Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or Justin Bieber fans staying up past their bedtimes on a Sunday night.
Some were surprised when the Grammys awarded Jazz artist Esperanza Spalding with their "Best New Artist" recognition. Beiber's creepers, however, just became enraged. Below are some of the tweets recorded by the entertainment blog "Pop2It" after Bieber was denied the award:
"you have a 3D movie? do 86 concerts? sell out MSG in 22 minutes? have 7mil followers? no? uh..why da f**k you win a grammy?"
"@ESPESPALDING @THEGRAMMYS Congrats u ppl! U just crushed a 16yr old boys dreams...hope ur proud of urselves! -_- #JustinDeservedIt"
"So, @EspeSpalding just won with less than 10,000 followers on twitter. LOL. Sorry, I must have accidently turned my t.v to Punk'd. #Grammys"
"@EspeSpalding hate u"
This isn't the first time Bieber's fans have thrown joint, public temper tantrums. When photos surfaced of Bieber and Disney star Selena Gomez sharing a kiss, the Internet-tubes were clogged with death threats from disillusioned überfans. (One favorite: "whore cancer whore..like i'mm kill myself cuz i saw you and Justin kissing well thankyou Selena thankyou now i'm killing myself.") Kim Kardashian received the same treatment when she directed a benign public gesture of affection Bieber's way.
So why is this considered acceptable, when any other public figure would be held to some degree of culpability for their fans' out-of-control and potentially violent shenanigans? Kardashian quickly laughed away the threats as benign, while gossip and entertainment blogs reported the anti-Esperanza Spalding tweets after the Grammys with barely an eyebrow raised in surprise.
It probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's widely appreciated that these raging Bieber fanatics are elementary and middle school aged children, with little recourse to act on their obsession outside the realm of social networking sites. But if the whims of children are to be ignored when evaluating the madness surrounding Bieber Fever, their still needs to be an adequate method of weeding out the effects of childhood ravings on the rest of the music world.
Look at any list of top-selling albums, and it's clear that the aggressively-young demographic is exerting a disproportionate impact on the music industry. With access to their parents' credit cards, an iTunes account or both, the youngest among us can exert an influence on online commerce in ways never before imaginable. Stories such as the one detailed by a BusinessWeek article from last summer telling of a $375 iTunes "hack" by the author's stepdaughter, and the recent moves by Apple to reform its App stores to make "stealth" purchases less easy to execute are symptoms of this new reality. With song and album purchases a click away -- and more savvy potential customers downloading their music from other sources -- the least informed can enjoy the most influence over sale figures.
The consequences of the new normal, however, are abundantly clear to anyone who has ever had the misfortune of listening to a contemporary rock station. Nickelback claimed the mantle of top-selling hard rock and metal album of 2010. Linkin Park was second. A glance over at the "On Demand" section of the site of Atlanta's Project 96.1 contemporary rock station shows offerings from Papa Roach, Stone Sour, Buckcherry and Hinder in their top 20 list, bands more likely to appeal to listeners with undeveloped musical tastes. (It's also possible that Atlantans have generally poor taste in artists. But let's try to be charitable.)
As with many other parenting issues there does not seem to be an across-the-board answer to this scourge. Perhaps Bieber should publicly air what -- one would hope -- must be his displeasure with his fans' antics. It would be better, though, if parents of young and teenaged children to maintain vigilance regarding their childrens' Internet habits. Don't let junior onto Twitter if he (or she) uses it to direct death threats at pop stars. And for the love of all that is sacred, never, ever let them download anything by Chad Kroeger. Those of us without satellite radio depend on your help.
Steve Stoute: An Open Letter to Neil Portnow, NARAS and the Grammy Awards
Cathleen Falsani: Justin Bieber Loves Jesus
Delia Lloyd: 5 New Facts About Today's Teenagers
I don't want to put down Bieber. I think its perfectly acceptable for a teen idol to play to an audience of young girls and I think he is personally a rather good guy from what we've seen of him. But best new artist?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/14/revealed-who-is-esperanza_n_823182.html
B. Yes, every decade has its teen idol. They're mostly overproduced, overgroomed, overoutfitted, and undertalented.
C. Anybody with an auto-tune and a synthesizer can make a record. And it helps if you can get a bunch of people to dance around you to cover up how bad you are. Outrageous hair or costumes help too.
D. That show on Fox with the singing contest has ruined a lot of music. A bunch of zeroes trying to become ones, not paying dues, trying to get to the top without breaking a sweat. When people are worrying about what the 3rd place finisher is doing now it loses its sheen.
E. The music buisness has changed. They just don't sell albums anymore, people can pick and choose the cuts off of the web services. Investments aren't made into A+R or developing artists anymore.
That said, this is as old as the recording industry. Teeny boppers have always had outsized influence on sales and for numerous reasons but not the least of which is that variations of Bieber have been packaged and sold to that segment of the market for generations. The industry has found a winning formula in Bieber and his 'forebears' and it will surely be repeated with more incarnations once he's left the scene.
But trust me, there's plenty of good music being made out there. The people in the music business don't know how to sell it at the margins that they used to and they're totally at sea when it comes to marketing it.
Of course as a true die hard Zeppelin fan and believer that by far and away the best band since them are The Black Keys who put on the best show I have ever been to in close to thirty years of seeing live music I think Beiber's music is total sh*t...but wtf.
According to the intenet Jimmy Page is worth $150m (How do they figure that out? I would have thought thats how much he spent on blow alone in the '70s alone) or so and all that based on a 12 year career and being in the top 3 selling bands of all time with close to 50 years in the business.
Beiber has been in the business a couple of years only and he is going to make $100m this next year alone according to Vanity Fair. These "Legends" and actual craftsman from the good old days of the music business must just be sick to their stomachs when they hear about the money being made by these unbeleivably sh*t musicians of today.
Zeppelin will always be the best and EVERYONE else follows...but they are not gods just amazingly gifted musicians with as many weird character flaws as the rest of us have.. The Black Keys in concert are simply amazing...just two guys...unreal.