First off, on the Madonna thing : Watched an interview about an hour ago on MuchMusic. Apparantly when she started making the video, US was in the get hyped up phase of the war. By the time production and editing of the video was finished, CNN had gotten around to covering the ground war. In other words, it was concieved when war was still a ways off and her goal was to help stave off the popular drive for war. However, when the video was completed, she felt that it would be mocking the troops that were actually doing the slaught^H^H^H^H^H fighting. It's not like it's gone for good, it will be back in a few months.
Anyhow on to the polls and since we're talking about the state of pop music... :
1. Prefab bands have been around since the dawn of pop music (1880's or so) so that's pretty integral to pop music.
2. Songwriting teams have nearly always done better than the single artist, whether that be brill building guys writing for their hundreds of doo wop one hit wonders, the J-Lo team, or Lennon-McCartney. Teams are good for pop. (though that is one piss poor song, but we'll just chalk that up to taste...)
3. C&C music factory, pop has been about image since Sinatra at least, so you had to see that one coming. It also sucks, but that's what you have to do to make it in pop music
4. Madonna thing : Covered above, but what we dont' know scares me.
5. Milli Vanilli lypsynching - Say what you want about those two guys, the songs were huge. Someone wrote them and knew they'd be big, but needed the image. So they hired the image. This is pop business at it's finest. I just wish that they gave the grammy to the real singer/writer instead of just stripping it from the pretty boys.
6. TATU. That's just funny. I wish Britney would take a lesson on sexuality from them (though not dancing/singing lessons I think we know who has more talent there...)
7. Other - RIAA is eeeeeeeeevil!
So the lowest level the pop music industry has sunk to? My vote goes to..... Other: Pro tools. (WTF you say?) Having learned from Milli Vanilli, they got high tech. Various tools will let you change the pitch of your voice so your recording can be in tune. You keep all of the interesting aspects of 'your' voice, but it magically hits all the right notes. This is bad because not only are songwriting and musical talent no longer important for our pop heroes, we're at a point where
singing is no longer important. Lip Synch for live shows, sing in the studio, but diddle with the vocal track until you are perfectly in tune. All you really need is a distinctive voice and good looks. And no amount of practice or talent will give you that, that's a genetic crapshoot.
Hope that made sense, it is a bit after 3am now but I saw something on pop music and got all excited