A Voice Apart

We all go to sleep and wake up with the news on the radio, TV or Internet. Usually, none of the news stories are positive. They typically speak about crimes committed on a daily basis, horrible accidents that are happening all the time, and the getting-worse-by-the-minute financial situation in the country and around the world globally. Also, they are reciting about new technology, which is being upgraded literally all the time and not necessarily for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, evidently, the world is becoming more dangerous, more financially unstable, more electronically oriented and much less personal. Speaking of personal, the media and marketing campaigns are promoting complete selfishness and ‘Me, Myself and I’ attitudes. Just listen to them; “My phone, my personal TV, iPhone, iTunes,”, in other words Me, Me, Me, Me… and Myself. With this philosophy, how is the human being supposed to care for another human being when it’s all self-oriented? How’s the performer able

Being involved in the music industry for over 30 years in Canada, I have a lot of observations watching it from inside and out. When I first came in March of 1980, there were a lot of things happening, musically speaking and otherwise, as music is always a reflection of what's happening in that present time. There were great artists rising up, like Celine Dion, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler and many more. Specializing in vocals , I started my career with the garage bands and pop star wannabes. Those years the immigration from European countries like Russia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland and others was at a very high rate. A lot of people were coming with children and teenagers and being brought up the European way, were willing to work hard to give their youngsters music education and helping them to succeed in the music industry . The children of those times were also very receptive, seeing that the music industry was happening and true to their cause new stars wer

As it appears to be, the latest craze in the entertainment business is "everybody's favourite" Lady Gaga's act...? Is it really though? It no doubts is for the young generation. Sometimes even too young. On July 12th I was cordially invited by one of my artist's mom to attend the newest Lady Gaga tour "The Monster Ball". Let's first talk about the audience. Needless to say, there were a lot of under legal age kids, who I'm not sure should have necessarily had to hear it with their ears and see it with their eyes. The material of the show was quite explicit and definitely not for all ages. It was a lot of liberation presented by Lady Gaga on every level. You could not understand who was male and who was female in that show and who was seducing whom. She was reciting in between of her "escapades" how liberated she was, how free she was (I presume in her sexual preferences and what have you) and did invite the audience to feel free and

How “different” or perhaps weird do you have to be to make it in the music business? And why do you have to be “different” or furthermore weird to attract the attention of the general public? I don’t know if I have the answer, but I do have a few ideas and thoughts. In my opinion, people in general are bored and they are constantly looking for something that is not as mundane as their regular lives. And there is nothing necessarily bad about that, as long as it is not being taken out of proportion. Yes, we all want to watch and hear something new and unique. And that’s fine. However, especially lately those new and unique ideas are being turned into very weird and ugly acts. The music videos are becoming more and more explicit and are reminding of XXX porn more so than any music. The content of the videos outside of the porn is reminding of some type of Halloween in the absolutely worst interpretation of that word. That is one side of it. Now let’s touch on a couple of other sides. I h

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

For the last several years there has been a big concern among music industry professionals that the music industry is broken. Bigwigs and music industry gurus are exclaiming, “How can we fix it?” Last year I attended Music Expo Europe in London, England. The very first thing that was shown to delegates was a documentary film about the problems which the music industry at large is experiencing today. After the film the delegates were asked for their input for a future documentary film on how to fix the music industry. And the delegates, most of whom were also music industry professionals, were suggesting taking the music elsewhere – to the movies, videogames, Internet and what have you. Not one delegate, until I stood up and spoke on camera, speculated as to why it got broken in the first place. I said, “Please pay attention to the artists. Teach them how to sing properly - and in tune preferably, thus, complying with the standards of professional singing – and teach them how to express