Andrew Haley wrote 9/10/96
quoted 6 lines Damn, I hate elitism, and this is one of its worst forms. The>
>Damn, I hate elitism, and this is one of its worst forms. The
>attitude is: It's "our" music and we don't want the great masses to
>pollute it.
>
>Question: why is "underground" techno better?
Hello again,
It seems like my original message has been taken in a way that makes it seem
that I am an elitist, fascist. But I don't care WHO hears what music, I'm
not trying to remain on an ivory tower. As a matter of fact, In my first
message what I meant when I said;
"MTV is feeding the pretty little egos of people with more "complex"
musical tastes by creating a special channel for them (or special shows).
The whole thing is pitiful."
was that MTV saw two types of listeners; those that liked "underground" and
those that liked
"mainstream" music. MTV is here dividing listeners between your "vinyl
buyers" and "the
great masses." I was saying that I thought that was wrong. I encouraged
buying from small stores
in order to support people (like a lot of my friends) who really want to
devote their lives
to music, NOT to protect "our sacred" music from the hands of the masses
(rather more from
big corporations).
I don't like MTV because they're so big and because they have so much power over
what music we see and hear. If they were little and were making choices,
that's one
thing, but they're world wide and have a huge impact on our world culture.
Anyway,
I don't think any one thing should have that big of an impact...whether it be
Chritianity or US megacorporations that exploit cheap labor (here it is a
similar question
as with artist and MTV and also availability of music; do you support the
company
that pays the workers so that they can eat something, even though they pay
to little?
Do you go along with the company because it makes clothes cheaper so more
people
can afford clothing?) You're right that they are just videos (just like
they're just pants or sweaters) and you can't make sweeping political
statements about them,
but I think that you can make them about huge corporations, and that is
what MTV is.
It makes me mad just as it makes me mad that local foreign movies aren't
shown because they can't
compete with the budget of American movies. So, everyone sees American
movies and
things become monotonous and boring.
I hope that this explains things a little more, even though I'm sure most don't
really care. This is a problem with the company, not with anyone that would
ever want to listen to music...that's just a dumb argument anyway. Of
course you want
people to listen. But there are alternatives to using MTV to do that.
That's all I
meant to say. That encouraging them to get bigger may not be a good idea.
And thanks for not flaming me! Everyone's been pretty nice about things so
far (well,
exept one or two people.)
take care,
Tiffany
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Tiffany A. Johnson (tijohnson@vaxsar.vassar.edu)
Art History; major Women's Studies; minor
Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, New York
or
Minneapolis, Minnesota
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