E=MC² Indeed!

Do my eyes deceive me? Did I really just see that? Did I really just see that Dippy Diva Maria Carey has titled her recent album, ‘E=MC²’, thus aligning herself with a discovery by one of the most brilliant scientific minds ever to grace this earth? Is hers the most inappropriately named album of all time?

Well, maybe. The audacity is breathtaking, but it probably isn’t the worst case of naming albums in direct contradiction to the content or provider. For example, in the ‘Does What it Says on the Tin’ award category there is ‘Like A Virgin’ by Madonna to be reckoned with and indeed the later ‘Music’, so clearly there are numerous instances of this type of misrepresentation littering rock’s dubious past.

After all, I could name you a whole host of bands or artists whose ‘Best Of’ compilation could form the basis of a Trade Descriptions infringement so the problem is deeper rooted than we might first imagine. Further research reveals the existence of workaholic Phil Collins’s 1982 effort ’Hello, I Must Be Going’. If only! Not only did he not go, he stayed around for another 20-odd years bothering us with all sorts of insipid MOR fare.

There is also the case of The Beach Boys’ 1971 album, ‘Surfs Up’ foisted on a public who had known for simply ages that none of the Boys actually surfed (bar Dennis Wilson whose subsequent death by drowning still had nothing to do with falling off a funny-shaped board).

Album titles are strange concoctions being a sort of advertisement and insight to the purveyor all in one. The trouble is that it sometimes gives away more than was intended like a slipping towel on exiting the shower. It comes to light that a few confused souls are in a bit of a tizzy over their sexuality, like Susanna Hoffs’ ‘When You’re a Boy’ and Neneh Cherry’s ‘Man’, but I’m glad to report that Debbie Harry has no such doubts with her solo project, ‘Rockbird’.

Conversely, there are a number of album titles that hit the nail squarely on the head. ‘Fried’ by Julian Cope probably needs no further comment, nor does ‘Oops...I Did it Again!’ by Britney Spears so at least there is a bit of honesty in the industry to be applauded. I bet the marketing execs who came up with those two are wringing their hands now!

But the last, painfully poignant word goes to Nirvana whose ‘Nevermind’ now seems dreadfully inadequate given what happened to Kurt Cobain a few years later.

Corporate Rock Rules OK

You know how it is; there are just some things that start to niggle away at you. Not so long ago, there were two such incidents that started the red lights flashing in my consciousness.
A) Amber warning – the debut of a new musical based on the classical Shakespearean story of Romeo and Juliet, set to the music of Boney M (no, I’m not joking).
B) Red warning – a business corporate event was to be held whereby clients would be entertained at a Madonna concert.

The growing implication here is that the world of rock ‘n’ roll, once the preserve of the young, is now firmly in the grip of the establishment. In the first example, a well known story is dumbed down by the addition of music produced by one of the most cringeworthy bands of all time and in the second, a pop event is hijacked by people who are less interested in pop music and more interested in furthering their own business interests. Let’s leave aside Madonna’s credentials as corporate entertainment for the moment, especially after the monstrosity that was Live Earth.

The effect of such events is to raise entry prices by increasing demand backed by corporate expense accounts, at the cost of the true fan, who is priced out of the market.

Of course, this sort of thing has been going on in the field of sport for years. In the 1980s, I attended the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone only to find that whilst I was squashed in to a small area with countless others, there was a large area of the trackside roped off for corporate entertainment. The enclosure was empty as all the invitees were drinking themselves stupid in a tent some distance from the track.

But to find this sort of thing happening to rock music is somehow profoundly depressing. I look forward to a time when great swathes of auditoriums worldwide are permanently vacant whilst us true fans fight for a view of our heroes from the ‘restricted view’ areas. And all for a month’s pay per ticket. My feeling is that it won’t be long.

Somehow, I can’t imagine watching the Who circa 1966 or the Clash circa 1977 under these conditions and it just seems to underline how the insidious creep of corporatisation has affected the music industry without anybody really noticing.