Here is a link to Joel Rose's NPR story on bands cheapening their music.
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Joel did a good job bringing to light one of the problems with the music biz. I really like the interview with the guy from the Chicago Sun Times. He laid down the one side of the argument perfectly, then probably went and wrote a scathing record review for pitchfork. When Nick mentions that a lot of reporters ask us about the Sears ad, he isn't joking. The ad aired for 2 weeks around the country and has been talked about for over a year now. I think people like Jim from the Chicago Sun Times don't realize that it isn't as much the advertisement itself that puts a kink in the perception of the music, but the media backlash that music writers ignite. If they just let it lie and wrote more about the music and band perhaps more musicians could quit flipping burgers and tour out to Vancouver on Sears-bucks. Either way, it helped us on to NPR.
In other news- I watched that Wilco documentary and remembered how awesome Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is. I remember getting it on a friends recomendation in Syracuse NY at a great record shop called SoundGarden. When I went to check out, the dude at the counter had a big grin on his face and started telling me about how he saw Jeff Tweedy earlier in the year and explained the whole story of the band being dropped from their label to me. Then he said, "man was that label dumb! this record is famous!" I don't know what he meant by famous, but the record is soooo good.
3 comments:
If they just let it lie and wrote more about the music and band perhaps more musicians could quit flipping burgers and tour out to Vancouver on Sears-bucks.
you took the words right out of my mouth. music writers are quick to shell out phrases like "sell out" and try to discredit the artistic merit of a band, yet they always fail to mention the circumstances in which bands have agreed to license their music. you always hear about how the spinto band sold their soul to the devil* when they agreed to have Oh Mandy used in a Sears commercial, but you rarely hear about the european tour that was made possible with the money received. we're somehow expected to believe that the band sold out, got the money, and bought some Bentleys.
*a bit of an exaggeration.
selling a song for a commercial is one thing. forcing a band to cover a classic for a commercial, as well as putting it on the new album and using it as the single, then dropping the band from the label for refusing to do so, causing a band member to leave is another. i'm bitter.
"its the music not the money that matters anyway"
heavy metal drummer = love song to Michael Tapper and his previous band "Lead Pipe Justice."
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