Every Great Band Should be Shot / Before They Make Their “Combat Rock”

Selling Out, Then and Now
by Jeff Somers

From The Inner Swine Volume 17, Summer 2011, out soon.

IN thinking about this issue, whose vague theme is “the past”, I tried to think of things that really are different today. I mean, I’ve been sentient for several decades. I’ve lived through some shit. I lived through Vanilla Ice and I’ve lived through Space Shuttle Disasters. I should have some wisdom.

Wisdom’s a bitch, though.

Cultural changes are always nebulous and subtle. It’s one thing to take post 1950’s America and compare it to, say, pre-1850’s America and see the stark, obvious differences. Ladies voting, generation gaps, race-relations—they’re all strikingly different. Much more difficult to examine 1950s America and 1960’s America—the differences are a lot more subtle. Change is constant, and accrues slowly, over the course of years, and in the process a lot of it is forgotten.

Take blue jeans: Back in the 1950s, when kids started wearing jeans it was in imitation of workers and undesirable elements in society—it was rebellion. It was a fashion statement. Today, of course, jeans are standard wear for almost any occasion. I’ve seen people go to funerals in jeans. This kind of evolution took years, and now the origins of jeans’ “cool factor” are forgotten by most folks, and people like me only know about it from reading about it.

So thinking back over the last few decades and trying to pick out something cultural that’s changed isn’t as easy as it sounds. I mean, I could bloviate about cell phones and gadgets, but I’m not sure if they’ve really changed the world so much as simply augmented existing behaviors. Things like cell phones or iPads or Kindles are easy to talk about because they’re concrete, and come with definite dates to point to. We here at The Inner Swine never take the easy way out. We work, baby.

And then I saw a commercial.

It was Fergie, unfortunately, shilling for Dr. Pepper. Well, I know it was Fergie (of the Black Eyed Peas, the worst band ever in the history of ever) because a title on the commercial told me so. It doesn’t look anything like any human being I’ve ever seen, frankly:

Fergie!
Shudder.

Anyways, what occurs to me suddenly is that not so long ago, as in clearly within my limited memory, rock stars or actors who wished to be taken seriously never did commercials. Sometimes they would do commercials in Japan, with the expectation that no one in the US would ever see them. I can clearly remember, in college, being outraged whenever some singer or actor I thought had some integrity would show up in a commercial—they were dead to me. My friends and I would be amazed, and sad. It was the sign that your career was in the shitter, frankly.

Now, everything’s different. Somehow, in the course of a few decades, product placement and shilling for corporations has become cool. It has, in fact, become a way to become cool.

I have no idea, exactly, when this happened. In an off-the-cuff, totally unresearched thought (our specialty), I might think of Rap Music, which has gloried in name-dropping brand names for years now. Since most Rappers are cool, it stands to reason that they have convinced everyone that casually mentioning fifteen luxury brands in thirty seconds is, indeed, cool. I have no idea if any Rappers are getting paid for product placement. My instinct is probably not directly, but if you mention how much you love Patron on a platinum record, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few cases of it magically appear in your mansion’s loading dock.

That’s just speculation. I have no idea exactly how we transitioned from the outrage I remember towards sell-outs to the term sell-out not even meaning anything, but it’s definitely happened. It’s not only acceptable, today, for a band to license its music for use in a commercial—it’s actually such a common marketing technique these days that I have little doubt that new bands are not only not avoiding commercial deals, they’re most probably aggressively seeking them out. One fucking iPod commercial is worth like five hundred plays on radio. Also too because no one listens to radio any more.

And that’s part of it—the whole world has changed since I was a kid. Well, not the whole world. There’s still Cheetohs and Yuengling Lager and baseball. The Mets still suck and the Yankees overpay for geezers. The Earth still spins around the sun and I still drink too much, get maudlin, and tell people things I should never tell anyone. But the Entertainment Industry has changed. When I was younger, you got your new music leads from three distinct places: The radio, which was huge and dominating; the MTV, which was new and interesting; and your friends, who were usually totally wrong. About everything. Especially which bands you should buy.

That world is gone now, ashes in history’s mouth. Today the number one way people hear new music is probably iTunes. Or simple file sharing. Or Pandora-like applications and Apps which just trot out new music for you with computerized precision. There’s no clear channel to follow. Want to put out your own album? No problemo. Get yourself some software, some equipment, produce your album at home, and sell it on iTunes. Except no one will ever know you were there. So you have to find ways to get attention. The old A&R model of big labels scouting for the next big thing is almost dead.

In that kind of thin atmosphere, I can understand music groups and other artists grabbing onto anything that’ll weigh them down in people’s minds. If a commercial gives you a chance to be heard by a million people, why the fuck not?

Brace yourself
while
Corporate America
tries to sell us
its
wretched things.

Another aspect of this is the lowered standard of what’s acceptable in popular culture. Back in The Day, there was a sense that any consorting with the Corporate Behemoth must by necessity result in self-censorship and artistic compromise. This because no one wants a degenerate artiste hawking their wares. The assumption that accepting a corporate paycheck means you must now run your lyrics or novels past the company law firm for pre-editing seemed obvious. Anyone who took a commercial had just traded their free expression for money, and that sucked.

Today? Different. I mean, we’re living in a world where you can write a song called Fuck You and no one particularly cares, even if you are required to put out a PG-version if you want wide airplay—which of course you do, because fuck it, everyone knows the joke anyway. Celebrities pretty much talk openly about doing drugs. A lot of the taboos have disappeared, and the establishment not only tolerates what was once considered controversial behavior, it encourages it, because it sells its merchandise. There’s no longer any conflict about taking the corporate money, because the corporate money wants its artists to be cool.

As a result, corporate sponsorship is no longer a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Up is down. Black is white.

***

I have no doubt that at some point in the near future no one under a certain age will even understand what I’m talking about here. It’ll just be standard procedure for bands and comedians and actors and writers to make commercials, endorse products, place products in their productions, and no one will care or comment on the fact. Except bitter old duffers like me, who will be ridiculed and abused. Although, come to think of it, I am ridiculed and abused right now. Although, come to think of it, I’m already an old duffer. Forget I said anything.

I don’t think this means FutureArt will be any worse than it is today, or was 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago. Good work will still be done, and time will grind the dross away as usual. And yes, you bastards, I fully expect my own work to be part of the dross. Maybe that means I should start selling product placement in my stories immediately. Who’s with me?

10 Comments

  1. jon gawne

    I’ll buy some! In fact a BETTER idea would be to SELL spots in your work to people. For $X you will name a character after them. For $10,000 you will write a story in which it ends up that Avery Cates real name was “fill in name of payer here.”

    For $10, maybe he can talk to some skinny street urchin hawking black market rotgut named after you.

    For $50 Cates picks up some old work out book written by an author named after you.

    $100 puts your name on some senior System Pig.

    I bet you could even raise enougtomoney ot publish a book that way. Much the same as Julie Nunes (the diva of ukulelesukuleles)is doing her latest album (and being far more successful at it than she thought she would.

    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/254268679/julia-nunes-would-be-nothing-without-me

    P.S. If you raise money off this idea then I should at least deserve a minor character named after me. Preferably one that dies in a horrible, unpeakible brutal way.

  2. Melanie Meadors

    Ugh, Jon, the unfortunate thing is that at a writer’s conference I attended recently, certain authors were DOING THIS. It was a raffle where you bought tickets, and the winners had characters named after them. Now, I don’t know about other people, but when I make a character, the name is part of who they are. Having to name someone Frank because he paid me to do it would feel limiting. And I’m not a marketing whore. Yet. Though I’m sure there will come a point in this industry where I might have to be in order to get anywhere.

    Jeff, this article pretty much echoes my thoughts on things. But whenever I go out and voice my opinion on the matter, I get things thrown at me. People want to know, “Aw, what the hell’s the big deal?” And I can’t convince them that their souls are slowly being eaten. I guess some things just aren’t important anymore… 🙁 Heavens to marketroids… People wonder why I am asocial. I just don’t want to be a drooling, mindless drone being told what to buy by “idols.”

    Unfortunately, I suppose everyone has to make a living, and people are doing what they have to…

  3. Nemesis0

    If there was gonna be another Cates book it could be sponsered too. For example, (in big letters) Jack Daniel’s presents (slightly smaller letters) THE FINAL EVOLUTION and (in tiny letters)by Jeff Somers.

    Those Kickstarter programs work well sometimes. Another author i read did one to get her series of 5 novellas published and ended up getting over 600% of what she needed/asked for.

  4. Frank Castle

    Somewhere, out there, is the anti-cool rebel. He or she is merely waiting for fame to come along. When it does, that person will turn down all inteviews, commerical offers and everything. And the media and the public will go INSANE. They will demand more and more. Of course, by this time, everyone in the US will have had their own reality show. It’s inevitible really, the way things are going, every one of us will have a camera crew follow us around for a week. If it ‘sells’ then your gold, if not, then on to the next house. Long ago, the only way I found music was to go to the record store and look for the one with the best cover. I’d go into the booth, take a listen. If I liked then, then I looked on the record sleeve for the liner notes for who the band thanked. They always thanks other bands. It was like vinyl archeology. Not so anymore. Buy one Ramones song and you get recommendations and your own custom compliations on Itunes. With the advent of digital technology, long dead celebrities, ones that can’t stay sober enough to work, and ones that are just plain computer generated will supplant real ones. There’s not going to be any ‘judgement day’ like in Terminator. The machines will need humanity to buy the products they are programed to pump out. The world won’t end with a bang or a wimper, it’ll just go to commerical break.

  5. jsomers (Post author)

    Jon: I think Kickstarter is a genius idea and I think people will have some serious success raising funds using it, including authors who will likely make a decent advance for writing a book. I could even see some successful authors putting up a bounty – “If I get $50,000 in donations, I’ll write another XXX book.” I wouldn’t sell character names, though. I just don’t like having any part of the story done for anything but my own instinct as a writer.

  6. jsomers (Post author)

    Melanie: I don’t begrudge anyone publicity, or even think this is necessarily a bad situation. I think in some ways it’s more honest: Let’s face it, writers/rockers/whoever have always been in it for a living, to some extent. A lot of anti-selling out sentiment has always been posturing, I think. I’m just amazed at the change 20 years has wrought.

  7. jsomers (Post author)

    Nemesis0: If Jack Daniels want to sponsor me like a stock car racer, I’m in. Have them send over a hogshead of their black label and we’ll talk.

  8. DeadlyAccurate

    Well, I know it was Fergie (of the Black Eyed Peas, the worst band ever in the history of ever)

    What, you don’t gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night?

  9. Ammsii

    I’M WITH YOU!!!! LEAD THE WAY CAP’N! THE WAR BEGINS HERE AND NOW!!!!

  10. Shayral

    Let the war begin – let the anti-capitalist artist movement begin to take hold.

    Honestly – I personally would pay shiiiiitloads for my name on a random system pig that gets mauled in the most brutal manner.

    But I don’t endorse the idea – Names, to me, are the essence of a character’s personality. They are the foundation on which the character’s traits and quirks appear – surely this is the wrong way to go about creating characters, but in my mind, the name’s “outline”, the structure and the way it rolls over the tongue mentally and verbally, forms just before the actual character does. I’d hate for this to change – Avery Cates is still one of the best names I’ve ever heard – hell, I’m planning to call my son Avery – but that’s hopefully still at least eight to god knows how many years away.

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