Can Anyone Explain To Me What Happened To 1993?

I have a theory...Randy Jackson. To clarify, 1993 was a fantastic year for music. Not only was it the most recent height of rock creativity, wonderful songwriters with more to talk about than the troubles of being a high school kid in America, but it was also the release of the Doggystyle album, a landmark album in the crossover of hip hop into the mainstream. 1993 was the year of the album...not just hit songs, but full bodies of musical work that were fantastic from start to end. It was a time when artists were making music, not hit singles.

The burden of blame first rests upon the shoulders of MTV. I will never forget the first time I turned on the television, curious to see the most recent groundbreaking music videos, and instead saw some goofy twenty-somethings with the background music stating, "this is a true story...TRUE STORY! Of seven people picked to live in a house..." Thus began the downward spiral of a station who, oddly enough, has "music" right in the title, into the abyss of reality television and horrible dating game shows.

Next, to bring music back to the listeners, MTV began total request live. It was similar to the old channel "the box," if you took away all the votes from intelligent people and allowed only the music requested by hormonal teenagers. However TRL had a filter, so teenage boys couldn't vote for Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Put 'em On The Glass." Thus began the rise of "the single." Instantly, artists were tossed to the wayside for puppets, people who looked good singing other people's songs. There were no instruments and minimal talent. Cell phones allowed for voting, and dumb suburbanite parents allowed their 14 year olds to have cell phones and run up the bill because they were divorced and had to buy their daughters love...this coincided with the creation of cell phone charms, but that is another rant for another time.

Rock music died, pop music took over, and rap music went from being messages about life to messages about parties and girls with rotund posteriors. American language fell by the wayside, giving rise to terms like "LOL," "B-CUZ," and white kids trying to mimic what they were told was cool on television by tossing out such endearing terms as "Yo, Dawg." Which brings me back to Randy Jackson.

I am not saying there aren't great artists out there, but after one of the worst Grammy's in history, in which American Idol contestants collected an insane number of Grammy's (anything over zero is insane), it is time to begin pointing fingers. I cannot point at Simon, because he is the only one who apparently has an ear, and I cannot point at Paula because she is an idiot, I point at Randy Jackson. Randy Jackson is the only black man who sounds like a suburban white kid trying to be black. He also knows better, yet continually boosts untalented kid's self-esteem. He is an opportunistic disease, taking his AI "street-cred" and turning it into a career by producing other horrible shows of a similar nature. Randy Jackson embodies all that is wrong with American music since 1993, opportunists who care more about money than art (Lars Ulrich, you lost out to Randy Jackson on a coin flip). And for that, I take this finger I am pointing at you and wag it...bad Randy Jackson...bad.