Flappy Bird

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a mobile video game has more mystery, more charm, and generates more revenue than the productions of all the wannabe musicians?

One in which the developer pulls it from the app store and the minions can't stop talking about it.

This is what it was like in the days of yore, when we fought to know more about musicians and went to the show just to find out what was going on.

Yes, while musicians can't stop bitching that they can't get rich, this guy in Vietnam creates a video game that churns out 50k a day and then deletes it saying that to modify it would kill it, that he just can't handle the intensity of its success.

Huh?

Is this like Ray Davies and David Bowie saying they were going to retire? (If you're wet behind the ears, you might have missed that...)

Then again, Flappy Bird is more addictive than anything on Bowie's new record.

And isn't it funny that the biggest hits of the year were by guys in helmets from France and a barely adolescent girl/woman from New Zealand? Oh, forget about "Blurred Lines," it was a remake of a Marvin Gaye track.

This is like Paul being dead.

That's one thing I hated about last night Beatles tribute, it made the Beatles look small. When Paul and Ringo played the audience sat in rapt attention. When back in the day we were out of our heads.

Did you get the memo on Flappy Bird? Did you know to download it?

I certainly didn't. Then again, I'm not into mobile video games. But rather than appeal to me, the developer ignored those who did not care. He just uploaded it to the app store and it took off!

Maybe there's more, how the hell would I know.

All I do know is my inbox is filling up with people telling me this story, more passionately than they talk about any band. They want to know what is going through this guy's head. Remember when we got "Rolling Stone" to read the interviews? I'll listen to Howard Stern extract nuggets from Donovan, but I haven't read an interview in "Rolling Stone" in eons, not because the writers are so bad, but because the acts have nothing to say! To think that once upon a time we looked up to musicians, who were worldly on not only music, but politics and so much more.

This is bigger than Beyonce. Because people actually want the game!

I don't know how we get back to the garden in music, it may be impossible, manufactured mystery is the worst.

And I do believe there's a backstory here, involving legal issues, but what intrigues everybody, why this story is flourishing, is because it appears this guy is leaving money on the table.

No one leaves money on the table in music. They just want more. They want to scalp their own tickets, synch to TV shows, garner sponsorships with corporations...

But one thing remains true... If your motives are pure and your music is great, if you're a true believer in your art and the public responds...

There's enough money for everybody.

"Popular Flappy Bird Game Mysteriously Grounded": http://techland.time.com/2014/02/09/flappy-bird-deleted/


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