About four months ago, a piano-playing twelve-year-old from Oklahoma posted three songs on YouTube--two original compositions plus the lady Lady Gaga song Papparazzi, which he performed at his school. Amid the applause, you can hear someone say, "I think Lady Gaga has just been taught a lesson."

Since then, Greyson Chance has racked up thirty MILLION YouTube views and an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show (featuring a phone call from Lady Gaga telling him to follow his dreams and stay away from girls). He is now in Los Angeles recording an album for Geffen Records. A happy ending? Not in my book.

In the entertainment business, the golden rule is "Do unto others as others have done unto others." When the other record labels saw Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet hit it big, they scrambled to come up with a Bon Jovi of their own. For example, Slaughter was the result of The Vinnie Vincent Invasion's record label deciding to replace their singer with someone younger and cuter. Vincent refused to be part of what he called "a teenager band" and left.

Chance says Gaga is his "number one influence" because she's "so individual." But his playing (and much more important, his soulfulness) has much more in common with his other influence: a folk-rock band called Augustana--"one of the most underrated bands I think ever to step the planet...It is very sad that they are so unknown."

Which creates a important dilemma for someone so young--does Chance follow Gaga's flashy, video-and-hype-dependent path to quick fame and fortune, or put his music first and hopefully make a living "serious musician"-style like Augustana? Or maybe Geffen will go the Jason Bieber route and turn him into a hiphop "teen scream machine"--replace his piano with dance steps, his polo shirt with a leather jacket and his lyrics with rapping.

That's why I'm not happy about Greyson Chance being a major label recording artist at the age of twelve--the industry is going to make that decision for him. I'd like to see him continue his musical education--with all the promotion he'll have to do, his musical growth may become stunted. I was part was the last generation to grow up without the influence of music videos preferring style to substance. Finding a musician as young and as substantial as Greyson Chance these days is a genuine miracle. He deserves better than to go from sensation to instant has-been.


rocktivity