Preteen girls, through no fault of their own, have brought about the demise of the music industry.

Let's start with a little quiz: Do it the un-American way and think back twenty or thirty years, at least.

Name the two music phenomena that still define a home run for the music industry.

Easy. Elvis and the Beatles.

And what does their success look like?

Right. Screaming girls.

When I was looking for images to use in this article, I plugged the phrase "screaming girls" into the google image search engine. I expected porn sites.

What I got was a preponderance of pictures of men and boys who make girls scream:

Elvis, Justin, some actor I'd never heard of and Hanson, to name a few.

How did Elvis end up in such lame company?

Again, screaming girls.

The screaming girls featured in this photo were actually Beatles fans, captured by Vic Condiotty in 1964.

After that , there was always some cuuuute white male pop star; we recognize their names, but as a group they are the inspiration for VH1's "Where Are They Now?"

Donovan, Shawn Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Rick Springfield.

If you make girls scream, instant big money can be made. Not by you; you will be replaced next year with someone just like you. You are the music business equivalent of Gladware.

Then we found that girls would also scream over other girls, and that girl pop stars sell more merchandise. Clothes, karaoke machines. And they're "role models", too.

Enter Mariah Carey.

Yeah, so she was a victim of more than one financially and sexually predatory man. She could sing; she looked pretty successful. No one considered the possibility that it was possible to be so rich and virtually homeless and the same time.

But the industry goofed. There was something about Mariah, and we could not discard her so readily.

So Mariah Carey grew up in public. Now she's too old to be a preteen idol, too humiliated to be a role model, and still too much a pop star to get any respect as a business person. Not that she'd know where to start.

And we have Britney and Ricky Martin now.

We have mastered the formula for making preteen girls scream.

But why, you might ask, is winning the love of these creatures such a formula for success? They don't have any money.

But their parents do. And they will give it to them, and not because they too love Britney.

Because preteen girls are scary.

And fragile.

Theirs are the most aggressively advertised emotional struggles, developmental landmines. We are bombarded daily with images of their vulnerabilities...eating disorders, cutting, depression. We are told they are the favored victims of sexual predators and serial killers. That the great enemy is low self-esteem.

People like Mariah Carey do public service announcements to help us keep them off drugs.

At the same time, we're reassured.

We're told not to worry if they seem shallow, cruel, self-centered, rude or obsessed with boys and the approval of their shallow, cruel, self-centered rude friends. Oh, that's normal.

Whether it's for your sake or hers, just give the volatile thing what she wants.

So there's your business model:

1. With the $100 million or so you made off last year's big thang, flood the market with someone "new", making it clear they are already exceedingly popular.

2. Get last year's big thing to do a few VH1 spots talking about the dangers of the latest adolescent girl disease, making sure to clealy describe the symptoms.

3. Sit back and count.

We do not question their popularity. They're on TV, right?

We do not threaten our precious dove's self-esteem by saying "That music is lame and so are your friends."

We think, "it's important they feel like they fit in".

And we say "Here's the money. Please don't hate me. Please don't get hurt."

We do not say, actually, no one likes a bully.

So maybe it's karma.

Real talent is no more interested in popstardom than real leadership is in the presidency.

Maybe it's just that these Beatles fans became women with careers, daughters, talents, ideas and money of their own.

 

That in fact we do grow out of it.

That we dream of becoming parents who don't fall for it, and whose girls prove even preteen girls are capable of more.

Because girls, women, music, art, and new business models are all one thing I like to call "the key to a better world".

Peace,

Want to see the work some people are doing making cool women from scratch?

New Moon Magazine - www.newmoon.org

To know where all the real women in music have gone?

www.indiegrrl.com