“Your voice is an instrument, and like other instruments, not everyone can successfully play it.”
That is what my old music teacher once told me. And honestly, i agree. And nowadays, it seems like the music industry is trying to forget that. The amount of autotune i hear in modern songs outrages me. To me, it’s like automating a piece of art. Now i guess the first painting ever to be painted by a robot will be worth a huge amount of money, but that will fade eventually, and the whole concept of art with it. And yes, i consider music a form of art. As should everyone.
I remember listening to my favorite artist (he’s dutch, you won’t know him), and telling my dad that the artist can’t sing. I still think so, he had a terrible singing voice, but the feelings that came with his songs were overwhelming. This artist, Ramses Shaffy, was famous for a good reason, but that reason wasn’t a beautiful voice. Like Bob Dylan, it’s the sound behind the voice that matters. You don’t even have to like the voice to appreciate it. They’re both quite often off key, they both have a certain rawness to their voices, stained by life, alcohol and probably drugs, but those factors also made them incredibly successful.
I watched a movie recently. It was about a guy whose dream comes true. After being kicked from the tribute-band he basicly set up, he is scouted and accepted into his favorite rock band. And it got me thinking. Not about dreams coming true, not about being in a band myself, but about why he was chosen. I thought maybe looks, since he looked like his idol. But that couldn’t be all. I thought maybe his devotion, since this wasn’t just his dream, it was his aspiration. But that wasn’t it either. Then finally i thought maybe it was his voice. He didn’t have a beautiful voice, but he had a near-perfect mastery of it. He could successfully play the instrument. And i smiled.
I didn’t just smile because i liked the idea. I smiled because i respect and admire people like him. Or at least, the character he played. Giving up everything to become a legend. And in the end, he turned out to be worthy of the title Legend. I will not spoil the movie (though i can’t remember the name), but the movie was beautiful, and told a wonderful story. Which, by the way, is exactly what performers like Bob Dylan do. They don’t just sing, they tell a story. And that story, to me, is more important than the quality of someone’s voice.
To the complete music industry: stop looking for children that look good and sell good. Save our music and look for people with a story to tell. For those are the people who need to share their story. I would rather listen to 1000 Bob Dylans who are all off key, than to 1 miley cyrus/justin bieber/whatever your new milking cow is. Stop looking for (made) quality, and start looking for what’s behind all that. Because the way things are going right now, music will stop being a form of art very soon.
Society IntoP13c3s 