The Long Road

Archives: February 2007

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I’m currently reading through A Gap in Nature, a book cataloguing some of the animals that have become extinct since 1500 due to human interference. It’s a sad book, full of island birds and rodents which too often died out due to the introduction of rats and cats. A particularly depressing story is that of the Stephens Island Wren, whose already small population was totally wiped out by one single cat. A lot of the extinctions can also sadly be linked to “collectors” or scientists who needed “specimens”, so they’d kill the animals to bring them home to study. What they didn’t realize is that they might have been killing some of the last surviving members of that species, or if they did realize it, owning the last survivor was even more important to them. Most incredulous of all, is that humans were (and still are) capable of hunting entire species to extinction. The story of Stellar’s Seacow is heartbreaking. These were animals which were observed to have intelligence and emotional attachment to their mates; they were all slaughtered by a dozen men for food.

I’m of 2 minds about the vast swath of extinctions we’ve caused since coming down from the trees. The first is, of course, that we’re a self-centered, irresponsible, brutish species. We don’t care about anything that’s not human. No one ever thought “if I eat all the mammoths in the world, what will I eat tomorrow?”, instead the line of thought probably runs a little more along the lines of “there’re only 10 mammoths left in the world, I better get to them before others do.” As the top of the food chain and the only sentient species around, it’s up to us to keep the balance and to make sure that we’re not destroying what God has spent days intelligently designing.

The second opinion runs somewhat like this: “So?”. Many of the non-sentimental arguments for biodiversity are anthropocentric, anyways. The rain forests provide us with oxygen! We could find a cure for aids in some unknown species! Bison meat tastes good! When we kill off a species, we’re the only ones who know it, the only ones who’ll mourn them and who’ll feel regret about it. The animals don’t care, they don’t know how to. Extinctions are also doubtlessly unavoidable growing pains. Our cave-ancestors didn’t know they were eating the last mammoths just as whalers thought the oceans had an inexhaustible supply of whales. And one can hardly fault someone from a third world country for killing an endangered animal when he has his family to feed. What ultimate goal does the giraffe serve to human development anyways? It will have no purpose at all once we all live on Coruscant.

Posted by Long @ 04:46 PM EST [Link] [Karma: -9 (+/-)] [27 comments]

Friday, February 2, 2007

and the only prescription, is more cowbell! Yea yea its cool to hate on reality TV and American Idol is just the world's biggest popularity contest, but I'll be damned if it isn't also the most fascinating one ever. Especially the insane parade of eccentrics who not only wrongly think they can sing but also think that they can convince the general public to like them. They're the best part of the show. American Idol is a popularity contest; your worst high school nightmares times a 1000, broadcast to the largest audience in the world. You shouldn't go in thinking that you'll win because you're unique and different. That's not what pop(ular) music is about!

The point of the show is to produce a music superstar that will sell millions, not someone fringe or ecclectic. You can tell by the look on the judges faces that they carry a preconceived notion of what a pop star should be, and they very often have decided if someone will be chosen to "go to hollywood" or not before they even sing. This was very evident in Taylor Hick's audition when Simon said he was really good but reluctant to let him go through for concerns of his lack of mass market appeal. You have to be exceptional if you're not good looking to even make it past the first round...a reflection of real life, really.

AI is an unstoppable machine. Not only is it the number one show on TV, but it's cranked out 10 Gold-or-better selling artists in 5 years, has the most successful "soundtrack" sale ever, and several annual concert tours. It's impact on the music industry is difficult to overstate. It has changed some very big aspects of the business. What good are talent scouts now that anyone with some talent is seeking out and being scooped up by the show? Instead of paying hundreds of people for scouring bars and clubs, you have 3 judges flying around for a few weeks with people coming to them and making huge money out of the audition process. It's an incredible twist on an old way of doing business.

There's also the "packaging" and marketing of these future pop stars. There's much less need for fake or "manufactured" personalities with AI. Throughout each season, the audience gets to know and, this is important, LIKE the contestants. They CHOOSE who they want to hear, creating a demand for a particular artist's music rather than the old tried and true way of trying to guess what kind of music will sell, hoping it does, and crossing your fingers. The show gives them a built-in audience that guarantees at least one platinum album. You can't buy this kind of publicity.

American Idols are a revealed preference, the most accurate market research tool available. The fact that the market research procress happens to also be a zillion dollar venture on its own doesn't hurt either.

And someone as fun and unique as Kelly Clarkson deserves the success she's gotten.

Posted by Long @ 04:12 PM EST [Link] [20 comments]

[Archive Index] [Main Index]