Unhelpful

I am not exactly a huge fan of musicians - in particular successful musicians - making songs about what a pain in the ass life as a musician is. This sort of crying in the beer is a common pitfall, it turns out. Several artists I like fall prey to it. Others I don’t much care for seem to have made a goddamn career out of it.

My general reaction to a song about the trials and tribulations of being in the music industry is “yeah, you’ve got it really rough, darling”. I’m not a materialist drone who thinks that wealth and fame is the key to happiness; my distaste for overtly industry-esque songwriting comes primarily from my aggravation that the artist is barking up the wrong tree.

Is your record company robbing you blind? I hear you. Did agents and managers made more money off your last album than you did? I’ve watched enough VH-1 documentaries and talked with enough people employed in the industry to know how it goes down. Does your net worth go down after an album and up only after an exhausting tour recoups debts via sales of merchandise? I agree: that’s fucked up. Do I want to hear you preach to the choir? No, not a single note.

This brings me to the most unforgivable of musical sins, though: songs about what a bitch it is being on tour. I think there should be a rule. Every artist guilty of such a song should be eaten alive by really slow caterpillars, immediately, with no chance for appeal. This would make the world a better place, don’t you think?

If nothing else, there’d be a lot more time spent on listening to odd music about flying saucers. That’d be a marked improvement.

Argue