NRahav@ixl.com
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 10:18:18 -0400
This issue about original jingles reaches far beyond the advertising
industry.
I totally agree with all the 'gripes' so far, but they are just a small
reflection of a much larger trend that has infilitrated almost all creative
disciplines these days:
sampling, reuse, rehashing. Fewer and fewer things are 'original', it's like
people have embraced the idea that all our thoughts are based on previous
ones, to the point where we rely (too) heavily on the previous ones.
Truly creative people can still be creative with samples , and the sheepish
only know how to follow, copying and biting. That's no different than it
ever was.
We on this list cannot point fingers at the advertisers who are sampling,
they're just catching on to a style that we have embraced long ago, and of
course mis-using it and ab-using it.
Commercials have always had a way of appropriating trends to the end of
selling their goods. Its inherent in the concept of trying to sell something
to an audience.
I'm sure 'live' musicians got just as pissed off when commercials started
using simplified, stripped down, insipid spinoffs of their creative ideas.
Similarly, we get pissed when they steal what is close to our musical hearts
and use it to sell ads.
That shit aint gonna get any better, not until after the Revolution (which
will obviously not be televised, unless its the consumer revolution)
It's easy to single out this giant abstract Corporate Monster that's causing
all this commercial shit to be shoved down our throats (and in our ears),
but when you think about it in terms of real people, there's probably a
coupla dudes who work for an agency who are just tryin to get paid (which
unfortunately we gotta try and do for some time) , and those dudes may be
the same ones who go to the clubs where you DJ, or who buy the records that
you make, and in some way are trying to support the (our) (little) industry.
"everybody's got to make a livin.."
And then it all boils down to the sad fact that all people got to sell out,
"hustle to survive" at some point and to varying degrees, and it just sux to
see that happen when it affects the things that are sacred to us.
oh well.... what to do..... just try to Keep it Real
("represent what? My Nuts!" - Kool Keith)
-n
p.s. For an recent original marketing jingle and corporate image, think
about Always Coca Cola and the cool commercials they had with all kinds of
music-making....
.·´¯`·.¸¸.N·a·t.¸
-----Original Message-----
From: Elson Trinidad <elson@westworld.com>
To: Andrei Marinescu <andreim@its.caltech.edu>; acid-jazz@ucsd.edu
<acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 08, 1998 3:46 AM
Subject: Re: Commercialism and puffy clouds and Whoppers with cheese
>At 09:50 PM 10/7/98 -0700, Andrei Marinescu wrote:
>>> Now that companies are doing the lazy thing (licensing songs), nobody's
>>> writing jingles anymore.
>>
>>not totally true. case in point: the target commercials that hit prime
>>time a few months ago.
>
>Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating a bit. Of course there are still some jingles
>out there, but you have to agree their role and prominence have diminished
>considerably. Im sure in our youth we can recall popular commercial jingles
>like "Coke is It" and the like, but such things are few and far between
>nowadays. Instead, Microsoft
>used the Rolling Stones, Nike used The Verve, Mobil Oil, United Airlines
>and MCI have all used R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and Burger King used
>the entire Billboard Top 40 chart from the past 30 years. I for the life of
>me can't name a single original commercial jingle introduced this decade.
>Aside from economics (i.e. licensing is cheaper than paying jingle
>writers), I guess they're relying on the power of pop culture/nostalgia.
>
>The same could be said for TV theme songs. Some of them too are borrowing
>from old songs, though not as much. Still, the art of writing a TV theme
>song is also getting lost...In the 1990s, TV theme songs were reduced to
>10-second bits...The '70s sitcom "Barney Miller" and the '80s sitcom "Night
>Court" all had them funky basslines in their theme songs...I remember how
>bass players would impress people by pulling them out in a jam...now a '90s
>sitcom like "Seinfeld" only offers a couple slap bass samples from a Roland
>rack module and some popping noises from an Alesis drum machine. You call
>that a theme song?
>
>Elson
> - 30 -
>:. e l s o n t r i n i d a d
>:. elson@westworld.com :. www.westworld.com/~elson
>:. los angeles, california, usa
>
>
>
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