It is not hard to make connections between those two. Neither is an obvious candidate for pop pin-up material, conspicuously failing to conform to the restrictive and banal standards of aesthetic beauty traditionally favoured by the music industry. They look like ordinary people look, maybe a little awkward in the spotlight. Neither is a cutting-edge noisemaker fashioning high-tech digital beats, both instead favouring analogue instrumentation and old-fashioned song-craft. In a world of all-singing-all-dancing entertainment puppets peddling sexed-up, manufactured faux outrage and controversy, Smith and Adele are just two talented singer-songwriters who excel at the things in music that people really care about. Their perfectly shaped melodic songs reflect the inner workings of their hearts, and they sing them as if their lives depended on them. Hooray. It's one up for "the ugly mother------", as shock jock Howard Stern recently described Smith.
These victories are intriguing, and the British music industry is surely learning from them. Certainly there is an abundance of pop music that reflects the most shallow impulses of our times, holding a mirror to the superficial concerns of the selfie generation. The pop charts hustle and bustle with listen-to-this sound effects and look-at-me visuals, trading in the obvious markets of sex and sensation. But nobody does blockbuster entertainment bigger, better and flashier than the Americans, who have dominated the global music business throughout the age of hip hop and R'n'B. So why try and beat them at their own game?
The most successful expats that Britain has produced in the past 10 years tell a very different story: Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Mumford & Sons, Adele, Ed Sheeran and now Sam Smith. They may not be the prettiest, coolest bunch of hipsters in the nation's pop history but they all embody qualities of sincerity, self-conviction and non-conformity while making music that is musical and has a heart and can appeal to everyone. And judging by the response of record buyers in the US and music industry voters for the Grammy Awards, they are doing something that American artists aren't.
It is an incredibly heartening prospect, as if British pop had stumbled on a new paradigm that suits the unruly character of this island nation, one that music fans have always adhered to in principle but the entertainment business has often neglected. It shouldn't really matter how you look. It's not important how cool you are. It matters how you sound, and how you make people feel. Sam Smith's Grammy victory should empower the real musical talent of this country to stop trying to conform to contemporary pop standards and just make music that matters, because the world is surely hungry for it.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Sam Smith's Grammys victory is a heartening prospect for British pop - Telegraph.co.uk
Dengan url
https://goartikelasik.blogspot.com/2015/02/sam-smiths-grammys-victory-is.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Sam Smith's Grammys victory is a heartening prospect for British pop - Telegraph.co.uk
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Sam Smith's Grammys victory is a heartening prospect for British pop - Telegraph.co.uk
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar