Music PEI is getting ready for its big Awards week January 14 – 17, 2009

Didn’t anyone tell them that beauty contests are out, passé , finito, dumb and insulting to all?

I don’t believe in beauty contests because they demean all of the contestants who didn’t get the big phony award which can be manipulated in any event. There is room on the earth for everyone, not just # 1.

There is room in the music business for everyone not just this year’s “Music PEI Roots Artist of the Year”? What is the purpose of the award?

They tell us to advance the careers of musicians. Well giving phoney prominence to one musician/group over all the others doesn’t do it. If anyone with a brain believed them, all the non-winning musicians should go home with their tails between their legs and cry until next year. Music sales and gigs would be only for the winners. There are 100’s of great musicians on PEI. Why slight most of them for a few?

Did you ever see this headline “Bob Dylan wins Newport Folk Festival best singer songwriter of the Year”? How juvenile and silly that would be. I know, we have the CMA, Emmys and all those other silly awards.

Do you listen to music or just the music from award winning groups? Not me, I listen to what I like. I don’t care if Alan Jackson wins or loses the CMA award. If his new music is any good, I’ll listen and buy. Otherwise, I won’t.

Most people agree with this: viewing of award shows is going down like the Titanic. The last CMA looks like it was held in a school auditorium with paper mache decorations. If Music PEI wants to advance the career of musicians, the Music Week idea is super and a final gala concert is great too.

Then the artists could say “Showcase artist at 2008 Music PEI Festival” or something to that effect. It has the same result, a little bit of recognition for their careers and egos.

Some examples

The parents of two professional classical musicians told me this week, they found the PEI Music Festival for students to be demeaning and discouraging with its emphasis on one student winning and the others losing. “It’s shouldn’t be a cattle judging contest.”

At a Cubs meet, the project was kit racing cars. The winning child had the car super designed and built by the father who was able to help the boy win over all other children. When most of the boys realized they have been skunked by one child’s father they left in disgust or tears. Other fathers decided to help their boys next year. Hello, we’re teaching children what values?

Healthy competition or example of ruthless behaviour?

Winning takes some ruthless non-musical skills.

An example, one year at the annual sales meeting for Great Plains Software in the USA a dealer from Ontario won Canadian Dealer of the Year. Anna Halman, who worked as a sales rep at Island Computer at the time, turned to me and asked “Can we win that?”

I wrote a number on the back of my card and replied “You hit this sales number and it’s yours” So we all worked hard for that goal, Anna the hardest and we won. We won it 3 times running, then President’s Club 4 times and Inner Circle twice.

What did that mean? Nothing really, we just focused on Great Plain’s goals and not ours or those of our customers.

Awards are phony.

Give up beauty contests for something that really helps develop the careers of our musicians and the music business on PEI.