There I was lying in bed at 1am and much to my chagrin, I was being forced to watch the final episode of American Idol… then KISS came on stage. Yes, that’s right Knights In Satan’s Service were standing on stage pretending to be hardcore and cool standing beside what I think is yet another painful peace of corporate America. I don’t think I’ll get into what KISS used to claim they were all about but I can tell you it didn’t involve endorsing things like Ford (American Idol’s big sponsor). That said, KISS sold their souls to the musical devil long ago, so seeing them on American Idol was more of a matter of time than a surprise. But what really turned my stomach was seeing Slash, from the once amazing band (Guns n Roses), on American Idol a few weeks back. It hurt so much because it was yet another symbol of one’s rebellious youth and free spiritedness falling to the all mighty green back. So sad.

Those heart breaking moments really forced me to consider a few questions that I would like to pose to our readers that will hopefully have you reflect on what you see in the media. First, do you feel it’s important for artists – musical, written, visual, etc. – to have artistic integrity? I personally think the answer without a doubt is YES.

If you agree with me for the first question, then the next question to ask is – is ones artistic integrity lost when the artistic material is dictated/guided by those footing the bill? To this I would say it depends on what you do with their suggestions. There’s the Britney Spears-esque approach of not writing or singing your own music – zero artistic integrity in my opinion. Or you can take Weezer-esque approach. Weezer was told by their label executives that their last album was not commercial enough. So before releasing their first single Weezer’s label demanded that they come up with a commercial single. Weezer quickly threw together the album’s first single [the mega successful] – “Pork and Beans” – which essentially was Weezer creating a song explaining that the song was commercial and that it’s not their style. The rest of their album sounded very different from their first single, because that’s what they wanted to do. Artists with integrity.

So whether or not you think Britney Spears or Weezer have or don’t have artistic integrity I would like to pose the next question. Can an artist’s message be taken seriously if they are corporately sponsored? I believe the answer to this lies within the artists ability to have enough integrity that allows the artist to be true to themselves, but this is the same with anyone, artist or not.

Next I would like you to ask you; do you think you can be passionate about something in which you show no integrity? Personally I’d think NO. Maybe this is why almost all pop singers don’t write their own music. Next, can someone be truly creative in an area without having passion in that area? This I don ‘t know for certain but instinctually I believe the answer is NO. This would also explain why large corporations are “creative through acquisitions” and not through they’re operations/bureaucracy. Even touted creative corporations like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft find it easier to buy creativity than to create it (the hyperlinks provide the lists of each of their acquisitions).

So, are large institutions well suited for creativity? Are many artists much different from an employee at the same label? Do these so-called artists deserve our praise as artists? Or do the artists who fill the pop airwaves have the same artistic integrity/ability as the man designing the speakers you hear them on if they’re both just doing their job.

These questions and my positions I have stated are generalizations, there are exceptions to everything but can we really expect truly novel ideas/art from people that are purely motivated by money? I personally don’t think so.