Purge

I don't want to focus on negativity, but this is the way it's coming out.
Have you seen the new Jay Z Video? The one for "Run this town"?
Lots of digital ink has been spilled about what's killing music, but I can show people this video, instead. The recording industry killed itself. They've been regurgitating the same tired crap for 25 years. Think about it: it's been manufactured pop bands and whiny rap moguls for a quarter century. On top of that, they've ceased promoting. I never cared all that much for MTV, but at least it used to be a promotional arm for the recording industry and for the past ten years it's been nothing but "reality" shows in prime time.
They over-charge for CDs which have a crappy over-compressed sound, and the engineers have been told to flatten out the sound so it's all at the same volume. Listen to a recording made in the 1980's, then a recording made in the new century; there's a marked difference in recording levels, and they're doing that to compensate for the compression rates that CD's demand. So, even the best music would be fatigue-inducing, because the sound quality is now very similar to an advert on TV, with all sounds flattened out at the top register of the compression ratio (ever noticed how commercials seem louder than programming? This is why. The loudest sounds and the quietest sounds are all pumped in at the same level. In real life, loud sounds are loud, and quiet sounds are quiet. On commercials, and on CD's{well, CD's produced by the major labels} all the loud sounds and quiet sounds are equally loud)
All that's what I say is killing the music industry. But this video is another reason to abandon the mainstream. First, this being a rap video (i refuse to call this "hip hop". There's no swing, and only the most rudimentary beat) the lyrics are a confused whine. On top of that, they're a fifteen year old whine. Basically, "it's lonely at the top". Oh, really, now, Sweetcheeks? So, we've got more blues for the boss man, how utterly charmless.... Throw in enough crude language so that you can believe that you're retaining your "street cred" , it's still a song for Oil Barons, in a time when we're all in foreclosure.
Melodically, this is crap. I don't think I even have to qualify or defend that. It's just crap.
But, then, let's get to the video portion: you've got 3 major music stars adopting the look and feel of the intifada! Only not the gritty, bloody intifada that tears open your soul, and leaves you hard and bitter. No, this is romantic firelight intifada. People ready to throw rocks in a jihad for Jiggy by soft candlelight. Nice.
Yeah, so this is exactly why my blog is named what it is: how much longer are we going to tolerate this? When will people finally say "Hey, I can make my own culture"? We have all the tools. You can burn CDs on your computer, you can find whatever movies or music or writing you want, no matter how obscure, more easily than you could find and see a mainstream movie back in the 1970's . There are millions of online galleries, not to mention sites like Deviant Art where you can post your own virtual gallery. There are street-fashion sites to even go outside the fashion magazines. You name it, and culturally, there's no need for the mainstream. So, when they insult us with garbage like this Jay Z nonsense, we can ignore it, and concentrate instead on whatever obscure fascination we may have. Purge this town.