Death Of The Rockstar – Rockin The Deathstar

The other day, one of my bandmates made the comment “It seems like people are becoming more and more nervous every day” This should be obvious to everyone. It’s not just a political situation. ItsĀ  not just an economic situation. It’s a world situation.

It comes with the death of the rockstar.

It should be obvious also that the potential power of music to move masses of people is not a small thing. “The 60’s”, that great mystery period where large numbers of people began to question the status quo and the powers that be, was at least coordinated by and with, music. Music said something. It no longer does. Music’s ability as a cultural force to mobilize people has been marginalized by the business interests which once helped foster it.

Record companies which once helped record, select and develop the artists they signed with have been bought out by electronics and media companies. This has not been a successful marriage.

It used to be that no musician was “In it for the money” And they didn’t really know how to make it with this unique product called music. So some businessmen cam along and took care of that side of it. Then there was money involved and the musicians began to demand it as part of the package. Then the business guys used other business tools called marketing to make more of it. Technology advanced and soon we had videos explaining what the music meant. And then it became unnecessary for the music to mean anything because the business side got more “efficient”

The playing field is supposed to be evened out these days with this mass communication tool called the Internet. Theoretically, anyone can make music and market it themselves and they don’t need” the music business or record companies of the past. But, they do need to do all that themselves, instead of making the music that moves people. Again, the rockstar has died because he now has to become the business man as well.

Originally music was the thing you did if you had a creative impulse to inspire people to have faith in themselves, or the future or to question the way things are around you. It was originally the purest form of rebellion. Now the Rockstar has become part of the Deathstar.

He wasn’t so much lured to the dark side by greed or by the dark forces, for the dark side exists in all of us. Becoming his own business minded self managed DIY solo artist blogger merch guy all adds up to the musician doing his music for something other than what it was intended to do. Inspire rebellion.

It was the Deathstar who attacked John Lennon when he said The Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ. That’s rebellion. It was even easy for people to say that John was an operative for the dark side with those words. But he was really doing his actual real job. Not just as a musician, but as a leader. And, he got creamed for it.

Maybe it was because he was on too big a stage for those words. Maybe those words should have been spoken in a park. To a group of 50 or 100. Maybe John Lennon should have been a busker.

The rockstar should have never happened. He was borne out of the same dark forces that created this Deathstar. The musicians place is not really about making money, its about leading the rebel forces.

Use the force

Author: Ian

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