Captain's Corner

Okay, for those of you who don’t know, we had a special guest musician at Lake Pointe this weekend. I won’t mention the name, but let’s just say she’s not some no-name slouch. I kind of got a look into what goes into one of her songs and it really kinda floored me.

First of all, she had extensive pre-recorded tracks coming off of a pro-tools machine. Don’t get me wrong, pre-recorded stuff can be great, but let’s practice some moderation… I mean we’ve got a pretty stellar house band as it is! The tracks included orchestral strings, various instrumental fills and… wait for it… her own vocals. Now, she didn’t lip sync the songs… and they weren’t background vocals, they were additional layers of fill for her voice. Then there was her vocal mic… Once the reverb becomes delay and/or echo… we’ve gone a bit far.

Now I know I’m not exactly a Pop music spokesperson (and with good reason… I have some amount of taste), but this just seems to be to be a hindrance to actual development of talent. Follow me here… The prerecorded tracks included orchestral strings. But, we had a string quartet on stage… just for appearances… So while they were playing, they couldn’t have gained any real experience… I mean, if they weren’t playing correctly, no one cared, they just turned the mics down. NOTE: I have no idea what mic level the strings were at… I just know what our plan was if they didn’t play well… my point here is not whether or not they could play, but how they were cheated out of an opportunity to grow.

And the vocalist… she’ll never have to develop her singing voice at all past the level she’s at. If she’s off, or she can’t quite sound exactly how they want her too… No worries mate! We’ll just add more fills or effects! I’m not saying she doesn’t have some level of talent… I’m just saying she doesn’t really have to have any as long as she has her producer…

It just seems to me that the Pop music industry and the Christian Contemporary industry take people with some talent… just enough talent to get by (maybe), and then just shove them through the machinations of marketing and effected recording and live with whatever comes out. I don’t know why anyone would pay to go to a concert for this kind of music… 75% of it’s the exact same recording as is on the album! In fact it seems that there are only two requirements for either industry. First you need basic musical knowledge and a modicum of talent. Second you must be at least one of three things in order to be marketable:

1. Controversial. Easy enough in the secular world… be the bad boy (or girl). For Christians this one can be a fine line… you can be the bad boy (or girl), but you have to either keep it within certain limits or just publicly repent a lot…

2. Be attached to some “Marketable Cause”. You know, the usual, “feed the hungry”, “relieve AIDS suffering”, or “stop driving your SUVs and causing Global Warming”

or

3. Be good looking. Now in the secular realm we’re talking sex appeal… or trashy, show a lot of skin appeal, whichever works for you. In the Christian realm, it’s more of a “look respectable and not-unattractive… but don’t look TOO good, otherwise you’ll be a temptation.”

Anyway, that’s my rant after all the fun this weekend. Seriously, I love my job… but I friggin’ hate Pop music. I told my boss at one point… “I wish we’d can the reverb… Even if someone can’t sing that well, I’d rather hear their actual voice.”

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