After watching the Grammys last night I wondered: can you be successful without being famous?

correlation does not imply causation

Nobody wants to starve to death. And nobody wants to live their lives working for someone else. But where do we find our bread? How do we earn a living?

As the feudal system disintegrated the resources available to musicians began to disappear along with it. No longer the mouth piece of a baron or duke, musicians found themselves suddenly emancipated. And broke. So rather than starve to death they hooked up with a sexy new class on the scene: The Merchants. The great thing about hanging out with the merchants was that you could come from anywhere. The poor, homeless minstrels or the pampered court troubadours were both in a position to make some cash from their work. They just had to make a deal. And they did!

That’s what I saw last night while watching the Grammys. Contractual obligations were being fulfilled. Instead of praising the conquests of some lord or lady, our modern minstrels are hired to parade the glories of their newest patron. The hot products, the hit archetypes, the latest JaQuel Knight moves, the sexy new diet soda. I kept waiting for Lady Gaga to stop in the middle of her Elton John disaster/mannequin orgy, take a big swig from a can of Diet Pepsi and go “Ahhh!…now THAT’S refreshing”.

False dicotomy?

Of course there’s always the underground right?