Is it quality that wins or does honing a proper attitude come into play?
To wrap your fingers around true quality, meaning a product whose branding falls under the category of experience more than a pair of tennis shoes that don’t fall a part…doesn’t it require a quality driven winning attitude to guarantee client success? Or…is it acceptable to come across as the happiest person at work and still deliver half the job?
Joel Olsteen caught me off guard when he embarrassingly admitted, “We have become a people of mediocrity. We no longer demand the best…settling instead for third and fourth on the list.” A radio station GM once said to me, “I can’t afford to hire the best talent so I’m forced to hire the inexperienced with high hopes of teaching them the ropes before they break me.”
I now direct your attention to Kris Allen who wasn’t the greatest attraction on American Idol. The world fell for the underdog. It’s kinda like downloaded music that millions of fans continue to steal from the web…it doesn’t matter how long it takes to drop it into your MP3 player or how crunchy and munchy it sounds cruising through a pair of cheap earphones…the most important part of the journey is the opportunity to sing with your favorite song while complaining about how high concert ticket prices are.
Not only radio but movie theaters across the country are currently facing a dilemma that affects and infects the way you’re going to be entertained in the unwritten chapters of 2010 and beyond. Those involved in making movies and music want each place of delivery to hoist open their wallets and pinch a few more dollars off their company bank accounts.
Be it a new tax or an added fee to have the right to play and or perform what has been copyrighted will take from your everyday business massive amounts of quality and put it in the hands of people who find pleasure in what I call the bang it out just another gig theory.
If you ever want to read a true Hollywood romance, study the pages of written and recorded music meets radio and television. Since the birth of broadcasting, writers, performers and producers with their individualized labels have taken separate sides constantly demanding more from an industry that doesn’t steal from their image but heightens awareness.
Elvis Presley shaking his hips and the mop tops of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan changed our process of life because both radio and television worked in harmony by creating a landslide of unexpected American culture. A single shot fired by the Dixie Chicks was heard around the world and its required broadcasters to heave ho their three part harmony back onto the charts.
Elton John used a fake prefabricated sound effects library live audience on his single Benny and The Jets. Rather than capture the essence of realism, he settled for third and fourth best to create a tune that we’ve labeled a quality classic. His attitude was great but quality of the performance took a separate seat. Live music didn’t rock the music world until Peter Frampton and KISS shot through stadiums with individualized efforts but even then…live music or comedy act on a record, cassette or MP3 still didn’t fall within the cracks of life called quality.
If your entertainment outlets are forced to pay additional dollars to maintain a quality relationship with those being excessively creative…do you the consumer have the full right to challenge their copyright? At this point in the game I’d say you’re winning. Itunes and other pay per play sites love the idea that it’s not the entire compact disc you’re searching for. Kid Rock on the other hand continues to toss king sized ban my music from online fits.
Kid Rock grew up during a time of album themes, when purchasing a thin sheet of vinyl came with a purpose and or poetic feel that you could see while laying on your back in the front yard with your eyes closed. He’s dedicated his entire creative flow to the pouring out of what inspired him most and if you’re downloading a single verse from the effort, it kills him in the heart that you didn’t receive the entire motion picture.
Sadly, most acts and actors on the blizzard white screen don’t keep their feet on the ground while reaching for these stars. Jack Black, Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller should be arrested for theater robbery. Most people can’t count on one hand the number of quality driven flicks these three have participated with. What they deliver easily falls into a category that The Art of Selling calls easy forgiveness. Everybody has a bad day…bless their heart. Instead of boycotting the continued bad service we haul our tails back into that world of escape and say, “Hit me again and again and again…”
Now that Imax has entered the neighborhood theater scene with its highly touted guarantee of gifting you with a true American movie experience…how willing are you to fork out a few more pennies, nickels and quarters to see a digital picture? Chances are, you’ll settle for third and fourth best and take the little people in your life to Harry Potter on the same old boring movie in a metal canister screen.
The performance tax doesn’t guarantee quality…it just makes unhappy entertainment people more acceptable in the big business public view…proving that having a great attitude will always win. What will this do to the imperfectly printed love song that creeps into your life when you least expect it and hits you straight in the heart? If the writers and performers get their way…they’ll be happy. Suddenly life will become Sesame Street.
I don’t write this to challenge the process of creative people…I’ve been blistered by a publisher who continues to sell my book without putting a penny in my pocket. It reminds me of the story about a little boy who found a rattlesnake at the top of a mountain. He feared picking the snake up…it might bite him. “Please take me off this cold mountain,” the snake begged and pleaded. With compassion in his heart the child finally gained the confidence to free the snake of the chill and upon putting him on the soil at the base of the mountain, the slithering hisser reached up and bit into the child. “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”
Musicians and actors know of the business that surrounds their show…my constant belief is if you want to be rich and famous never do anything evil to those who made you rich and famous…fans and the long list of outlets that put your words and rhythms in the consumers eyes, ears and body.
Art isn’t a talent…it’s a gift and like all toys handed to you at Christmas…how many of them make it a full year? Oh wait…what am I talking about? There’s nothing wrong with riding a bicycle on one wheel…I see it every year at the circus. Be still DJ boy!
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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