Posted on 02/09/2004 1:33:06 AM PST by kattracks
One of Sen. John Kerry's celebrity supporters is ready to pull out all the stops to get him elected. Republicans are shrieking over a suggestion by rocker Moby that Democrats spread gossip about President Bush on the Internet. "No one's talking about how to keep the other side home on Election Day," Moby tells us. "It's a lot easier than you think and it doesn't cost that much. This election can be won by 200,000 votes."Moby suggests that it's possible to seed doubt among Bush's far-right supporters on the Web.
"You target his natural constituencies," says the Grammy-nominated techno-wizard. "For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion.
"Then you go to an anti-immigration Web site chat room and ask, 'What's all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?'"
Moby didn't claim that he believed the abortion story.
Last month, Bush did propose reforms to immigration policy. But he insisted, "I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship [because it] perpetuates illegal immigration."
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson likened Moby's proposal to "dirty campaign tactics we're already seeing from John Kerry."
"His campaign was willing to use these kinds of voter suppression tactics against members of his own party in Iowa and New Hampshire," Iverson says. "John Kerry is a hypocrite. He pledged to run a clean campaign. Then he uses the lowest form of gutter politics to impugn his opponents, Democratic and Republican. It's unfortunate but this is probably just the beginning of the kind of tactics we're going to be seeing from John Kerry in the months to come."
Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said, "I doubt that Moby was suggesting anybody suppress the vote. We did not use any dirty tactics against any candidate.
"When it comes to dirty tricks the Republic party wrote the book. We've already seen Republican attacks and we haven't even won the nomination yet. The Republican Party is clearly afraid of John Kerry."
[snip]
With Ben Widdicombe and Suzanne Rozdeba
Originally published on February 8, 2004
Ya know, I don't wanna get all into defending Moby's politics or even his music (most of which I don't mind as modern background music, and which isn't noticeably politcal beyond a feel-good, can't-we-all-just-get-along niceness), but the guy who wrote that article you're quoting was clearly deluded if he thinks ANY art is anything more than an attempt to manipulate your emotions in a way to make you part with your money. No one goes into a recording studio except to try to make some money by creating a product. His leap of logic comes when he says "there's nothing artistic about them," as if there's something inherently contradictory between selling a product and being artistic. Rembrandt created paintings that he would sell. "The Night Watch" was a portrait commissioned by the town council of some Dutch burg. Was Rembrandt selling out?
Again, not to defend Moby or compare his art to Rembrandt's beyond that they're both products that the artist created in order to make some money with their talent.
Moby whored out his album and benefitted with chart success from his action. It's not a new concept. In Japan, commercials have been the way to get new artists on tv/radio for decades. In America it is the exception to the craft. Sting tried to revive his career by selling some songs to Compaq Computers. He sold some of the same material to Jaguar; the articles about the Jaguar spots generated enough buzz for him to get radio airplay again.
Moby didn't get radio airplay and I think he still doesn't get radio airplay; he did get sales and articles written about him, though.
The biggest "hit" to come from a commercial prior to this recent "explosion" was "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach Is In)" by the T-Bones (from the 1960s). It was created as a jingle and drove the release of a cash-in album.
The guy who wrote many of the bubblegum hits of the late 1960s early 1970s also was a commercial jingle writer.
"Moby Manson" is still a media whore.
Great post!
That was Chris Martin of Coldplay, who's married to the always-annoying Gwyneth Paltrow. Does he think he gets to vote, just because he married an American? I guess so, since Madonna and Gwynnie think they're now British, just because they now talk with fake British accents!
And Bob Seger is retired on seling "Like a Rock" to Chevy, and the Clash have sold Jags and Levi's and Led Zeppelin are on Cadillac commercial and the Doors sold their songs 30 years ago. It's only an "exception to the craft" (spoken like an idealist) because heretofore advertisers weren't as hot on going after rock tunes to sell to their target markets. Now that people who listened to Zep are Cadillacs demographic, Caddie's agency come to Zep with a hatful of money and Zep takes it. If Billy Joel chooses not to take that route, it's because he feels an appearance of integrity is more valuable to his "brand" than the money from the ads would be.
The Japanese text in those Van Goghs is meaningless, Vincent just chose the words that looked nice. He whored his craft to try to create something that could be a commercial success.
Vincent's brother didn't live but about 6 months after Vincent. Theo's son was the one who inherited the bulk of the paintings (and they are largely still in one collection housed in Amsterdam).
Vincent whored out his craft too by repeating images. Cookie cutter. No different than someone churning out Elvis paintings on black velvet. Vincent DID make some paintings for himself and DID make a special effort in some of his works. Had he been a commercial success, he might never have done these works.
There are plenty of artists/musicians who create for the sheer enjoyment it brings them. It doesn't make them amateurs or dilettantes.
That one thread is all I've read on that site so I can't say much one way or another but it didn't make me feel too comfortable.
I have seen some vile things posted here by trolls.
At least our FR Admin Mods are mighty good at what they do and they're not going to lose their aim from lack of targets. :)
Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, the Beatles and others are established bands that are long since dead (even if their members live). The use of those songs (as that author asserted in his editorial, if you had read it) is to touch a reference point for wealthy baby boomers. The boomers did not first hear these songs in commercials, they heard these songs long ago and are instantly identifiable when they hear the ad. If it makes them look up at the tv when it is on, it is doing it's job.
No one who is buying Moby's sponsors' items ever heard of Moby or his songs before hearing them on a commercial.
Moby offered up all 18 songs for commercial use. Brian Eno did this sort of thing in the 1970s (he released an album of production music which contained an address on the back so the people could pay to use his songs from that album in films/tv shows/etc.). It was a widely used album but Brian Eno never claimed it was "art".
Today people who remix songs and DJ have been raiding old record vaults to find original albums of production music (largely from the 1960s and 1970s). Some find those albums to contain works of "art", others just think that they sound good; others recognize that the music may not be great but it is "vaguely identifiable" because it appeared in so many old movies and shows.
Is a song "good" just because you "heard it someplace" before? There are plenty of lousy songs that I have been subjected to (whether it is bumper music on tv/radio, riding in an elevator, waiting in an office or on the phone, etc.).
And this is different from what the advertiser hopes to do with a Moby song how? You seem to be trying to make the case that "back in the old days" artists didn't sell their songs to commercials. I'm saying that they probably would have in greater numbers if: A) Their had been the number and size of offers that there are today, and B) Radio had been as tigthtly formatted and exclusive as it is today. Moby's success in circumventing radio speaks for itself, as does Sting's.
As for your Van Gogh bit, I'm not sure what your point is, but I still maintain that Van Gogh would have like to have made some money in his lifetime by selling his paintings.
Finally, yes, lots of people like to paint in their backyards and never show anyone, or noodle around on a guitar in their basements, but the moment they start asking for money for it, whether it's at the neighborhood art fair, at the local bar, or on a national TV spot, they're engaged in a commercial enterprise.
I'm surprised at what an idealist you are. You should read some of Thomas Frank's stuff, particularly "The Conquest of Cool."
Why do you think that some jingle writers employ sound-alike singers? Why do you think that these same people get sued just for hiring someone who sounds like a celebrity to sing a commerical song? If that same singer were to record a single instead, there would be no lawsuit.
It really rankles you for me to call Moby out for what he did, doesn't it?
Beyond "backyard" painters there are graphic designers who labor on their own private artworks for the sheer pleasure. Robert Crumb has maintained sketchbooks since his high school days. He draws on the placemat while waiting for food in a restaurant and he continues drawing after the meal while everyone drinks their coffee. He is not drawing all of those drawings so that he can have even more drawings to sell (each of those drawings is worth $800-2500).
The artists who are in it for the cash cheapen their works. Salvador Dali did by signing blank pieces of paper that were later printed with "fine art prints". Andy Warhol did by mass producing silk screened "art" in a factory. These people didn't even do any of their own art themselves after a point, it was just another brand name.
An artist can sell his work (or find a sponsor) without being a "sell out". Capitalism is good and earning a dollar is well and good. I know enterprising artists who have sold their works themselves, published their own books, staged their own gallery openings. When finding the next buyer (and crafting works specifically for that audience) is the overruling consideration before "creating" something, then the commerce has taken priority over the art.
Graphic design commercial art and soundtrack music can be nice but it is forever tied to its sponsor. Moby's album is elligible for a Grammy even though all 18 cuts were used for ads. The artist who painted all of those Coca-Cola ads will never get his day in an art museum because he was a "hack". He could have been a modern artist like those who splattered paint (Pollack) or scribbled on chalk boards (Twombley) but he was too busy chasing that dollar (at least according to the art world). Of course he was more honest to his craft and never made nearly the dollar of Pollack or Twombley.
Real artists create because it is a part of their personality. It is how they communicate and there is a psychological release from "creating".
I'll let you in on a dirty little secret: the artists I've known personally who've been able to isolate the commercial and creative influences on art let their wives manage their career. The artist never has to be the one to break the "bad" news about how expensive something is and does not contemplate "well if I do more like these, I can charge more money".
One thing that always makes me laugh about the libs is that they can't seem to make up thier mind on if we are drooling yokels driving around in our pick-up trucks with a three legged dog in the passenger seat and a rebel flag and gun rack on the back window, or the exceptionally wealthy who would rather die then step foot in anywhere "lower class" then Neiman-Marcus, dress and talk like Thurston and Lovey Howell from Gilligans Island, and have some secret plot to rule the world with the Bilderbergers.
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