8.8.2011 Adam News & Info
Aug 9, 2011 0:18:12 GMT -5
Post by rabbitrabbit on Aug 9, 2011 0:18:12 GMT -5
She was surprised that someone like him would go on AI, because "he must've known that there is absolutely no cred coming off of this show". She asked me if he was in Wicked (somehow she knew that?!) and that she thought that was a very respectable achievement, and that Idol would be a "step down" in her mind. Here I replied that the "gay" thing was obviously affecting his chances exactly the way Adam described...
When we were in school, there were people in my program who judged our professors, who were often industry professionals. "They must not be that great, if they have to teach part time ..." Well, needless to say, many of us got out of school thinking we were going to set the world on fire and instead, we got our asses burned by the reality of how freaking difficult it is to make it in the entertainment business. It is a LOT of BS and it can be very arbitrary. Someone might suck, but be in the right place at the right time and they get the job five minutes after you walked out the door.
Sure, it's real romantic to think it's going to all come together because your talented, hard working and determined. The fact of the matter, sometimes it just doesn't work out no matter how good you are an how many chances you've taken. The end result of what Adam has achieved proves that the benefits outweighed the "stigma." And the "stigma" is really something dreamed up by the too-cool, indie, rocker types. Which ironically, was Adam before he went on the show.
Any one of a number of things could have happened during the audition process that would've prevented him from getting to the TV audition. One clueless producer (or someone distracted or in a bad mood or they just didn't think his "type" would fit the cast) in the early stages could have sent him home and to this day, none of us would have ever heard of him, despite his talent. People do what they have to do in this world and it always breaks my heart a little when certain segments stigmatize because of some random notion they've built up in their own head.
It's funny because although I of course know nothing about your daughter Nica, I would definitely have been seeing this issue from her point of view before I got sucked down the rabbit hole. I would be much, much more likely to be interested in going to a Phish or Flaming Lips show than someone with the idol tag attached. I would also imagine the attendees at their shows and Burning Man (at least a few years ago) have a significant overlap.
The thing is, while I completely understand the reasoning and benefit for Adam in going on the show, he isn't trying to make indy "sounding" music at this point. He is trying for a mainstream career and audience, and top 40 is as mainstream as it gets. While CV and Zodiac were pretty indy, Pop Goes the Camera, Kiss and Tell, etc. are pop, and Adam's list of myspace music he loves, while very diverse, included much more mainstream music than indy darlings.
What indy cred does give you, like it or not, is the assumption that the music you are making is allowed to be experimental, counter-cultural, a rejection of dominant society (not that it will be, but it could). Like being a hipster, it's more about what you aren't than what you are, which is nebulous. (This totally off-topic, but an interesting though depressing look at one aspect of youth culture from Adbusters: Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html)
As Q3 said the college students and 20-somethings are the least likely to purchase music, and most diverse in their listening patterns. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, they also tend to be a lot of the ones making music, writing about music, discovering new music, sharing new music and otherwise influencing culture and taste in various ways.
