I have a not too surprising confession to make; I have never seen Glee. Wait, that's not entirely correct. I saw about 12 minutes of the show, just after the Superbowl. I turned it off after I saw Lea Michele, this season's Megan Fox, sneer through a scene where she was supposed to be championing the right of the gay underdog but sounded like a liberal version of Glenn Beck. Yes I did see some musical numbers on the show and I have caught a few on YouTube but why would I watch some semi-OK singers slog their way through Push It when the original with Salt N Pepa is so much better?

Glee is like books in a master study of a rich person's home. There are obviously more books than they have time to read, but they have it there to show either they are hip, culturally in tune, thoughtful or to project some other artificial reality that isn't true. Popular culture has lots of things that are supposed to be so hip that if you aren't in the know, you ain't in the show. Lady Gaga is a weak imitation of so many performers it's hard to list them all, but she is supposed to be the next big thing so we have endless conversations about her. It's the same with Justin Beiber. With a lot of the flash in the pan talent, there hasn't been anytime for them to naturally gain a following. They put on a video on YouTube, sing a passable song, do some outrageous stunt and before anyone can let the information sink in they are heralded as a hit.

This flash hit making can be for good or ill. It has been years since the 'shameful' sex tape but the whole Kardashian family and anyone in their orbit, has been rewarded handsomely. Mention of the sex tape today will bring out resigned Oh Yea instead of shock. By the same magical blend, the homeless singer, after his whirlwind tour and job offers from everybody after a week, the man was in rehab because he couldn't handle the massive fame thrust upon him.

We don't give things time to mature, to grow, to just put out something else to prove the hype is real. It was rather telling when a popular band didn't want to have their music used on Glee which caused a pissing contest between the band and the creator of the show. There is tons of music out there yet the producer wanted the flavor of the moment and was insulted when he was brushed off.

There was an interesting little piece on MSNBC that indirectly talked about how time can sort out the junk from the diamonds. It was an article about a number of movies coming out revisiting the 80s. It was an article about the number of things you would find in all of these movies and the longest commentary had to do with the music. When I was an 80s lad, I actually did listen to The Smiths, The Cure, Bauhaus and other bands at the time. I was tapped into 91x and KROQ. (If you lived in the 80s you know the stations) Those stations were not hip in the sense of popular. Like the article said, in the revisionist work of these movies, the cool kids play those bands music at parties, yet in reality only John Hughes movies would come close to having that soundtrack and it was because his characters were outsiders. The vast majority of music played at the time, the popular music of the 80s, were bands like Mr. Mister, Lionel Ritchie, Men at Work or Men without Hats. The band The The was used on an M&M commercial a few years ago and I know, at the time, it wasn't close to a hit.

Glee isn't the big social changer the producers would like it to be because it hasn't proven itself. While we have talked about the Kardashians for years, what do they do? There hasn't been the distance enough to declare Gaga or Beiber real innovators and if I had to hazard a guess I would say they never will become that. Then again, when Madonna started she was considered a one hit wonder. She has been laughing her way to the bank for years.

 

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Cultural Icons Take Time - March 05, 2011
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