Musicians have mixed opinions on these shows,
some love the competitive aspect and regard
them as a serious platform for artists to build a
successful career or view "The Voice" as a com-
pelling insight into how decisions are made in
the music industry; whilst others view it as a big
pile of neon painted monkey bollocks. In defence
of these shows, they do expose some of the
weaknesses and limitations mainstream pop acts
have. Confused? Allowme to explain....
Having the best voice and ability to use it is
what's sought after in these talent shows and
those that participate are arguably attracted to
the ideology of being a big star. Show producers
are not looking for songwriters or great musi-
cians; just androidswith a slight personality who
can obey a vocal coach, sing other people's songs
and somehow make them sound unique - That's
about it. We're all conditioned by this style of
Television programming and expected to desire
and crave what the contestants are pursuing but
the truth is that the finish line for them is not
the career that many would actually want to
have; especially the majority of musicians.
Now if we assume that this process of artist
development in "The Voice" is genuinely accu-
rate and that this is the way the music industry
really works then ask yourself how do famous
singers with no talent at all for song writing
release original hit singles and how did they do it
in the first place to elevate them to where they
are now? Let's look at the artist RIHANNA and
first examine one of her singles. According to
NPR (2011) it cost approximately 78,000 in
2010 to make the song "Man Down" off her
album "Loud" plus another 1 million to roll it out
onto radio playlists across the USA and get a
banner advert on iTunes. RIHANNA herself only
gets paid if the label recoups what it blew on the
album; apparently it didn't sell particularly well
and radio play was minimal so the label had to
release other singles to make up the shortfall.
Well that's a lot of money to spend on an origi-
nal song isn't it? Getting a song in the pop charts
takes massive investment and labels don't trust
an artist to write a song themselves so let's break
down their costs. DefJam for example held a
writing camp in L.A. to create the songs for
RIHANNA's "Loud" album and hired leading
songwriters to form awriting camp to work in
a cushy recording studio for about a fortnight
- that's about 18,000 per song (flying writers
to studio, hotels, renting studio rooms etc)
plus 15,000 for the songwriter, 20,000 for
the producer, 15,000 for the Vocal producer
who has to teach RIHANNA how to sing her
own song and 10,000 for mixing and master-
ing; Oh, and as I said before 1 million to get
the song on radio and we haven't even includ-
ed costs for her music video.
The Judges on "The Voice" know all this
because it's the industry they are in, they
aren't looking for songwriters or great musi-
cians or even care about your unique original
lyrics; they want a robotic slave to create an
income for existing people in the music indus-
try. This explains why artists like RIHANNA
act like spoilt twats, it makes sense why she's
insisting on having a rider; she'll make faster
money finding a dollar bill on the floor of one
her live shows. The Vocal producer has the job
of being paid to get her to be in the mood to
sing; no wonder she famously asked for doves
to fly around the studio during the recording
because the producer has to pay to make it
happen! If I was a slave and I knew someone
was getting paid 15,000 to get me in the
mood then I would insist on having gigantic
posters printed of the producers mom, have
them covering all the walls of the recording
studio, demand he paint the word "slut" over
them in his own human excrement and then
invite his father down to watch me record a
hit single; cheaper and more satisfying than
doves.
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