The billboard top 100 list is a system record companies and retailers use to determine how successful, an album is, how well it will/has sold and why. The result of this system has led to major record labels like all industries taking few risks when it comes to signing producing and marketing a new act.
This however leads to a majority of the public (their market) listening to bland music with little to no innovation, creativity and at times talent. Occasionally however foreign and independent musicians peek through the fabric of American commercialism in the form of small 30 second commercial blips, often using music that may have been released years ago. Often they have the watcher going "hmmmm I wonder what song that was" and those who have known about it for years have mixed feelings of disgust, happiness, and pride.
In 2008 an extreme form of this appeared in the Pineapple Express trailer that featured M.I.A's Paper Planes single. A song that was released years prior, but never the less sparked a resurgence of her career as mainstream hip-hop acts like Jay-Z and Kanye West suddenly began to pay attention.
Recently a wave of Electrasol commercials used Gotan Projects single Epoca. Though like many before them it might just blow over without the public's notice, but was it really necessary to sell the rights to use the song for such a tacky commercial despite the hopeful but most likely negligible publicity. Only history can decide.
No comments:
Post a Comment