Today's Music Industry Ingredients: Drops Outs, Runaways, Drug Addicts?

If you look at the history of the music industry for the last three decades, we can notice that a lot of famous people are not with us today. A lot of them "went away" much before their time. Some of them died from drug overdoses, some of them died of AIDs, others shot themselves or committed suicide one way or another. Why is that happening you might ask? These artists seemed to have had it all - fame, success, wealth and everything else under the sun. But could they handle it? Evidentally not. The question is why. Yes, a lot of talent has been discovered by fluke and accidentally. Some of the talent was searched for and by different means: numerous contests, Canadian and American Idol competitions, Britain's Got Talent and what have you. And if you watch these aforementioned shows, you would see that it's not exactly about vocal talent. At least it wasn't always the case in recent years. It seems to be that the judges were almost looking for somebody who was, so to speak, "different". One of my students was auditioning during the first season of Canadian Idol in 2002 and was told that she was very talented, very beautiful and well trained vocally, but she was not even put through to the Television judges as she was asked to tell them something bad or strange about herself so that they could use it on the show. She returned back to me in tears and said, "Diana, I was raised in church, I did not do drugs, I didn't drop out of school and I didn't get pregnant as a teenager, and that was a problem." It's almost like "good girls didn't sell". Meanwhile, look at those artists who the music industry professionals thought were different or - more accurately - weird. A lot them came from broken homes, welfare, and drug rehab clinics to begin with. In other words, the "little treasures" were discovered out of the "garbage bin". Get excited now! They started there and they ended very soon after in the same place. What were the chances that they wouldn't? The majority of them were runaways and dropouts without a high school education or even a middle school education. Oh, but they had talent you may exclaim! Perhaps they did, but so what? They didn't have any other humane qualities and attributes, so the tragic end was ensured and inevitable from the very beginning. Meanwhile, there are other people that are also talented who could do very well in the music industry. Oh, but they are not different or weird enough. Therefore, they are never going to be given a chance! Go figure! Meanwhile, these "normal" artists could offer us some longevity of their careers and a good example of well brought up, well educated artists with class. But I guess it would be too mundane, too ordinary and not "exciting" enough for the music industry professionals and, unfortunately also, for the majority of the crowd who supposedly would be listening to the creations of these so called artists. Thus, they condition and create the "fans" who are entertained by something extraordinary weird, violent, obscene and perverse. If that's the case, why are we surprised that our teens are getting into sexual relationships and drugs from the age of 11. We are also surprised why the same kids are promoting violence and bullying at school. The answer is partially because they are listening to nonsense music sometimes with decibels which the average human ear cannot take. The kids are tempted to copy what they see and hear from the media. The question is - where do we have to go from here?