Bill Maher uses the Grammys to make an argument about meritocracy, when the Grammys are like a fast food takeover of a culinary contest where only Burger King and McDonalds sweep the awards every year. And it is not there was some Golden Age for Grammy Awards. There wasn't. It was always a commercial venture when it began after WWII, as it was a continuation of a trend Aldous Huxley noted in Brave New World (1932), how music in our society would eventually be reduced to jingles equal to the advertising for products that appeared on commercial controlled radio. Maher is oblivious to Lawrence Levine's Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America and therefore oblivious to the mid 19th Century miners and farmers who could recite Shakespeare, sing arias from operas, hum Beethoven's sonatas, and the like.
We have a modern comparison to prove my point: Compare Italian young people in the 1970s and American young people in 1970s. At that time, corporate power had not completely taken over radio and television in Italy. And it was not as if Italian public school education was so superior to American public school education. Yet, in that period, Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator literally sold out stadiums in Italy while the Eagles and Loggins and Messina had to resign themselves to playing in clubs in Rome or Florence. But then, in the 1980s, corporate power in media grew suddenly and completely so that, by the end of the 1980s, Italian young people were suddenly listening to much of what American young people were listening to. Coincidence? I think not. It was a fast cultural devolution, and one that can be largely traced to corporate power over media sources.
I raised my children to appreciate classical music and we took them to concerts to see the excitement of orchestrated music. That was something I felt I had to do to avoid them being bombarded with the ubiquitous nonsense that surrounded them. The good news of the Internet is classical and progressive rock have been enhanced and have grown because the Internet is nearly worldwide and there are enough people who have woken or stayed awake, particularly young people, to hear music that is truly of a quality that merits the term "meritocracy." Yeah, it is not the majority of what young people stream on Spotify, but it is certainly there and not going away. The Rolling Stone article to which Maher refers, about the fact 90% of the downloads come from 1% of the artists, is a short article making that one point. It doesn't try to grapple with why, which would force the writer or the magazine to deal with the continued ubiquitousness of corporate power in media, and how most artists can upload music, but can't find an audience without mass marketing--or maybe someone can possibly find a way to go "viral," which is beyond rare. That we know there is a corruption based in economic power is evident when we see on YouTube the young people who upload streams where they listen to Yes or Gentle Giant for the first time--and are amazed. Andy and Alex are favorites of mine, but this young man at Wilburn Reactions is, too.
But, Maher can't even begin to go there. He is now completely in old Boomer get-off-my-lawn mode, attacking the Kardashians and Paris Hilton with cheap jokes and making Ok, Boomer fun of generalized yearnings of young people--who see a whole bunch of Meagan McCains and other rich people in our media and think, "I would like to have their stardom"--and not caring a damn about young people being stuck with taking a bunch of AP Courses, the pressures of going to college and taking out loans, with no increase in the minimum wage, and no health security. Sure, Bill, the problem is kids wanting to be a Kardashian. So like early 19th Century British elite who worried about the masses not getting married but shacking up because they could not afford the fee to the minister--and thinking it was a decline in morals, not a decline in the economic health and wealth among the working poor and benighted peasant farmers. How so Bidenesque of you, Bill.
I won't be surprised to learn, if Bill loses his perch at HBO, if he decides to undergo a sex change and try to get a gig with Whoopi on The View. He'd fit in perfectly with his cultural elitism. Yes, you can say I am a cultural elitist, but the difference is I think anyone and everyone can be taught to appreciate great music, film, or art, and what a great feeling it is to be touched by truly powerful and compelling music, film, or art.
News flash to Bill and other benighted Boomers and Oldsters: The Grammys NEVER spoke to quality of music or anything that would be a meritocracy. It was crap fifty and sixty years ago, and crap today. The Grammys, however, are emblematic of the dumb down in American culture, and further separation of highbrow from lowbrow. If we ever got to the time machine, and brought 19th Century working class people to our time, they would shake their heads wondering what the hell could be going on in 20th Century and 21st Century America to not appreciate Mozart and Rossini.
