AGAINST THE MTV-IZATION OF SOUND
The eye that stares,
blinds the ear;
The ear that must have image,
blinds the mind.
[Since about 1984, when MTV and music videos
came to dominate the popular commercial music scene,
I’ve always been suspicious of the rise of the added stream
of imagesto promote “songs,” or “tracks.”
We live in visual dominant — not visually literate — times,
meaning basically that are brains are knocked around
at random by a constant flood of trash.
This is bad enough for the extremely important, and powerful
as a formative force in our perception, visual environment.
But when it comes to sound and music, it is even
worse, in the sense of having a profound yet tacet
degenerative, arbitrarily limiting effect. If the natural
drama of the physical performance of music — one
of the most intricate and subtle of ballets — is not
enough, then I would say, something is very, very
wrong. Why? Well, must could be said, but just
let me say here, that it quicly becomes a cover
for the inner weakness of both the music
and the performer. It is not the stuff of a
new creative tradition, in my view, but just more
corporate corruption of culture.]