>Not that I am complaining or anything; it is nice that acid-jazz is
>getting some public recognition, but does it have to be as background
>fodder for some television commercial?
"Apple, VW, Mabeline give indies the short end of the stick, or labels find
big $$$ for ad licensing..."
I glad someone brought this up, I've been thinking about it for a long time.
It is important to note that appearing as background music for a hip TV ads
or a reality based TV program is not public recognition, it is simply
exposure. Exposure that is really not that effective either: no credits, no
resources to find out who the artist is...you just have to hope that your
local record store employee watches enough TV to know "that song from the VW
Beetle commercial." [or your lucky enough to draw on the informed resources
of the AJ list ;-)]
Public recognition is being nominated for a Grammy (like Deep Dish!),
appearing on NBC's Later and Late Night with Conan O'Brian (like Mos Def!)
or being commissioned to compose the score for a George Clooney/Jennifer
Lopez/Steven Sonderberg film based on an Elmoore Leonard novel (John Holmes
for "Out of Sight").
So what does a 30-second byte of an Air song in a Mabeline commercial have
to show for itself? In the best case that a few of our hip brothers &
sisters have succeeded in infiltrating the corporate advertising
infrastructure (hey, the commercials are for Apple, VW et al...the "good"
giant multinational corporations not Phillip Morris or Exxon), and in the
worse case, that manevolant ad agencies are exploiting great art in order to
legitimize and sell their product. The former seems more likely, otherwise
the ad execs would have simply turned to commercial musicians ready to turn
out watered down (more palatable), ad size drum n' bass/big beat sound bytes
(as is the norm). Perhaps some unexposed music lovers will be able to
discern the quality of some advertising music and seek out the source, but I
find it more likely that a generation of youth will know only know the Orb's
"little fluffy clouds" as the theme song to a new car. On some level
something is lost, the music is marginalized as a tool of commerce and the
attitude that instrumental music is "background music" continues to be
perpetuated.
However, this is a crime of principle more than anything else, since some of
these independent labels are making a killing licensing their music to ads
and TV series. If you happen to know anyone who works for an independent,
you know they are not rolling around in BMW's & sipping Crystal poolside.
Rather they're drinking gallons of coffee, working 80 hour weeks, making
just above minimum wage while barely staying afloat; who better to get a
little bit of corporate compensation while still retaining creative control.
In fact Ubiquity records provides a large amount of the music beds for
"MTV's the Real World", but in this case it is the independent production
company for "Real World" that chooses the music, not MTV. Thus the great
irony of the situation: while you will hear Ubiquity music on MTV's most
popular show, you will not see a Ubiquity video on MTV. It's a frustrating
situation, but they would be fools to pass it up.
The reality is that advertising (or underwriting) is necessary to support
most of the media around us. If you DJ in a club, do they have ads in the
bathroom? If so, you're doing the same thing, providing a soundtrack for a
product's sales message.
I suppose when it comes down to it, in an age where the commercials are
better than TV, that we wish the creative work, innovation and money that
goes into advertising could be funneled into art that stands alone, without
commerce.
my two cents on a slow working day...
Chris Widman
Production Manager
Daily Northwestern-Northwestern University
--------------------
Abstract Science
WLUW-Chicago 88.7 FM
Thusdays 10pm-2am
>Not that I am complaining or anything; it is nice that acid-jazz is getting
>some public recoginition, but does it have to be as background fodder for
>some television commercial?
-- Niraj Agarwalla -- niraj_agarwalla@yahoo.com >-----Original Message----- >From: Antonio Felizardo [mailto:antonio@jupiterjazz.org] >Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 5:59 PM >To: Acid Jazz >Subject: Re: Apple G4 PowerBook Commercial... > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Masaki Morisaki" <lvmcn@earthlink.net> >To: "Acid Jazz" <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu> >Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 9:43 PM >Subject: Apple G4 PowerBook Commercial... > > > > Hi, > > > > Not sure if it's running on television yet, > > but do any of you know who's done the music for the > > new Apple G4 PowerBook commercial??? > > I like it a lot and would love to listen to it in full length.... > > > > http://www.apple.com/hardware/ads/powerbook_g4-1.html > > > > > > Masaki > >It's 'Snowblind' by Minus 8. It is included in his latest album 'Elysian >Fields' released by the excelent german label, Compost Records. Get it as >it >is an amazing one. > >Antonio >http://jupiterjazz.org/nubeats_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 23 2001 - 00:02:34 CET