The AMA's prove again that they have no clue ..

[f.sciarrillo]

They gave Justin Bieber two awards tonight. I guess they will never learn. I do have to say that the highlight was watching New Kids On The Block and The Back Street Boys perform together. Look for them to be touring. I believe they are going to call it the "We Need Money Tour" ...

[RobTheDrummer]

Or you could call it, "the big gay orgy tour."

[tornandfrayed]

Just an FYI, Taylor Swift debutted at number One on the Billboard chart. She did this by selling more albums in the first week of release then ALL THE OTHER RECORDS ON THE TOP FORTY COMBINED. I guess someone is still buying Cd's.

But yeah Justin Beaver and Usher sort of not my thing.

[f.sciarrillo]

All these no talent acts coming out just shows that anyone can get a record deal. I won't say that all the music coming out today is terrible, but a good 98% of it is ..

[moxham123]

All I saw of the show was the opening act, Rihanna, who could not sing and she danced around. I wondered who was the person who told her she can sing and gave her a record deal.

After that, I saw Usher win an award and The awful Black Eyed peas won an award in the pop/rock duo or group category over the band Train. They can't even compare to the talent of Train.

I could not continue to watch and switched to the John Lennon story on PBS.

If anybody is interested, here is the list of AMA winners. Remember, the public votes for these people; so, that indicates a lot of the voters tastes and not necessarily actual talent.

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=612863

Out of the list of winners, there are a few who are good singers and players like Michael Buble, Mercy Me, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, and Lady Antebellum but the rest of them not that I can see.

[f.sciarrillo]

Out of the list of winners, there are a few who are good singers and players like Michael Buble, Mercy Me, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, and Lady Antebellum but the rest of them not that I can see.

I agree, except for Carrie Underwood. I don't like her ..

[joltinjeff]

They gave Justin Bieber two awards tonight. I guess they will never learn. I do have to say that the highlight was watching New Kids On The Block and The Back Street Boys perform together. Look for them to be touring. I believe they are going to call it the "We Need Money Tour" ...

Lets face it folks, any music awards show is nothing but a joke...these ppl who are selling music are not selling music, its popularity...that is why we have little people like Justin Bieber getting so many awards. I saw Rhianna get an award for best r/b singer "REALLY?" She sells sex and thats fine, but to give her an award over the likes of Sade (very sexy) even after all these years and alicia keys....and gee we didnt have a Kayne moment.....
All Im saying is that these awards are not about the music any more .... without the digital overdubs and everything else, how many of these people really sing anymore?

[moxham123]

Lets face it folks, any music awards show is nothing but a joke...these ppl who are selling music are not selling music, its popularity...that is why we have little people like Justin Bieber getting so many awards. I saw Rhianna get an award for best r/b singer "REALLY?" She sells sex and thats fine, but to give her an award over the likes of Sade (very sexy) even after all these years and alicia keys....and gee we didnt have a Kayne moment.....
All Im saying is that these awards are not about the music any more .... without the digital overdubs and everything else, how many of these people really sing anymore?

Yeah, Rihanna, who can't carry a tune, over Sade. By the way, Sade, is actually the band's name as well as the adopted stage name of the lead singer. I guess since she is 51 years old, most of the young voters have no idea who Sade is. So, to agree with your post, it is about image and popularity and not always talent.

Sade is one of the biggest selling acts around with over 50 million records sold. This is one of Sade's older tunes live but check out how professional they are as a live act. Great stuff!

Sade - Smooth Operater (live)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L3T4tFNxOo

[bassist_25]

"Breaking news! Music awards shows are based on units sold and industry politics rather than actual talent ... also after the break, astronomers discover that the Earth revolves around the sun, but first, stay tuned for John with your five day weather forecast."

[joltinjeff]

"Breaking news! Music awards shows are based on units sold and industry politics rather than actual talent ... also after the break, astronomers discover that the Earth revolves around the sun, but first, stay tuned for John with your five day weather forecast."

Actually knew that bassist......what i was trying to get at was that the music industry has gotten away from its roots and is focusing on how much units are sold....do you think that Elvis, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, etc. had anything else but talent to get them where they were.
With the politics of the music industry we are stuck with the likes of Beeper, Re-re, muley miley and others.....


I seen on another website where they were actually calling for the comeback of 80s hair metal....which im all for....but some of the shit that comes across the radio waves today sucks donkey ass!
It sucks to be stuck in Huntingdon....

[bassist_25]

"Breaking news! Music awards shows are based on units sold and industry politics rather than actual talent ... also after the break, astronomers discover that the Earth revolves around the sun, but first, stay tuned for John with your five day weather forecast."

Actually knew that bassist......what i was trying to get at was that the music industry has gotten away from its roots and is focusing on how much units are sold....do you think that Elvis, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, etc. had anything else but talent to get them where they were.
With the politics of the music industry we are stuck with the likes of Beeper, Re-re, muley miley and others.....


I seen on another website where they were actually calling for the comeback of 80s hair metal....which im all for....but some of the shit that comes across the radio waves today sucks donkey ass!
It sucks to be stuck in Huntingdon....

I wasn't trying to be elitist, but I always have a laugh because every year, when it comes to the Grammies, AMA, RRHF nominees, etc., there's a thread here that goes "Like OMFG! My favorite progressive neo-traditional bagpipe folkcore death metal band didn't win New Artist of the Century! I am aghast that these commercialized awards shows run by music industry big wheels are not legitimately interested in artistic merit and breaking new musical territory!" Of course, I always make this same comment, so I'm not denying that I'm redundant either.

These awards shows are always reflective of what the mainstream culture has deemed musically relevant. Of course we're going to generally disagree with those choices here at Rockpage. We're musicians, sound engineers, serious fans of music, etc. I'd like to think our musical palette goes deeper than Top 40 radio. We're not the majority when it comes to musical tastes.

And besides, a lot of this talk about talent is relative anyways. We can long for the days when our cherished rock bands were getting the accolades from the mainstream. However, our largely-diatonic, tertian harmony based music with simple meter and simple melody is pretty elementary compared to classical, romantic, jazz, and many semi-tone based forms of music. There's some latin stuff out there that will just kick your ass to play well. If talent is the primary basis upon which an artist should win one of these awards (and good luck with qualifying such an abstract concept as talent beyond simple things like an ability to play in time or sing in key), then progressive jazz acts and avant-garde composers should be the only ones even considered to be included. When was the last time John Cage was honored at a mainstream awards show?

[Sapo]

...our largely-diatonic, tertian harmony based music with simple meter and simple melody is pretty elementary compared to classical, romantic, jazz, and many semi-tone based forms of music. If talent is the primary basis upon which an artist should win one of these awards (and good luck with qualifying such an abstract concept as talent beyond simple things like an ability to play in time or sing in key), then progressive jazz acts and avant-garde lcomposers should be the only ones even considered to be included.

A good song and good music in general don't have to be complicated. I agree you can't qualify talent. I certainly don't think, however, that talent is dependent on how much theory you know.

[bassist_25]

A good song and good music in general don't have to be complicated. I agree you can't qualify talent. I certainly don't think, however, that talent is dependent on how much theory you know.

I totally agree. I was just trying to talk in tangible terms, since we seem to be speaking about "talent" as though it's this easily qualifiable construct with a definition that we all agree upon. Technical wankery does not always equal talent for melody or the ability to create something musically interesting. But then we're back into subjective territory again.

For the record, I always thought that N'Sync were insanely talented singers. I thought their material was Grade A bubblegum cheese, but I always thought them to be talented vocalists and performers.

Ugg! Bubblegum and cheese mixed together; that doesn't sound tastey.

[Jasaoke]

I will put forth that there is an element of "talent" involved in entertaining our ADHD teenagers and selling high volume. Not necessarily musical, I know, but still...

As far as musical ability goes, The Black Peas and even Eminem are producing songs with 4 chords in them, which is on average, 1 chord more than an typical Steve Miller or BTO song. Would we call those guys "talentless"? Is it somehow more musical to strum a guitar than to play keys or program an MPC?

Everybody complains when their favorite act doesn't get recognized, but let's face it, if our favorite bands had the same appeal and marketability as Justin Beiber or Hannah Montanna, they wouldn't be our favorite bands.