Almost the entire canon of popular contemporary Western music involves amputation of the human performer, or in other words, it concerns itself with the extraction of those rare sublime moments in musical expression which are then to be repeated over and over again in an easily digestible, mass produced form, that is, the modern single, locking both performer and audience in an endless charade of mythological musical movements and their celebration.
Now this is very difficult to articulate, but let's see.
Well, first consider what a popular musician does to produce a creative work, and the careful editing that goes towards the eventual public offering. All of the learning, all of the errors, all of the frustrations, really the entire process of creating the actual music is hidden away, along with any human frailties and flaws.
The most sublime moments of musical creation are captured and repeated again and again, until they can be reproduced at any time anywhere, where they are recorded in a process which itself strives for perfection.There is some improvisation, but most of the material is heavily rehearsed and constructed. There is this incredible shielding and insulation around the ego. The performer is transformed into this mythological figure in the public's eyes, which results in a profound alienation between audience and performer.
The audience itself becomes accustomed to these easily digestible bits of perfection. It delights the senses and shortens the attention span. Nothing less is expected. The audience jumps from artist to artist, from the hottest expressions and the most vibrant moments to the next as the older artists age and lose their vitality. Many of these artists melt down or go mad or just burn out on drugs in compensation to this fall. After this legendary, mythical ideal is formed, it is almost impossible to remove it from the mind. If an artist's performance lags under this ideal, it is almost certain destruction subjectively. The artist is transformed into mythological object both in the public's eye, and his or her own eyes.
And again, the public is conditioned to it. Influenced followers seek to repeat those sublime artifacts that so resonated in their minds, rearranging them into new configurations and sonic combinations, crafting shields around themselves in turn, within which they produce their own artifacts of perfection.
The creation of mythology is self-perpetuating. One must exceed the high watermark placed by one's predecessors or one is nothing. Witness the sheer scarcity of successful performers. One either soars as a near deity, a musical god, or one barely scrapes by, if at all.
