dce@tekecs.UUCP (David Elliott) (08/24/83)
I am one of those people that relegate all of these 'newly discovered' hitmakers to the trash heap. I have lots of reasons for why I do this : 1) They don't need my support anymore. 2) I just don't like what they are doing anymore. This does not apply to groups like the Go-Gos, since I didn't particularly like them before they were popular, but groups like the B-52s have good first albums and bland followups that are basically the same as the first. This doesn't mean that I now hate the first album, just that from now on, I don't buy their albums. 3) The performers have to change their attitudes to stay popular. Some friends of mine saw Peter Gabriel a few weeks ago ago and said that when he did 'Salisbury Hill', he had the audience sing 'Boom boom boom'. That's pretty damn tacky, but all of the people that had heard little more of Gabriel's music were happy and would come back. 4) I'm weird. 'nuff said. 5) If it's popular with white people, it's dull. I know that this sounds dumb and prejudiced, but mainstream radio play is determined by a primarily white audience of gullible jerks who will only listen to what is popular. I knew a guy who wouldn't even let me play my copy of "Voices" by Hall and Oats until he found out that "Kiss on my List" was a hit, and even then he would only listen to that song even though the album as a whole is much stronger than that one song. (This happened a lot in college.) Black audiences seem to like a lot of different types of music, which is why groups like Duran Duran and Grandmaster Flash can do well in black radio. For the most part, I don't have this attitude about many groups that get popular, since the popularity isn't permanent. Look at Devo. When they put out 'Freedom of Choice' and had a big hit with "Whip It", a lot of old Devo fans left them. Then they came out with 'New Traditionalists' and the "Whip It" fans left them and the old fans didn't come back. The odd thing is that this album is probably their best album. Now they are trying to recreate the success of "Whip It" with "Peek-a-boo". The next album should be another great one. David