From Beatles to Lady Gaga - get extreme
- Jan 19, 2011
Virgin guest blogger Emiliano Canal is the owner of Eternal Sunday records, Argentina, the only Argentinian record label specialising in releasing local music with songs in English. In this post he shares another insider secret to getting ahead in the industry.
When you work at a music company sooner or later someone will let you in on a secret: in order to succeed, a musical act must be extreme.
The business of music is not for moderate, reasonable, average people. It's for crazy lunatics that wear leather clothes, play guitar solos at maximum volume and live every day like it's the last one of their lives, fuelled by obscure substances. Is the music business really this way? Well, not exactly. No one can live like this without becoming deaf or passing away from exhaustion. But the important thing is not how the artists in question actually live but how people perceive them.
We ‘ordinary people’ live in an ordinary world with rules to follow, and everyday life asks for moderation. We are just one of millions of tiny dots that move around anonymously, taking public transportation, being polite to strangers, following rules, walking and not walking at traffic lights, paying taxes, saying please and thanks. We couldn't function as a society if we didn't. Luckily enough, there are some people out there who are able to do the things that we cannot do; rock stars don't seem to live in an ordinary world, therefore they are not obliged to follow ordinary rules.
Name a big star, and I'll show you someone with an extreme quality. Elvis? He's universally accepted now, but in the early 50s rock and roll was a shocking kind of music considered dangerous, violent and rebellious. Elvis danced like crazy, drove millions of girls mad, wore strange clothes and though he was obviously masculine there were some girlish touches in his wardrobe and image in general.
The Beatles? Sounds strange now, but their long hair, their Northern accent and fresh humour (not to mention their perfect songs) shocked the UK and then the world in the early 60s.
The Who? Used to smash their instruments after every show, just for the sake of it.
Rolling Stones? Almost respectable now, but were just young kids when they gained fame performing raw R&B, a genre of black music that was not even very popular in the States. The Stones became the quintessential rock band, generating stories of excesses related to sex, drugs, money, police arrests, scandals and divorces. None of these scandals damaged the band image, fans were very proud of their decadent lifestyle, and were willing to pour money in their (already pretty well filled) pockets.
The late 60s brought hippies, psychedelia, LSD, very long hair, gurus, sonic experimentation, flower power and long beards. Again, though four decades later we may be somehow used to this imagery, for the average non-rock fan of that time these were extremely radical ideas, looks and behaviours.
During the 70s glam rock emerged, helping rock music reach new highs in the scale of ridiculousness. Stars like David Bowie wore glitter, heavy mascara, silver or golden clothes, platform boots, feathers, animal skins and huge glasses and, not happy with the look, they also claimed things like they were from other planets. Many artists declared that they practiced or endorsed bisexuality or homosexuality (again, these were the early 70s – To be gay had only ceased being illegal in the UK a few years ago).
From the glam rock era emerged a very extreme band, Queen. Queen always did things bigger. Shows in huge arenas with hundreds of lights, hundreds of guitars and vocals overdubs like in 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a singer called after a god, who was born a showman and had excess embedded in his DNA.
You may think that as these are all popular mainstream acts the rule of being extreme doesn’t apply to other styles. Not so. Jazz musicians often dressed in extreme clothes, even before rock and roll.
Folk artists like Bob Dylan or Joan Baez were from middle class white suburbs but dressed like free-spirited bohemian poets and talked about politics, poetry, love and ecology.
Progressive rockers from the 70s were anything but moderate. Rick Wakeman, Yes' keyboardist, was famous for wearing a cape onstage, like he was Superman or some kind of analogue keyboards wizard.
More examples? Think of Jim Morrison, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss, Prince, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Madonna, Lady Gaga. Even The disco-era Bee Gees. You won't find any moderation whatsoever in their projected image.
So how can this help you succeed in the music industry?
First remember that an extreme look alone won't give stardom, success or (lasting) fame if it's not backed by the real thing. All these artists I've mentioned had the talent and put in thousands of hours of practice and rehearsal to make it.
Secondly, in order to put this into practice you must have no inhibitions whatsoever, no sense of the ridiculous and absolutely no concerns about good or bad taste.
Yes, you will look stupid to some (most) people, but as soon as your fans pay the tickets it's alright. Just remember you will also look silly wearing the uniform of a fast food chain while earning way less money.
Emiliano Canal runs www.eternalsunday.com.ar
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