Mass Suckers

It is just another sad thing that I see.

People at the end of the day just want something that’s easier, something that won’t challenge them. They want fucking packaged pop, escapist but not thinkers.

This week there is two major releases---Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero and Avril Lavigne’s The Best Damn Thing. One is a dense concept album with a challenging theme and sound, one is an album with pop songs designed for Top 40. Which one do you think is going to sell more? Lavigne, of course.

According Hits Daily Double, it looks like Avril Lavigne is expected to debut #1 with about 250k in sales, while NIN should be right behind her with about 200k in sales. While the margin is not big, I was a bit sadden by it.

PEOPLE JUST FUCKING WANT DISPOSABLE POP.

Yes, NIN has Internet buzz with the ARG campign, has mostly positive and some very positive reviews, (yes, the album is great). But it touches darker subjects---mass sedation, a controlling government, rebellion, a giant hand of god---stuff that makes for good science fiction. Set in place 15 years from now, it represents a bleak future, and perhaps something that the mass does not want to think about. Hey, there are still a lot of people who still won’t believe that global warming is upon us.

Lavigne, on the other hand, has something better (in terms of sale)---she has Top 40 radio play, a bunch of TV appearances (how punk is that?) and a mass-circulated video. She got mostly average to negative to reviews, but does it mean anything? Nickelback sold a ton.

I guess that’s why most of the time discs that ends up in “Best of the Year” list is usually things that wasn’t a mass –commercial success (again, mostly), because to achieve critical success, it has to be challenging, daring, interesting, and audacious. The average mass is not going for that, they just want something normal, something peaceful and something ordinary.

And who am I to judge?

I don’t even know why I should care anymore.