Video Killed the Radio Star AND the Songwriter

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A couple of things happened almost simultaneously to inspire this little rant/discussion. First, I spent yesterday engrossed in Robbie Fulks' new album, Upland Stories, mesmerized by his brilliant lyrics and storytelling that is novelistic in its approach (seriously, how many songwriters give us lines like, "I was welcomed like a guilty prisoner, old grievances fouled the air"?). Second, a friend in a music group I belong to on Facebook posted a video for "In Bloom," a song from Sturgill Simpson's new album A Sailor's Guide to Earth. The video's visuals were completely unrelated to the song and, in fact, made the song downright difficult to listen to. I replied to my friend that the video may well be the worst thing I've ever seen. If you know any music trivia at all you know that the very first video MTV played when it launched in 1981 was the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star." That may have turned out to be the most prophetically-titled song in music history. However, I've complained for years that video didn't just kill the radio star, it's killed songwriting. Think of some of the great lines from songs: "feeling near as faded as my jeans" by Kris Kristofferson in "Me and Bobbie McGee," "like a vision she dances across my porch as the radio plays, Roy Orbison singing for the lonely" by Bruce Springsteen in "Thunder Road," "the graveyards of the rusted automobiles" by Steve Goodman in "City of New Orleans," or "It's another tequila sunrise staring slowly across the sky" by Don Henley and Glenn Frey in the Eagles' "Tequila Sunrise." Those things are falling by the wayside today, with the truly gifted songwriters confined mostly to the "cult" areas in Americana or alt-country. Why? My contention is that songwriters don't have to paint pictures with their lyrics when the record label is going to spend $25,000 on a video to show people what the song is about. (Or, in the case of the Simpson video, what some artsy-fartsy director wants to conceive of what he thinks something is about that really has nothing to do with the song.) Back in the 80s, when videos became the primary focus to the exclusion of the music it was supposedly promoting (you can thank Michael Jackson for that, when he spent more on the "Thriller" video than he did making the Thriller album), music changed drastically -- and not for the better. Looks became more important than the quality of the music (it's a good thing people like Bob Dylan and Tom Petty were already established by then, huh? ). When the looks became more important than the music the quality deteriorated. Today we see the results of that in the mainstream: people talk about what Lady Gaga wears or what outrageous behavior Madonna is doing this week. If you suggest someone who writes great lyrics (from Fulks today to John Hiatt and John Prine to my all-time favorite, Warren Zevon, or other older acts like Randy Newman, the aforementioned Kristofferson, or the late Steve Goodman) that you have to listen to? No, thanks. Now we have a mainstream that's based on the singer's looks and how cool (or bizarre) the video is, not on how good the music actually is. Mainstream music today is just as pointless as the background music in a movie (which is another problem that I think has contributed to the problem: stick a song in a movie in the background or on the radio while characters talk over it, and the music loses its importance), because that's all it is anymore -- noise. Maybe if there were more knock-you-out lyrics like Kristofferson's comparison of his emotions to his denim this would change, but by now I think the public is too conditioned. Is it any wonder the average American spends less than $20 a year on buying music today? PS -- here's that Sturgill Simpson video that fogged my mind last night.