Every 2 years, CAB puts on a “big” concert, featuring a famous musical act as voted on by students. Recently, I have lost faith in Gustavus’s view on musical acts. I define a musical act as “a person or group who can play, perform, or sing and utilize talent and work ethic.” I lose respect for acts that perform with an audio track, usually consisting of samples of ripped-off music.
Four years ago, Gustavus hosted Ben Folds for a big concert, but two years ago we had some Lupe guy. The trend seems to be growing in votes this year, that “famous musical act” means a Top-10 artist that had a hit recently on the radio for a month.
CAB pays for the concert from the Student Activity money that everyone pays into, and with tickets sold. Personally, I would like my money to go towards a truly musical act, an act that involves instruments, singing and the power of music. Not someone successful due to record label money, auto-tuning, unoriginal sampled music, and putting a “wicked beat” to it so everyone can get drunk and not remember the concert at all.
Up for voting are two bands that started 15 years ago. O.A.R. and Switchfoot played to whoever would listen and worked tirelessly to achieve national fame. Also, Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin, started playing piano at age 8, started playing in Something Corporate in 1998, and found mainstream success with his side project Jack’s Mannequin. Inspirationally, he accomplished the latter while being diagnosed with and treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Oh yeah, the three acts I talked about also are active in philanthropic and humanitarian causes, while being extremely talented, touring year-round and writing music.
It pains me to see my money and my two big concerts as a student possibly be acts that started ‘making music’ less than 5 years ago and won’t be remembered in 5 years time. I know I’m not alone in this view. So please Gustavus, don’t let me completely lose faith in our ability to distinguish true musical acts.
Andrew Schmitt
Physics, ‘12
Ummm Lupe was amazing!!!! One of the only good memories ii have from my time there…
I’m assuming that “some Lupe guy” is Lupe Fiasco, who is not only a philanthropist (Summit on the Summit, Haiti relief, etc.) but also writes songs such as “Little Weapon,” which was written to raise awareness about child soldiers. Just because he is a hip-hop artist doesn’t mean all he cares about is getting drunk and wicked beats. Just try to have an open mind
I believe the author was mentioning the philanthropic efforts of those groups to further explain why he likes them. What’s more, Lupe’s philanthropy is not in question, rather that of artists like J. Cole or Jason Derulo (which is comparatively non-existent). The larger idea of the article is that it is look more and more like we will have an artist whose music is beat driven rather than instrument driven, or more simply, rock/pop vs hip-hop.
However, I think the author might be a little off on who is to blame. No doubt much of the responsibility for what artist is brought to campus rests on the shoulders of the voters, but the selection process has a significant flaw: too many choices. Starting off with 12 is all well and good, but it splits that campus far too much. There are essentially two ways to vote, rock/pop or hip-hop, but having 12 artists choices muddles the actual campus opinion. If you were to lump together all artists into their two respective groups, you would find a much clearer picture of the kind of artist the campus wants and could go from there. If CAB would have narrowed down the voting further from five artists to the top two in 2009, Motion City Soundtrack would have won hands down. Giving people a choice between only two artists will force students to chose a genre, not just an artist. Unfortunately, this year I believe they will only narrow it down to five. Again.
very nice post on music.. i enjoy it..music is very good medicine for human beings as well as animal….
music also have many advantages….
if we don’t listen music then we become so iritated..
so lets going on music….
really very enjoyable post…..keepit up….
When you mention that up and cmonig artists are not promoted in this market, I have to agree, and also have to wonder if having Clear Channel dominating our airwaves doesn’t explain a lot of it.The best we seemed to be able to muster, since UND stopped their broadcasting, was that little FM station out of Thief River Falls.Might as well put in a plug here for Kevin Hendrickson, without whose fanatic dedication to the blues we would not have the Riverside Blues program on Sundays and the Budweiser Blues series.If we had a half dozen more like him, and fewer Tanner and Mars, we might get somewhere.