"Just because we rock the same style of tracks, and we rock the same stage, it doesn't put us on the same page" - Steady! by Downset. From the album Check Your People

I turn on the TV in the mornings before I set out to work. After flicking through the various news channels to see what's happening in the world, I often switch on MTV-2, hoping to listen to a few good tunes before I start my day. It goes without saying that I am usually left asking the question "Why? Why does this music exist? And Why is this on MTV-2 when it's on MTV-1 as well?"

MTV-2 is a music television channel, supposedly designed to show alternative music videos that wouold not get the air time on one of the other popular music channels, such as MTV-1 or The Box. There are a few "specialist" MTV channels - For example, MTV Base covers R&B, Garage and Soul. Unfortunately, "Alternative" music these days is also mainstream. Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Slipknot, so called "alternative" acts, are anything but. They are manufactured and sold as a commodity, not an art form, and it shows. The entire music industry is in a terrible state at the moment. A friend of mine recently played a gig in London, where a manager of the BMG music label was present. After the show the manager told the band that he "Loved their sound, loved the songs...but the look is not alternative enough". So essentially, they didn't get a deal because the shallow manager was more concerned about the image they were portraying than the music and message they were carrying.

This seems to be the general trend everywhere these days. Bands like Slipknot and Mudvayne with their "wacky" masks and enormous amound of band members. Bands like Papa Roach, with their straight cut "nu-metal" look. The music is secondary to their appearance. And this is totally wrong. So  backtracking slightly, I turn on MTV-2 and I am greeted with practically the same songs over and over. Some of these songs I liked at one time, but due to their constant overplaying, I have grown sick and tired of them, especially when the message they are trying to get across is entirely lost on their audience, who are more interested in what crazy mask they're wearing, or what "fucked up shit" is going on in their videos to pay heed to the actual lyrics of the song.

All of you that listen to "mainstream alternative" singles, such as Chop Suey by System of a Down and never buy the full albums, can you tell me what the song Aerials is about? Have you ever listened to what Serj is singing? Email me if applicable. Bands with an essentially worthy message do not vex me as much as those with absolutely no agenda whatsoever, or those that are cheap fakes, riffing off another band's success. Sometimes, this is taken to the most exteme, as is the case with Limp Bizkit and the majority of "Hip Hop". I am loath to use that term to describe the misuc as it exists today, because in many ways, true hip-hop is dead. Back in the late 80's acts like KRS-1 and Public Enemy were rapping on political themes and "ghetto news". THAT is what hip hip is (or was). These days, the bands seem content to rap about how many women they've fucked, or how much money they have, or how many cars they've stolen and it makes me fucking sick to the pit of my stomach. The worst of it is this. For every Limp Bizkit there exists a Downset. Let me explain that in detail.

You've all heard of Limp Bizkit, I'm sure. Headed by whinging front man Fred Durst, this band started out quite small around 1995 and riding on the success of acts like Korn, shot to fame with their lyrically inept songs such as "Nookie" and "Break Stuff". No doubt all rich as hell these days the songs are even more meaningless than they used to be. Downset are a Los Angeles based rap-metal group that produced their first album in 1994. Headed by remorseful ex-gang member Rey Oropeza, these guys sang meaningful songs about The LA Riots, Rape, Racism and corrupt justice systems. In 2000 they released their third album to an unappreciative world. They didn't make a big song and dance about the whole thing, they merely carried on singing about the political themes and ideals that they had always embodied. Consequently, Downset are not nearly as well known or popular as Limp Bizkit, yet they are so much more worthy of existing as a band.

And for every band like Limp Bizkit, riding on each other's success, there is a band somewhere like Downset, Producing meaningful music that falls on deaf ears. Sure, Limp Bizkit and Downset may play a similar style of music, but they could not possibly be more dissimilar in almost every other area.

So I turn on MTV-2 in the morning, and I see the same old mainstream alternative music that I see every morning and it makes me sick to think that all the bands with a message worth hearing will never get any airplay. Perhaps there should be an MTV-3, providing an alternative to the alternative.

But if that happened, maybe I'd be the only one watching it. 

(for more information on Downset, visit their website at http://www.stem31.com/downset/main.htm)