“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
Did Taylor Hicks "sell out" to global corporatism by performing for the Wal-Mart stockholders meeting Friday morning in Fayetteville? Or was he merely "Dancing with the Devil?" (We've all danced with the devil a few times over the years now haven't we....?)
When Elvis gave up everything to Colonel Parker, he not only danced with the devil, he sold his soul to the devil. And it killed him, both musically and literally.
But Taylor isn’t Elvis and AI/Wal-Mart/Clive Davis aren’t the Colonel. This isn’t 1956, it’s 2006. Taylor isn’t a naive 19-year-old. He’s 29, he’s smart, he’s been around the block a few times, and he has a smart family backing him.
Taylor has been so good at picking his way through this media-blitz minefield, through this whole post-AI thing, it’s almost unbelievable how well he has handled himself. He’s doing just fine. I see no reason to think he won’t continue to do so.
I’m a big-picture, long-range thinker. That’s how I see Taylor. He got through the entire AI experience not only NOT letting it wear him or his music down, but actually bringing the AI phenom UP to his level and changing it in the process (AI will never ever be the same after Taylor).
Whatever your personal ethics/values etc re: Wal-Mart, patriotism, Fox news, whatever — keep this in mind: Taylor isn’t being changed by the American scene, Taylor is changing the American scene. The musical scene. That’s what Taylor is: a musician. Wal-Mart sells CDs. Wal-Mart will sell a lot of Taylor CDs, will expose a lot more people to his music and, in his wake, to the music of others like him.
Taylor’s attitude has always been, “Bring ‘em on, baby!” Can we have any less faith? I’m with Taylor: “Bring ‘em on, baby!”
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