Music Bands or Fashion Bands?

My name is Dana Brown, and I am a student from the International School Bangkok. I am writing to talk about the modern teen music "artists", or so they are called. Are they actually artists creating beautiful music? Or are they merely people for us to admire and copy the way they dress and act?

I think that there is no doubt that 99.9% artist aiming to sell records to a teenage market don't just produce music. They go on concert tours, they make music videos, they do interviews with Rolling Stone and the like. Appearances are extremely important (don't deny that there are two very large and silicone-filled reasons helping Britney Spear with her success), as are images. Punk rock bands have enough body piercing and tattoos to immediately grab our attention if we happen to see a poster of them. This gets us interested and remember the name, and then we listen to their music and, if we like it, we buy their album. Even if we don't like the music, we remember these people simply because they are so outrageous. I fully agree with anyone who states that musicians use images to help sell albums.

However, don't get me wrong. I am not complaining. I'm not someone who will moan about how they lack talent and aren't "real" musicians. I like to see the music videos and I always judge artists as to whether or not they are someone who I like or not; although most of the time, the music I listen to is chosen by the individual song, not whether or not the artist is cool. How about everyone else? Do you think that musicians should be so image-conscience?

Dana Brown <stu8-319@isb.ac.th>
International School of Bangkok, Thailand