Theatrics in Music

There will always be the classic saying, “it’s all about the music”, but I feel people should think twice about this statement. If it’s just about the music, then why play live and tour? Or have music videos? Or any of that stuff that clearly has such a high visual component? I feel that as soon as you do something with your music other than sound, you have a duty to prove why it is necessary. If you make a music video, you have to prove to everyone why it’s necessary to have a video and show what it adds to the music.

For these reasons, I will always respect bands like Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, and David Bowie, for there’s no one side about it. It’s not just about the music, but it’s also not just about the show. Alice Cooper described the stage show of a band as the icing on the cake. Some bands are so based on visuals that they forget about the music. As he puts it, “you have all this icing but no cake; you’ve gotta have the cake.” The music shouldn’t suffer because the effort went all into the stage performance, and vice versa. 

I am very much against the grunge movement of jeans and t-shirt on stage because then there’s nothing too special about you being on stage other than the fact that you wrote the music. You have to set yourself apart and prove why you’re the one on stage over everyone else.

Steven