. However, by immersing our culture with cookie-cutter, almost-mechanical reproductions of commercialized art forms, what can we say to those in the future? That we killed the essence of "real" aesthetics for Brittany Spears to bounce around on MTV for 10 days? What cauchemar....
Sequential to the aforementioned merger, the music industry is now left with only five major distributors, thereby delimiting the flow of musical cultural productions to these five main streams. However, it is also predicted that a slew of independent labels dedicated to long-term artist development will emerge from the ashes of those "children of a lesser god" left behind by the new alliance, keeping many from feeling too jaded by the steady decline of Western civilization.
Longevity is a true indication of stardom. If we, as consumers, do not demand products of higher merit and continually let our expectations and standards abate, those at the majors will never be able to see beyond the immediate bottom line. Then, all we will have left to do is to sing infectiously cheesy chorus lines inside the closet of shame and guilt. And believe me, you don't want me coming out of that closet.
Chris Hoover is a Trinity junior and associate editorial page editor of The Chronicle.
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