Eminem v. Pynchon

[Doug Millison]

The kind of global, multinational, highly integrated and synergistic media
empires that create and profit from the likes of Eminem did not exist in the
60s or 70s and thus couldn't benefit Zappa, no matter what his motives or
desires might have been. When other rock and roll acts were shamelessly
commercial and used the marketing methods available to them in that era,
Zappa generally avoided that sort of thing.  Z certainly managed to deploy a
career that rewarded him well financially -- I don't know enough about Z to
know if he consciously crafted an image as iconoclastic, non-commercial
artist, or if that image flowed naturally from who he was and what he did.
Eminem, according to one article I read (in the Wall Street Journal or some
such) and his corporate backers apparently made a conscious move into the
kind of epater les bourgeois rap he now purveys after earlier products in a
different style failed to sell -- E's fans can fill in the details, I'm
sure. That Pynchon avoids the sort of calculated commercialism that promotes
Eminem and his ilk seems obvious.