Awards that recognize talent are great but when it becomes a popularity contest the shows lose all meaning
I’m drinking coffee that is far too weak for a Monday morning. I’m drinking weak coffee because it is Monday morning. You know, the kind where you think you’re pouring the beans into the grinder but half of them are actually missing and falling onto the floor kind of morning. As a result, my coffee is very much like last night’s American Music Awards: Weak and bland to the point of nearly being useless.
What, you didn’t realize that the American Music Awards (AMAs) were last night? Welcome to the club. I woke this morning to something in my newsfeed about Ariana Grande thanking her fans for sticking by her during her emotional collapse this year. I’m not making light of serious mental conditions when I respond with: YAWN. She’s had a rough year. That’s not a problem. She’s surviving and that’s wonderful. But does that deserve a music award? Probably not.
Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, and if so then I’ll apologize, but it seems to me the preponderance of awards shows, especially in the field of music, has become so numerous that it dilutes the value of all of them. Even the Grammy awards, which I still consider the best of the group, has lost some of its sparkle because, hey, if you didn’t win one of those then we’ll just for the next awards show and get you one then. If we’re going to bother giving out awards, they need to actually mean something. Otherwise, it’s just a group of musicians getting together, patting each other on the back, and exchanging tour dates. Those who genuinely enjoy music deserve more.
Music has a PR problem
I realize I’m reaching back before the dawn of time for some of you, but I remember watching two awards shows when I was a kid: the Grammys and the Oscars. Those were the big ones because my parents had made the decision that those two were culturally significant enough to justify my staying up past my bedtime to watch. The awards meant something, were reflective of our values as a society, and established a bar for the level of performance. Â Slowly, other awards shows started popping up, but I didn’t get to stay up late for those. My parents deemed them questionable both in terms of value and content.
Since then, the list has expanded even more, especially in the field of music. In addition to the Grammys and the AMAs, there are multiple MTV awards and people’s choice awards and country music awards and rock music awards and music video awards, and the list just keeps growing. Â Add in all the culture-specific awards shows and one could pretty much attend a music awards show every week, sometimes two. The number has exceeded any amount of reason. There is no requirement for quality in music for awards shows and many of the industry’s problems are reflective of that fact.
Of course, it doesn’t help a bit to have someone out there who goes on long rants then walks out on his own concert before canceling another. I don’t understand why anyone bothers to buy his concert tickets anymore. The industry also isn’t aided by excessive attention over performer’s personal lives rather than their music. Do we really need to know whom Taylor Swift is dating this week? Could Ariana Grande’s problems possibly stem from fans who can’t mind their own damn business and a media that encourages such invasion of personal lives? Surely, we would all do a lot better if we focused on the music and ignored those who only win because they have a huge Instagram following, Zayn.
Music With Meaning
Am I just an old man ranting about all this new-fangled music? I suppose that’s possible, to some extent. Although, I routinely surprise my 18-year-old when I know the words to more popular music than he does. My playlists regularly include Maroon 5, Lady Gaga, Beyoncè, and Bruno Mars. I’ll even toss in some Taylor Swift and Adele every once in a while. I like to think that I’m not completely out of touch. Yet, when I look at the list of last night’s winners, I see a list divided between sentimental favorites (Prince’s Purple Rain for top soundtrack—didn’t we do that already?) and Instagram stars of questionable talent (explain, please, why only having one name is good, Zayn).
Granted, the AMAs have never been known for their quality picks. The awards program began in 1973 as an “alternative to the Grammys.” In other words, a group of people decided that they were tired of their favorite artists not getting awards (largely because their music sucked) and decided to go off and do their own thing. The modern version of the AMAs does the majority of its voting online. As a result, the winners are simply those who are most popular, not the ones who have presented the best music in the previous year. So, we get a former boy band member winning Best New Artist when The Chainsmokers and Shawn Mendes were obviously better (see, I actually listened to the music). All the nominees for Tour of the Year were old school (Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Beyoncè). One has to wonder whether those who voted Blake Shelton Best Male Country Artist really listened to his latest album or his marriage-busting relationship with Gwen Stefani.
Looking through the entire list of nominees, I don’t see anything that was actually good on the list. Why? Because all the good music at the moment is coming from independent and small-label artists who don’t get the airplay, or more importantly, don’t have the huge social media followings. You aren’t likely to see those folks at the awards shows.
Your Support Makes A Difference
Entertainment fields are unlike political elections where your vote doesn’t always seem to matter. You vote for movies and music with your wallet. What you buy, matters. What you watch, matters. If you’re buying CDs from a local band, it may not seem like much at the time, but trust me, someone notices. That $5 you just spent on music from your favorite local band is five dollars that didn’t make it into the hands of a major label and they’re watching every penny at this stage of the game.
The same applies to awards shows. If you want a local band to make it big, then they need a ton of support all across social media. We’re not just talking about liking their page or their Instagram account, but sharing songs and photos so that other people have a chance to become familiar with the band or singer. We are living in an age where it is entirely possible for unsigned talent to make it big. Follow them on YouTube. Share their videos. As the numbers grow, the people who run the record labels and awards shows begin to notice.
At the same time, if you’re as tired of the nonsense as I am, then there are some groups and individuals you need to avoid. For me, and this is a personal decision, Zayn falls into the same dumpster pile as that Bieber kid. I didn’t like the group he was in, I don’t like his solo work either. You create your own list. That’s how the system works.
The music industry exists to make money. From your local radio station to your Pandora and Spotify accounts, what matters is where you are spending your money. So, do us all a favor. Stop supporting the folks whose music requires 15 people to write and can’t be covered with a single microphone and a guitar. Stop supporting alleged artists who walk out on their own shows or cancel without good reason. Support artists who are passionate, who write songs you’ll still want to hear 30 years from now. Buy their stuff. Share their stuff.
And turn off the damn awards shows. They need to just go away.
The Popular Choice Can Be The Wrong Choice
The problem with a pure democracy, Plato pointed out, is that being popular isn’t always best.
I’m sure you’ve been asked the question before: would you rather be rich or famous? More often than not, we try to skirt the issuing by answering, “Both.” We all like the idea of being rich and famous, though we rarely stop to think exactly what all that might entail. How does one become rich? What makes one famous? The answers to both those questions might just as likely be negative as positive.
Stop and think for a moment. How many times has the most popular kid in school turned out to be a bully, or misogynist, or racist? Or how often has the richest person in town also been the most miserly, the most selfish, and the one person in town with whom one would not want to do business? Think of the character Mr. Potter in the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life. Sure, he was rich, but his financial control over the town almost ruined it.
Being rich and famous can be a horrible combination, but either one on its own can be a blow to democracy. Most often, it is not the wealth that causes the problem as it is the popularity of a leader that ends up putting them on the wrong side of history. Popularity can cause people to die for an empty cause or keep a people enslaved.
This morning, two headlines are dominating the news. The first is the death of long-time dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro. The second is Wisconsin’s agreement to recount the presidential votes in that state. Both contain an element of popularity to them, but at least with Castro we can look back and see how his popularity worked against the people of Cuba.  Popularity isn’t always a good thing to have.
Popularity Versus Democracy
In Book VI ofT Republic, Plato lines out the philosophical issues with trying to maintain a pure democracy versus a representative Republic. Without spending days trying to explain the details of his reasoning, we can sum it into three major points:
At the crux of his argument, Plato realizes that it takes a given amount of intelligence and the time and ability to reason for one to make the best choices. In the absence of such, for any of the reasons above, the greater portion of the population simply votes for whoever is the most popular. The average citizen, Plato insisted, is largely incapable of choosing either leadership or policy correctly. En masse, he reasoned, the citizenry is far more likely to select the wrong government and steer it in the worst direction. That which is most popular rarely aligns with that which is best.
This is the very reason that our founding fathers positioned the electoral college between the popular vote and the actual selection of a president. The electoral college was never meant to be a rubber stamp of the popular vote, nor were the electors meant to be forced to vote for a particular candidate. The concept has always been that the electoral college was in place to prevent “we the people” from making a mistake based on who was most popular.
Sounds a bit frightening given the most recent elections, doesn’t it?
Popularity Gone Wrong
Fidel Castro is a perfect example of a popular leader who became a dictator. When Castro overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista in July of 1959, it was on a wave of extreme social popularity. The Cuban people were tired of the extreme corruption of the Batista government and Castro promised to change the system, to remove the corruption, and restore political and civil liberties.
None of that rhetoric actually resulted in the freedom the Cuban people desired, however. Castro instituted a one-party government. The people had no choice in leadership but him. Upper and Middle-income Cubans left while they could. Everyone was just stuck. The popular choice left the country poor and languishing.
This wasn’t the first time a popular leader steered a country in the wrong direction. In 1917, it was an extremely popular Vladimir Lenin that denounced the provisional government established after the murder of the czarist Romanovs. He promised to establish a Soviet government that was run by soldiers, peasants, and workers. Again, it was fighting against a history of corruption and cronyism that had led the fiery speaker to take hold of Russian loyalty and push him to the top of a very divided country.
The civil war that followed the October Revolution tore the country apart, but coming back from an assassination attempt that saw him shot twice, Lenin’s popularity only grew. He utilized his secret police in what came to be known as the Red Terror to root out his enemies. Millions died. His dictatorial reign gave rise to Joseph Stalin, who took the country even deeper into hard-core communism. The promise of a country ruled by the people never happened.
I could easily go through much of the 20th century and cite other examples. We don’t have to reach very far back to see that the effect of getting behind the most popular person was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Popularity looks good, sounds good, and feels good on a strictly emotional level. However, in following the most popular leader, we prove Plato’s point of lacking sufficient intelligent to choose the correct person.
“Majority Rules” Doesn’t Work
Americans are a people who have taken to the mistaken concept that “majority rules.” Even our schools teach the incorrect notion that what is popular must be what is best, regardless of what they know to be true. Students vote for school menu options that are inherently unhealthy because adolescents are stupid about such things. What does the school do? More often than not, they give in because, you know, majority rules.
We talked earlier this week about the fallacy of awards shows based on popularity rather than actual talent. The fact that the New Artist of the Year award went to boy band defector Zayn underscores the foolishness of the popular vote.
For decades, people bought the prints and paintings of Thomas Kincaide because he was popular. Never mind that his works were the result of a mass production scheme and that even his “originals” were completely dismissed by anyone and everyone who actually understands art.
Being popular doesn’t mean one has the best ideas or the most talent. Being popular simply means one has the ability to manipulate the masses. Being popular means knowing how to work social media so that they look forward to your pronouncements on Twitter. Being popular means having the ability to sway popular media to cover whatever you’re doing.
Being popular has nothing to do with the ability to govern justly and correctly. We’ve seen this before, over and over and over. It rarely ends well for the people being governed.
We need an Electoral College that is free to correct the stupid mistakes of the ignorant masses. Perhaps the time has come to let them do what they were meant to do. We don’t need another Fidel Castro. We need someone who knows how to lead even when it’s not the popular thing to do.
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