Having a Voice, Quoting and Facebook – Popularity, Obscurity, the Role of Corporate America, and Study

Having a Voice, Quoting and Facebook – Popularity, Obscurity, the Role of Corporate America, and Study

Some people put a lot of quotes on Facebook. Some of them are cool, but for the most part I would rather people think for themselves and put it in their own words. I feel bad for the people that only post quote after quote and never seem to find their own voice. I hope that they are able to find it someday.

There are some great quotes and this one applies. “I found a voice in what you call noise,” by the local hardcore band Rebound from their song I Found a Voice. I think the record label was Sektion 8. Sektion 8 had some great cds. My personal favorite was “No One in Control” by Drained. There is probably no reason why Rebound didn’t make it big except that corporate America wasn’t into marketing that style yet, way back when I was in High School.

Why haven’t you heard of Sektion 8 Records? Blame that on corporate America too! This song was clean enough to be on the radio, no swears, but corporate America wouldn’t have it, so the people that pulled the strings, corporate America, had reduced Rebound to an act that couldn’t get much more of a following than one that could fill a garage.

Some idiots would blame Rebound for that, but the fact is that they don’t know the power of corporate America. This is equivalent to someone that blames the victim, rather than blaming the perpetrator. Corporate America decides who gets the best musical equipment. They usually decide who gets gigs beyond those at the local bar. They decide who gets to be on the top 40 (You can’t tell me that anyone becomes a national act because they were able to promote themselves unless they were independently rich.). If you have heard it on the radio, then it was almost certainly the result of a decision made by corporate America.

Want to know what success is in the music industry? Success is a fluke! The people that have are not always the people that deserve. The radio would have us think that good music is scarce, so they play a lot of junk on the air and mix it in with the occasional good song.

Usually, the songs that are remembered are in fact good songs. They do stand out against the backdrop of junk on the radio and for good reason. The reason is that capitalism is evil. Capitalism deceives the people into thinking that there is not a lot of good music and they do this because rarity affects the value of things.

Take for instance Magic the Gathering cards. No person in their right mind will argue that a common is more likely to be expensive than a mythic rare! Don’t get me wrong, to me it seems completely reasonable for MTG to create artificial rarity to improve the game, but that is because it doesn’t victimize anyone one. In fact, just the opposite, it helps employ people in meaningful jobs, and add meaning to collections that support collector and dealer alike.

What determined the value of that card but how many times corporate America felt like printing it! Guess what, Lady Gaga is a mythic rare in the radio world. Dave Matthews was a mythic rare to the radio world, and so on, but this is artificial rarity for the purpose of making a profit, and this sort of artificial rarity is bad because it makes victims. Why? It is not fair. Every musician that could sell or practices, but the music industry doesn’t market has been had. I believe that it is the people that practice and who are gifted at expressing themselves through music theory that should be rewarded. Reward doesn’t have to be relative to audience size. However, such people deserve to be financially compensated for their hard work. Being popular is also hard word. Some music is more about image than sound, and it is hard to be about image just the way it is with sound, but in the end it is the same, I want for the person that is gifted and works hard at what they do best to be rewarded. If one ventures outside of the world of the radio, bands like these are actually more common than one might think. So in order to keep the prices on records and music high, the music industry deceives the masses that good music is rare. If you are a capitalist, then that is good business, but if you want to hear good music, then you are probably angry.

Let’s examine what the rarity system of Magic the Gathering means as it relates to news media, specifically with respect to the Occupy Wall Street movement. The news media only covers what will make a profit for it, usually what brings in advertisers. Guess what, the Occupy Wall Street movement is broke. They don’t have money. So, why would they be covered in the news? Advertisers will rarely pay to be on news that is anti-corporation. It should be obvious why. It is self defeating when the news says that people hate corporations, and your corporation is the one that is advertised. You might as well put a kick me sign on yourself. However, there is a backdoor that the Occupy Wall Street has to get coverage. It is violence! Remember Ice T when he started the band Body Count? One of the not so great, but very popularized songs from the album was “Cop Killer.” Killing a cop is the equivalent of generating a mythic rare. It would be extremely valuable for news media to cover the Occupy Wall Street movement if they killed a cop. Like any good deck, it probably isn’t made up of all mythic rares. For example, you might have some rares such as police firing tear gas, presidential address, or stand offs between police and protestors. You might have some uncommons such peaceful protest or right wing criticism. And, maybe a few commons such as, angry interview, intelligent interview, and/or interview of fool.

Sometimes, these days, I get bored and put a quote on Facebook myself, stuff that has generally meant a lot to me through the years, like this line by Rebound. Quoting is defiantly historically well founded as a good means to get a message across. Just as bad Presidents use quotes, even good Presidents sometimes quote. It’s not that I am anti-quoting. It’s that I feel bad for the people that over quote. For the most part though, I am sure that this is just a phase that they are going through. What is even better is that many of these people that post a lot of quotes are studying word combinations that have proven more effective to improving the human condition than wars. And, what is best is that through study, these people that frequently post quotes are on the path to develop their own voice.

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