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Volume 38 Issue 5
November 7, 2000

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The pitfalls of going platinum

DISSECTION TINSELTOWN
MESA LEGEND
Submitted November 7, 2000

Oops! Britney Spears did it again. She sold 7 million records and is nearing diamond status for the second time.

Her Barbie alter-ego is available at your nearest neighborhood Wal-Mart and her McDonald’s promotional campaign was not at all unexpected. Why is that?

It’s simple. Britney was conceived in a recording studio test-tube to sell albums–no if’s, and’s, but’s or fake boobs about it.

But there are always the artists who, at one time, maintained an underground following with a solid, cult-sized fan base. Then, the inevitable happens: a radio-friendly single ends the obscurity and ushers in a new era of platinum success.

Case-in-point: Blink 182, thanks to midgets, porn-stars, a generous dose of sarcasm and a super-catchy riff in “All the Small Things,” have become more than just three addle-brained punk rockers.

Hold your breath, for Blink 182 have become pop stars!

Blink 182 are MTV’s golden boys, who have stolen the hearts of teenage girls on the cover of Teen People and have a multiplatinum album under their belt.  Blink 182 have, for all intents and purposes, “sold out.” It’s every musician’s dream come true, right, to cash in?

Perhaps not, since fickle teenage consumers and MTV viewers bore easily after a band receives too much success or exposure.

Fans, (look out for the young kids and teenagers), like to fuel their idols to god-like status, only to relish in seeing that god fall. The harder they fall, the better. Remember how fun MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli jokes were? Kids adored those artists. Those same young fans also helped destroy them, because young attention spans are painfully short.

After we saw Vanilla Ice do a music video with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we had enough.

Therefore, you may want to prepare yourself for the inevitable Blink 182 backlash; former fans who miss the glory days of small club tours and independent albums will scoff at their continued presence on teenage girls’ minds and on “Total Request Live,” something which is too juvenile for the older, wiser punk-rock purist.

Rightfully so. The magic of underground status and the integrity of quality music therein is completely compromised when the subject  of record sales comes into question, and all too often, suit-wearing record executives sitting behind a desk think in numbers. Art never factors into the equation. But music is just that, it’s art.

Nine Inch Nail’s latest album “The Fragile,” a brilliant, rich, and seductively dark body of work, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts in September of 1999.

Now, no one ever said selling an ample amount records was a bad thing. Commercial success is great for an artist, only if the quality of the music is what’s moving your product, not your McDonald’s campaign.

But second week’s sales saw “The Fragile” fall to the number 16 slot, and the record soon vanished off Billboard’s top 200.

It would have been easy for Nine Inch Nail’s frontman Trent Reznor to woo Carson Daly on “Total Request Live,” or to team up with Billboard mover and shaker Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit for a duet or two. But Reznor kept his integrity intact, and didn’t sell his soul for album sales.

In our very commercial and capitalist 21st century society, music is being marketed more and more as a product and not as a piece of art. 25 or 30 years ago, that wasn’t the case at all.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being a smart businessman in the music industry. You should network. You should pose for the covers of magazines, (reputable music publications like Rolling Stone and Spin) to actively promote your record. But you need to draw a big, thick black line and know where to stop.

Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly” can be heard in car commercials. Korn donated a track to a Puma commercial. Sisqo of Dru Hill fame can be seen in Pepsi commercials–it’s shameless.

“The Fragile” will stand the test of time, because Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor stayed far outside MTV’s shadow and challenged consumers to listen closely to the quality of the music.

Blink 182’s “Enema of the State,” however, will become one the countless has-been records littering the pop/rock landscape.

So here’s a message to musicians like Blink 182: hold your head high and make music that matters.

If you don’t move a million records in four weeks, don’t fret, don’t sacrifice your soul at the MTV altar, and don’t hawk burgers to sell more units. Allow you’re music to speak for itself.

You don’t need a pair of shoes, Carson Daly, a Happy Meal or a Nissan Maxima to do it for you.

Jordan Currier is the features editor of the Mesa Legend and a sophomore at MCC.

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