Simon Cowell 2009 NME Cover
I haven’t read the whole article but I’m sure by later today, I will add fuel to the fire. Simon Cowell on the front cover of theNME ( New Musical Express, what was once a highly influential paper for discerning record buyers. Repeat WAS) It created intrigue, I didn’t buy a record because of a review but I was curious enough to want to hear it and make my own mind up as how to dispose of my precious disposable income. It was there to whet our appetites and were slavering, hungry and ready for our nourishment. Now the NME matters not and they have splashed the nemesis on the front cover. Nothing is any different from the last five years that Simon Cowell has reigned and all things Simon Cowell continue to dominate the ‘coveted’ Christmas Number One.
First question, why is it coveted? Maybe once it meant something, now it’s a forgone conclusion. And before you jump up and tell me Rage against the Machine pipped him to the post for the first time in half a decade, so what? It won’t change anything, it’s an outcry, we’ve had them against wars, politicians,you name it we’ve voiced it. The public gets on it’s high horse and voices it’s opinion. Within a week Joe X Factor Winner will be outselling Rage against the Machine, everyone will be full of festive bird and trimmings and it’ll be buysiness as usual.
And so to the NME article. And let’s be totally honest here, written to get people to buy a paper they no longer care about. Because the nemesis is on the cover. Whatever you think of Simon… he is bigger than Swine Flu and far more contagious. He changed the way we watched television (we being a generalization) and he changed the way people bought records. He got them to watch his programs and to buy his records, whereas most recently they bought very few records and didn’t give a fuck about music on television. Arise M(MUSIC????) Televison??
Let us debate.From said article…
Simon Cowell believes he single handedly managed to save the industry from ruin, he says in a new interview with NME. Things were looking pretty grim before he started with the two shows ( X Factor and Britain’s got Talent ). Cowell says and the fact that he managed to get such high ratings on TV boosted interest in the music the contenders on the show made. One thing lead to another, and more and more people started going into music stores to buy music, which would not have happened otherwise, the star says.
“The music industry was in a huge decline. What I would argue in my defense is that shows like Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor have actually got people more interested in music again and are sending more people into record stores. We haven’t seen this kind of uplift in years,” Cowell tells NME. In making this statement, he also comes to contradict other stars who claim that these two shows only bring out the worst in the industry, in that they artificially promote manufactured pop stars who have no staying power – this, despite the fact that some of those who appeared on the show have gone to sell millions of albums all over the world, like Leona Lewis and Susan Boyle.
Correct, more people did go in to record stores to buy music, but not music as such Simon, they bought YOUR music. He says he single handedly saved the industry from ruin. Again I beg to differ, he saved SONY/BMG from ruin and for that they pay him more than most labels turn over nowadays. I don’t think he saved Universal from the disastrous year they have just had and the massive sums of money they had to be seen to invest in new albums from U2 etc to look like they were playing the game. Which when all is said and done is the incessant, mindless game of catch up. He’s already lapped you several times over, you’re on the starting blocks…….No particular place to go! While Simon Cowell saved the music industry, Universal laid off a bunch of people. Where lies the saviour in that? And next year… there will be even more redundancies. The music industry is incapable of keeping up with him, because he is more gifted than them in knowing what the people want. And now he has the only shows that people watch that have music on. He can pick and chose what wannabes and what stillhavetobes are on it. He is the only kid in town, the only one with that choice.
Call it the dumbing down of record buyers, call it apathy, call it what the fuck you want but nobody does it anywhere near as successfully as Simon Cowell and every A and R person in the music business wishes they had and ounce of his midas touch. But they don’t . They cannot lead and they cannot follow, they scratch their combined heads and they have no answer. Simon Cowell will dominate for as long as he chooses to , there is no deposition in sight and he ain’t abdicating. He is too powerful. He started the battle and he won the war. In the music industry people used to be constantly looking over their shoulders to see where the competition was, from wherever. That’s what made it exciting, everyone vying for pole position. You pip someone, they pip you. We were a nation of pippers, now he’s Pip Central, he’s piped the lot of ‘em and they’re all totally pipped off.
Where is the competition, where lies the challenge? He’s so adept at it now, it can’t be demanding. He’s even working with Clive Davis and Simon Fuller who also know the ropes better than the competition. All for one and one for all… these Three Muskateers all sit under the BMG empire.
I worked there and with all them for 7 years in the 90’s and directly with the two Simons. Clive Davis probably didn’t know me from Adam and he never invited me to his pre Grammy’s Party. For that I am eternally grateful, I hate puking at parties. In those days it was a different set up and a different level of success. Like most record companies, they had success and then they didn’t. I saw Simon Cowell rise from nothing and I know what he has that his competitors don’t have……. belief, resilience and an ability to deliver, consistently. More than the rest of them put together. You may not like it but you can never underestimate the power he has in knowing how to do it. He may appear he’s bitching about RATM but he’s just winding everyone up, he’ll love the fact that he creates so much controversy that a nation must rise against him
The first of many rants I suspect. I will return but for now, Merry Christmas Simon.
