Just to hear myself talk

Suzy wanted me to call this post "I miss my puppy", and while that is very true I'm not convinced it is anywhere nearly as interesting and important as hearing my own virtual voice, just for the sake of it!

In other words, it has been a week or so since I've last posted, and with little actually worth reporting, I've decided to do a bit of random ranting to keep up to date. I have never really set a strict deadline for myself, but as a general rule I try to post at least once a week, to satiate my non-existant fans. Drink deeply my friends, at the well of my genius...

I guess the best place to start is on a topic I had a little rant about at work today, Shane Warne. All the world was shocked to find out that he was interested in having sex with blond models... not! I actually feel sorry for the guy this time around, as he is basically a victim of a rabid and hypocritical media and of course a couple of greedy tarts who entrapped him so that they could sell their story to the papers.

Who really cares if this person who happens to be a cricketer has sex with strangers? In the past, it has been adultery and therefore slightly more news worthy, but now? He is just a single guy with an ex-wife and some kids. It has no bearing on his cricketing, I'm told he is one of the best bowlers of all time and unlikely to be banished from the team, and the only reason it impacts on his children is because the media chose to splash it all over our papers and televisions. In fact, the only reason it is a story is because they chose to make it a story, which is exactly the kind of attitude I have come to expect from the media, where it is preferable to manufacture sensations than simply present what matters.

The same goes for music industry, where the new trend is to focus on a single recording artist rather than a band. I find it sad to see musicians such as Bernard Fanning (Powderfinger) and Sarah McLeod (Superjesus) leaving their bands and recording "solo". Forget the fact that there is still a band behind the scenes playing the music, they are now just nameless and faceless employees of the record label, replaceable if required. I can see why this is such a tempting proposition for the label, no more artistic differences between band members, less people to pay the big bucks etc, they can just focus on a single person and mold their image as required. It just seems like such a sell-out by these artists I used to respect, and even when I enjoy the song itself, I could never bring myself to support this kind of move.

Of course, this has long been the case in recent music, with boybands and singers like Britney Spears simply singing and leaving writing the music/songs, playing the music and generally doing everything that requires any kind of artistic ability to people behind the scenes. There are lots of great karoeke singers, so why do we care if some of them release CDs? I find this manufactured music so boring and offensive, sometimes I can barely stand it.

Once everything with the house has settled down, and I have a bit of time to sort it out, I am going to spend some time on the web finding the artists I like and using contextual searches to find other groups I would enjoy based on that. It's time to find some new blood, and fight the bland crap the radio and TV orders us to enjoy...