The Last Resort

Sex sells. Fact.

In fact it sells so well that women have been using their bodies to get what they want since the dawn of time. On the other hand, they have also been exploited, abused, harassed, and more often than not, treated lower than dogs not fit to lick a mans boot (here I’m referring to history prior to the Suffrage movement, although given the increase rate in trafficking women rising in Europe, my point still stands).

Enter the music industry.

A beautiful world sugar coated in diamonds and fairy dust, where albums like ‘Aladdin Zane’, songs like ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ and artists such as Kurt Cobain are born. A world where music can make your soul glow and bring a smile to your face. When a record label resorts to using sex in order to sell a product, they’ve clearly run out of any other ideas.

Clearly you shouldn’t have to take off your clothes to get a record deal, but obviously this is what the public wants. What the public wants, it gets.

Okay, I’m not naïve. Singing, dancing and sex have been intravenously linked since a girl could kick her leg in the air whilst singing a gaudy ballad. It’s funny how things have progressed, from showing the ankles, to the wrist, to our current present day situation which leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.

It's surprising they don't fall over, what with the weight of those feathers on their head.

So does the music industry feed off the sex industry?

In a way. The difference being with sex you know where you stand; it sells and you get paid. Simple.

With record labels it’s far worse. They’re devious and cunning, and more often than not, you’ll be hard pressed to find the money in your hands which they owe you after. How many women, or even men (Elvis was a sex object too you know - although long gone are the days where CNN had to shoot him from the waist up just so girls wouldn't get ‘too hot under the collar.’), reading this are thinking, blast, what more can one possibly do? One has literally done everything to get the industry’s attention: bombarded executives with countless emails, sent demo after demo, performed crappy gigs at crappy venues usually to an empty room (though some of the best bands have played to a non - existent crowd *ahemTheBeatlesahem*) just to get the experience.

Elvis and his infamous pelvis.

Short of setting their trousers on fire (which I don’t think would go down all that well) where do your options lie?

Well you could start by taking off your trousers. What? It’s true. We’ve just established that pretty girls parading around in sparkly hot pants and a corset, wearing enough lipstick to keep Superdrug in business for life is what the public wants.

Oh, what’s that you say?

Too degrading?

You’ve got standards?

Well good for you.

Artists make music for the passion of making music. At least that’s what I’ve always been led to believe. In ye good ol’ days before MTV reared it’s pornographic head, the only way you could listen to music was over the wireless. Or down the local concert hall/opera house. Chances are you couldn’t afford the latter, so large crowds would gather in houses eagerly listening to Vera Lynn belt out tunes that can still bring a tear to your grandmother’s eye. Classy.

Anyway my point, which we may have got to in an incredibly crass way, but it’s thus: if you’re a great musician, then that’s just a fact. You’ll create whatever dream you want to for yourself because it always comes down to raw, unadulterated talent. Girls who wear sparkly hot pants are short lived, one hit wonders riding the wave of commercialism at its best. Girls who can hit a top C and only have to wear a pair of jeans a t - shirt to do it, well, you’re survival rate is higher.

Men too of course. I’m not sexist.