Friday, November 22, 2013

Go fuck your MAMAs.

So [someone] won [some award or whatever] at the MAMA awards and here's how I feel about it.

give_a_fuck

"Hang on though..." I hear you ask - "as a musician and someone in the world of music, shouldn't you care about 'one of the most important events in the South Korea music industry'?".


"But isn't MAMA terribly important?"


Yeah well how about we look at how music awards are regarded in other parts of the world to get some perspective on this.

In the west the Grammys are supposedly the most important music award going, and nobody in the business with any brains really gives a fuck about that, either.  Maybe it's because the Grammys have a reputation for having no fucking idea about anything regarding music, which one would think might be kind of important for a music award, but even more so it's because it's very obviously an industry circle-jerk.

I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It's the music business celebrating itself. That's basically what it's all about. - Maynard Keenan (Tool), NY Rock Interview
Corpo-wisdom dictates that if any one guy sells thirty million records, when the kids come into the store to buy The Big Hit, they'll also pick up something else.  This is called a "traffic-builder".  Ever wonder why every year at the Grammys one guy sweeps up all the awards? - Frank Zappa, from The Real Frank Zappa Book
The awards aren't about you, the music fan, or about what music is the best.  They're about the industry patting themselves on the back and going "gosh, didn't we do well this year?".  Check out Eddie Vedder's complete IDGAF attitude when his group Pearl Jam won a Grammy here:


Public Enemy even saw the irrelevance of the Grammys before they were nominated for it three times in a row and lost out to the likes of one-hit wonders Young MC and Fresh Prince.  They knew that the Grammys would be listening to "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" (how could they not - arguably the most musically important album of the 1980s) but wouldn't dare give them an award for something so musically left-field so they took the time to tell them to get fucked in advance:


Relevant part at 1:03 - there's nothing like foresight.

"Oh, but there are other awards - what about the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, that's important, right?"


Look around at any western music award ceremony and for every deliriously naive winner and every douchenozzle who is butthurt that them or their fave lost, there's a whole legion of other people who are simply smart enough to realise that it's all bullshit.

bull

So why do k-pop fans care so fucking much?

crm

If half the people who are actually winning these awards can't even bring themselves to give a fuck, why do you?
Of course, I realise that's not what it looks like to a k-pop fan.  K-pop awards are always full of polite acceptance speeches and extreme gratefulness because these young men and women who perform are company employees trained in PR and non-boat-rocking behaviour, but behind it all, it's just another day with a dozen things to do and two hours of sleep.  It doesn't mean a lot except to the exceptionally stupid.


By all means watch the MAMAs or whatever other award shows you want for the drunken frolics and (often lip-synced) performances... but caring about who wins is some serious over-investment of your emotions.  You could be using that time and effort for something meaningful, like acquiring illegal drugs, or getting into car accidents, or changing the world with mindblowing insights into gender politics.  Don't waste your energy, kids.

33 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I have no idea, you'd have to ask a Korean speaker, given that Chuck D's lyrical strength was in his message rather than his delivery.

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  2. wonderful speech, are/were you president club or whatever its name..
    i just looove it!!

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  3. As a footnote to this, I can totally understand why Pearl Jam were there despite not really giving a fuck. Most of these events have awesome free food for the artists.

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    1. Maynard Keenan is the love of my life, tool is like my favorite band ever and i can't believe someone here quote him lol <3

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    2. I've honestly never been a fan of Tool (apart from "Sober", great song), I always found them a bit ponderous and dull. That doesn't mean Maynard doesn't have some worthwhile opinions though.

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  4. The reddit circle jerk... so profound it brought a tear to my eye.

    Melon Awards were the damn same... so you're telling me Exo's Growl was the greatest and most memorable song that encapsulated a whole year of k-pop? Urghh.

    Atleast Shinee's fangirls managed to beat off the stiff competition for the artist award.

    Its the same reason the YouTube Awards received so much flak. It was a chance to celebrate the diverse and ranging talent as well as the more obscure. What we got was the same top40 bullshit everyone else was pushing. For a site that entirely consists of user created and edited content, they messed up by nominating and giving the best video award to the artist and not the director or the production team directly linked to its creation (what... SNSD won? Fuck it. I take it all back).

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  5. I agree with all of what you are saying oppar, but I still watched it out of curiosity. The only relevant moments for me: crayon pop’s performance with some guys in fox suits. Everyone’s reaction is so funny. Every other kpop act goes with their complicated choreography and having ankle injuries (apparently someone from exo), but there is crayon pop pretty much saying: fuck you all, we are jumping.
    I started laughing so hard when GD won Best Dance Performance, for his song ‘crooked’, because last time I checked he is only jumping around. LOL. It worked for crayon pop, so why not for GD.
    And finally I am surprised people’s reaction to EXO’s winning:
    http://netizenbuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/2013-mama.html
    It's good to know not everyone is delusional.

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  6. the article you gave me from cracked, I know none of the artists, but I can see that it's like

    we have t-ara, 9muses, psy just came out with a new song, but the one winning the award is SNSD's IGAB

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  7. lmaoooo mama was in my city and i didn't even know it had happened until a few hours ago
    i do regret it a little bit because judging from the fan photos, infinite looked fucking jjangbak that day, but ehhhh

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    Replies
    1. who won what, anyway?

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    2. I was going to post a list but then decided that I didn't give enough of a fuck.

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  8. disappointed in crayon pop and ylvis performance. i wanted it to be an epic hot mess but it turned out to be really cool. i was planning on watching the mamas online but that video said 5-6 hours so i was like nope.

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  9. I agree. The grammy's used to be about something, it went way downhill starting in the 80's when they realized that they HAD to start giving awards to popular pop-artist if they wanted to keep generating high-viewership and high advertising revenue. Before, they would hardly ever give the "big" awards like album or artist of the year to "pop" artist or even "young" artist in general because the whole notion of "pop" and such just wasn't popular and wasn't considered to be real music. Now, they just go with album sales or artist that they've been paid to hype up. Take Beyonce for example, she has more grammys than people 100x's more talented than her, all won in basically the 2-3 years she was truly relevant. No way should she have more grammy's than Whitney Huston, Celine Dion or Ella Fitzgerlad (neither should madonna) but her father is supposedly on the board so it makes sense. She hasn't proved herself to be an artist with a catalog worthy of all the grammys she has but she has a great PR team trying very hard to make her "legendary" and it's not going to happen; RIhanna stands a better chance...

    The only female artist from the 90's onward that I think have truly deserved her Grammys is Lauryn Hill, Adele and Alicia Keys. If we are going by popularity and "pop star" appeal Rihanna should have just as many as Beyonce but RIhanna doesn't have people on the board pushing for her like Beyonce does.

    Taylor Swift has Kanye to thank for her grammys and yeah...it's a huge joke now.

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    Replies
    1. I think they were always a joke, note that some of the examples from the Cracked article are from the 60s and 70s...

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    2. That's true, I just meant that before, when they went through that whole "elitist" phase, they at least TRIED to be dignified by refusing to honor certain artist in certain genres. When it became even more about the "celebrity" it got increasingly laughable. Now days, people who you KNOW are going to be one hit wonders have grammies. I don't think any Music Award show is respectable. I thought maybe the CMT's were pretty good for the genre until they let Taylor Swift win every away ever, even when she technically, wasn't a country music singer to begin with.

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  10. Please forgive my fangirl-ing but I, for one, am glad Crayon Pop won the "Best New Female Artist", and this might be just me being delusional (which I'm probably am) but the girls bust their butt off to be recognize as a proper girl-group. Before BarBarBar, people just recognized them as "girl-group with comedic/funny chereo", so to me personally they deserved that award.

    And I agreed for the most part with Kpopalypse, award show ,international or domestic, now a days is just about pleasing the masses and stroking big companies dicks, as oppose to actually appreciating musics and artists for what it really is and for what it has achieved. I stop watching award shows, musics related especially, when finally I realized that its just a bunch of BS.
    And as always, brilliant post.

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, the slave drivers at Chrome Entertainment will be the only ones to taste the sweet fruits of Crayon Pop's labour. I'm still happy they won though. Though I'm just to busy laughing at everyone being butt hurt about their oppars and unnirs losing the MAMAs to care.

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    2. That is unfortunately true tho, I have heard idol talk about how they have to pay training fees to their company 1st before they can actually got paid properly. But I don't know if it still true for CP + Chrome Ent. tho, I mean they did get their own apartment/dorm now as oppose to sleep together in small room.

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    3. It wasn't long ago they were doing guerrilla performances with goofy nametags on... :^)

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  11. Sure beat's Japan's situation thoguh, being the internet whipping boy.

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  12. Can anyone tell me if B2ST performed? I might fap to Yoseob and Gikwang fancams later on.

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    Replies
    1. I can understand Kikwang, but Yoseob...

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    2. Whilst I will admit that quite recently he has been looking a bit like an anorexic goblin, I really don't understand why everyone on this site hates Yoseob. Is it the flat nose? Meh, who cares. It just means more dick for me

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  13. Glad I'm not the only one who think that music awards are bullshit.

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    Replies
    1. the only time i cared was when T-ara won triple crown for Lovey dovey.

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  14. I watched MAMA mainly for good red carpet pictures to edit and performances or any other good stuff to make GIFs out of. I stopped giving a shit after GD won a daesang.

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    1. pls tell all the other idiots to STOP GIVING A SHIT about this overrated blond poseur.

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  15. The only relevant and enjoyable part of MAMA for me was Ylvis and Crayon Pop, because it was a fun performance to watch, and the only one that I found interesting. The rest of it was a yawn fest. The MAMA awards don't mean shit to me because they tend to go to the people who bother showing up and then there's the YG bias.

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  16. I love how SM rarely sends any one to MAMA because its as if they even forget its on.

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  17. and CL's rap on Icona Pop's song was irrelevant imo :p

    Maybe MAMA belong to YG artists

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