But have talent shows really ruined Italian music? That said Lucio Dalla, who had some experience X factor “It looks like a transmission from idiots.” Talent has done harm when, as Ezio Bosso put it, “music should teach us the most important thing there is: listening” and It’s also the talent’s fault if the perception of music has changed. For example, today we say, “Let’s see a concert,” whereas once upon a time you were listening to a singer or a concert. Today we look, we no longer listen. And not only with (a) live music.
The same capacity Surely who isn’t a fanatic wondered more than “Will they be famous?” We have to ask ourselves: “Will they be able to?” For too Catherine Caselli In front of the camera, the usually shy artist risks becoming too concerned with pleasing others and becoming what others want him to be. Because X Factor doesn’t teach how to entertain or dominate the stage like an artist should, and it’s more important that the cameraman does the shot for the audience than the artist’s ability to perform in public.
And then “it takes an ear” as Enzo Jannacci sang “You have to have the package, dipped, dipped in the bucket, you have to have it all, a lot, a lot in fact”, so you have to be in the musical reality and understand it well. It is no coincidence that talent shows have been very successful in countries where good music is no longer an interest or where culture is not a priority but a phenomenon that needs to be curbed. And so It is not surprising that the Italian X Factor is one of the most enduringwhile music and artists have been let down in the pandemic.
Every penny invested in reality music is money that could be used to fund real music, made by orchestras and theatres, because Frank Zappa was right: “When we talk about artistic freedom, we sometimes forget that freedom is often dependent on adequate funding.” It would take a little time to change much. If reality shows only accepted conservatory stuff, we’d actually start listening to real music. But it takes 10 years for a pianist to graduate from a conservatory, while a talent show attendee goes from rags to riches in one season pretending to be a rock star.
But is it more like one pianist or twenty fake rock stars? Then the herd would not understand the difference in level between two very good competitors and would therefore choose the nicer one. So if the prettier one has to win, it’s useless that he can sing too. And everything flattens out. AND X Factor is just the final phase and completing the musical decadence that began with the demise of orchestras, electronic music, and the over-commercialization and digitization of the sector. X Factor is a step, or even three, towards the abyss: everything becomes competition because the thrill of competition serves to add substance to nothingness.
As a result, the sense of beauty atrophies until it is despised as unfashionable taste.
And we’re not surprised when music today is sad and speaks of “things that pass” or the uneasiness of resigned anger. Because music is joy, happiness and beauty, but happy men consume little. Bach said that “music helps not to hear the silence outside, inside,” but in the talent shows, it’s the inner silence that triumphs. This silence, which destroys all values and even good music, cannot spread in a vacuum.
If one day we ask ourselves what music is, we will no longer be able to answer, maybe we will regret the invention of talent. And we will understand that they were useless because Sanremo already existed.
Gian Paolo Serino, June 30, 2023