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Merrick....
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Holy McGrail
Holy McGrail
1257 posts

Re: Merrick....
Nov 06, 2005, 23:13
>I would be surprised to read that too. Especially as he said that he disagreed with the acrticle >himself. Sadly, I can't find where he said that. It certainly wasn't on this thread.

Sorry, yeah I haven't actually explained what I disagreed with; having said what I did, I probably should, though this thread didn't really seem like the place! In brief I think that the time when e.g. a Doors track was taken and the words rewritten for to promote a product is a little different from that which the modern struggling musician finds themself in. Specifically, someone over on Unsung recently accused Joanna Newsom of 'sucking corporate cock' for allowing her music to be used on an ad for Orange. A pretty hideous accusation, and not just because she looks about 7 years old. Now, although she may have sold something between, what, 5,000-10,000 copies of her album (warning hongnam - that's a guess on my part!), that won't amount to a great deal of dosh and won't carry her personally for more than a couple of years, surely. Along come Orange with a rough cut of an ad featuring her music, a beautiful and poigniant short film that ends with an Orange logo, and she allows it to happen. I personally don't think that's really selling out; it's getting value for her art in a climate where unfortunately she's more likely to make more money that way than from the sales of her own records. That's more symptomatic of the current climate than indicative of any evil on her part. Plus the ad is tasteful, uncheesy & essentially a piece of sponsored/commissioned art that has the advantage of taking her music to new audiences. With the Eno ad I suppose it's different, I can't really see any justification other than maybe he genuinely liked the film - it's certainly a stunning piece of work, and I think it's easy to forget the art and creative energies exercised in creating the film that the music accompanies. Also, I'm not sure what in the context of the article one would make of allowing music to appear on a film soundtrack, something I'm fairly sure Eno has done in the past (again hongnam, assumption on my part!); while there may be no specific product other than the films themselves, surely there are few nice things anyone could really say about the vendors; such gigantic international behemoths as 20th Century Fox, Warners, MGM etc. Dunno, I just don't think things are as clear-cut these days as they may have been when Bill Hicks said what he did. And personally I have more of a bee in my bonnet about the imperial-style arrogance of the BBC having the 'right' to use any music for any purpose they see fit than anything else discussed in this article & subsequent thread.

Anyway, I'm not particularly voicing off about this, I was disagreeing silently but thought I'd mention that I didn't agree to try and show hongnam that no, you weren't going to be banned for disagreeing with your article otherwise I'd be in the unusal position of having to ban myself. A silly sentiment, and a little too obtuse for the chap, but what can you do. :)
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