How to Manufacture a Pop Star

I know it's been a while since I have posted. I am graduating from college in 18 days so I'm in the home stretch with my finals and papers. However, I will try to stay on top of my posts. Thanks to all who visit this blog from my facebook/twitter sites.

So in my music business class we watched this movie called "Before the Music Dies." I personally recommend it for anyone interested in the music business. Despite the bleak outcomes for many struggling music artists, this movie urges artists still to find their own ways and take advantage of the opportunities that are up there. This specific clip talks about how many pop stars can be manufactured, even without knowing how to write or sing. I challenge you to look up some of your favorite pop hits and a lot of them are written by 45 year-old white guys who strum a tune and by the power of a producer, marketing, and autotune, a hit is made. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Click the YouTube link below and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk3_p15RJY

Oh the trials of being a music snob!!

Most of us have been there, musicians and music-enthusiasts alike. Especially if you have been around to experience the 1990s and prior decades, we all have had those nostalgic moments in music of our childhood and teenage years that brings out harsh remarks about Disney stars, current rappers, pop stars, and Bieber. We all have thought "Gee, wouldn't it be swell if it were *this year* again when there was good music?" What is good music? The underdogs and the veterans? The cool or the uncool? Is music truly subjective? Have we gotten so far out of the loop, so distant from what music "should" be that we have no definition of what "talent" is anymore? Is good music really in the eye of the beholder? Or maybe we all just need glasses.

I had a long period of this. Where I would downgrade the Miley Cyrus song on my mp3 player and admit wholeheartedly that I was a childhood fan of the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, etc. "Kids nowadays don't know what they're missing. I feel sorry for them." I loved being an old-soul with the Facebook statuses and tweets talking about how I'm now jamming to Aretha Franklin or Stevie Wonder when the next song on the shuffle was just that one song I "kinda" liked from Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. That tune wouldn't get a tweet from me, right? If such songs were to magically appear in my playlist in some company, I felt like I would have to explain myself. Why would someone who listens to the legendary Queen be down with some Nickelback? That's just borderline blasphemous! I know many a music snob in these days. Just look up a song from 1992 on YouTube and I guarantee there will be at least one comment about how Gaga copied it or how the people that "disliked" the video are Bieber fans. I tested this on Guns N' Roses "November Rain." ... So I was wrong. The first comment listed was that it was people who "disliked this are f***kin Gaga fans." My bad. 

So earlier this year, I really started getting into indie rock and other different genres and thought that was the "cool" thing to be listening to, simply because it wasn't mainstream. I embodied my music snobbery by completely rejecting what was on the top 40 telling my peers: "I don't even listen to, or know, what's on the radio right now anymore;" or "Everything sounds the same nowadays;" or "There's nothing good that's out;" or "His/Her first album was better." And I was fine with this. I was hella proud. Even if I told people that I was into this band called "Vicious Flowers" or whatever that no one I know has heard of, but still have a major fanbase in eastern Norway, I stood firmly in that.  Then one day while searching YouTube, I came across a video comment that dealt with a brief rant on how people nowadays are such music snobs that we are afraid to like something popular from today. Now this particular comment had no "thumbs up," no replies, but it strangely stuck with me. Was I truly becoming that? A music SNOB? Was I truly reluctant to connect with the year 2010? And that word popular. Ugh such a stigma, a connotation that we music snobbers love to stay away from. It's our kryptonite, but secretly our forbidden fruit. 

Well, what does this all mean for a reforming music snob? This does not mean that I have to put Ke$ha on repeat and reject the music I grew up with. I am slowly accepting the fact that it is not 1997 anymore. I am proud of the music I have discovered from trying to embody this music snobness. And if I was nine today, would I be saying the same things thirteen years from now? In an essence, yes. In 2023, we will be hearing kids complaining about how awesome the Jonas Brothers were in comparison to "Jonas Bros. 'Copycats' 2.0." Remember how heinous some people thought Hanson was? Now they are saying that the Jo-Bros. can't even compare. Oh the trials of fickleness in time. The past will always pwn the present. Pwn is still cool to say right?

Introduction: What is a music tourist?

Hello. Goodmorning.

This is my first post to my new blog "The Music Biz and Me: A Songwriter's Blog" published under my blog-moniker "The Music Tourist." It is an open letter and introduction to myself as an artist. This blog is not only for my expression of music, business, and music business; but it is also a way to connect with other songwriters, musicians, artists, and music lovers out there. I know this site is among millions upon millions of other blogs, forums, networks, whatsoevers from writers that have more experience and "fans." That is the challenge, not just as a blogger but anyone in the entertainment business. Only this is not for competition, it is for expression, insight, and a little bit of randomness. I realize both takes time and diligence and as a 22 year-old college student it is hard to remain on my studies with these music aspirations literally ringing in my ears daily. But this is a part of me I have tried to push off and ignore for once too long.  

So what is a music tourist? To be honest, I'm still in development of what that is in regards to this blog and my musical personality. A tourist is someone who visits a place they are not originally from for exploration or leisure. Music is my means of exploring who I am as an artist and as a person. It is also used for my relaxation and retreat from anything and everything. A music tourist is freelance, she may not travel physically to different destinations in the world but she explores her surroundings, broadens her horizons, redefines her predisposed judgments, and challenges her boundaries and criticisms. This essence of being a music tourist is a project and a challenge to overcome obstacles and travel the musical world and all its opportunities. But believe me, I would love to literally travel the world and experience all kinds of music instead of experiencing music globalization within the confines of YouTube searching. Until I am able to acquire that kind of mileage, I remain comfortably in that definition.

So yes I am a songwriter. No my words and tunes are not gracing the top 40 and no I am not bleeding cash. In fact, a vast majority of my work is hidden within the deep pages of my notebooks in which none of my closest family, friends, and colleagues have ever had the (mis?)fortune to hear. This is kind of what this blog is for, increase my boldness and confidence. It's not that I don't think I'm good. I just want to be the best...that I can be. Whatever level that reaches I am working to be ready. Any work I post on here most likely will be resulting from hours of editing and even more hours of self-degradation. I realize that I am my toughest critic and I probably will always be. It is a defense mechanism that most artists have. What makes us able to get past that is able to trust our God-given talent and trust that others recognize it enough for us to elevate to our highest potential. My potential focuses not in celebrity, for my goal is to not be famous. My peers would often joke around with me like: "Girl, you a songwriter? You gonna be famous." Now I don't degrade fame or the famous at all. That level of success creates immense opportunities that I hope my journey prepares me for. Active hobby or thriving career? We will see.

For now this is my introduction. I am Lauren.
World this is me. Me, meet world.