"Hmm, what rhymes with Oscar?"
I do not blame Eddie Vedder or Jeff Bridges for their latest musical releases. It's a free country. This is a capitalist society. People are allowed to create wealth in any legal way they can, and I applaud the effort.
And yet.
How much effort was put into Misters Vedder and Bridges CDs to get such high sales? It had to take some effort, I'm sure. They had to write the music, arrange the songs, work with musicians and producers to achieve the desired sounds. And then the music was released to the public. And the public buys their music in vast quantities.
This is where I get to the friggin' point. Eddie Vedder's ukulele album and Jeff Bridge's debut CD aren't successful on their own artistic merit. Eddie Vedder's CD is popular because he is Eddie effen Vedder. And Bridges' CD is popular because, hey, he's the Dude!
And, frankly, the music's not great.
But this hasn't stopped my local AAA station (disclaimer - I work for the company that owns this station) from playing the crap out of these CDs. The music director told me that Bridges' release is in "heavy rotation". (There's a pic of the MD with Jeff Bridges' arm around him on his FB page - surely a coincidence)
I'm upset because there are so many great musicians who I know that are creating much better - and more listenable - music than this. And I'm just talking about the ones who are attempting to be full-time musicians. If I add the ukulele reprobates who make music on Youtube, that adds a hundred more quality music-makers. All of whom I would put above Vedder and Bridges on my mp3 player.
So yeah. That's all I'm saying.
