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To: weegee
Maybe songs just aren’t important anymore. They’re simply shallow, dumb, mindless drivel, and they’re not worth caring about or even respecting. There’s nothing artistic about them. Anybody can do it. A song is just a tool to get you to spend money — it manipulates your emotions for somebody else’s purposes.

That’s funny, because I thought Moby was trying to do more than that with Play....

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.

82 posted on 02/09/2004 11:15:17 AM PST by Heyworth
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To: Heyworth
Many legendary artists were never recognized in their lifetime and did not reap a financial reward for their efforts.

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.

84 posted on 02/09/2004 11:30:47 AM PST by weegee (Everytime a troll is banned a viking kitty gets its wings)
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