The Logic Off Topic list

>But I simply don't see why so many people hate the majors. Please
>explain to me. I'd love to understand your point of view (and I think I
>can counter many arguments with reasonable facts).

Subversion of art into enforced mediocrity.

Here Japan mainstream pop is brutally stupid. It's the same 
boyband/girlband phenomenon you see in the US and Europe only while 
the BB/GBs account for probably 5~10% of the pop over there, here 
they are 60% or 70% and of the remaining 30~40%, half or more are 
manufactured products just like the BB/GBs the only difference being 
that they are individuals rather than groups.

The BB/GBs here really take the phenomenon to it's extremes.  They 
are extremely young, the groups are extremely large (Morning Musume 
has ten girls and was established when they were almost all under 14) 
and they are extremely bad.  The majors here clearly like it that way 
because while real talent is unpredictable difficult to control and 
sometimes hard to find and manage, there will never ever be a 
shortage ambitious gullible mediocre teenagers who can be used and 
tossed away when they are worn out or they start getting uppity and 
hard to manage.

Exhibit A:

SmapXSmap the reigning kings of the genre have four members three of 
which can't sing at all and the remaining one of whom can sing 
somewhat but is basically forced to sing badly so he doesn't stick 
out.  They sing their songs in glorious four part unison, and even 
that is iffy.  The listener is lucky if they all come together within 
a semitone of the melody and a 16th note of the beat.  They don't 
write their own songs, the songs are written so as to be singable 
(almost) by people with their "musical abilities" and they can have a 
top ten hit whenever PonyCanyon (a Japanese label almost as big as 
Sony here) decides it's time, which is about half of the time in any 
given year.  They dominate TV/Radio with their weekly variety show, 
appearances doing endorsements in commercials, "acting" in weekly 
dramas, and in major movies.  These guys can't sing, can't act, and 
though they are athletic and extremely adept at following 
coreographed moves do not really dance gracefully.   Basically they 
are smart ambitious young guys who were recruited as teenagers to 
become stars but really have no special talents but whose lack of 
same did not stop the majors from shoving them down the ever 
accommodating Japanese public's throats.


The Japanese public and their seemingly complete lack of 
discrimination in matters of taste seems at least partly to blame but 
the majors work hard to keep them dumb  1. The majors control 
distribution for example PonyCanyon/Fuji TV same company.  2. Payola 
rules the radio (no pay no play period) no american style college 
stations and no airplay without a major budget for payola.  3. Radio 
alternatives are extremely limited because licensing is tightly 
controlled and there are quite few radio stations that you can hear 
in Tokyo so there is no real chance relief there.


I know that Japan is an extreme case but it does seem to be an 
indication of what things are like when the Majors can do whatever 
they want.