June 2011 Archives

I love to see a show, a gig that transcends classification and is something more than a band playing their hits without much thought or imagination. I'll go out of my way to see a great show and consequently trekked back to Birmingham (from London) on Monday night simply to see Roger Waters' new presentation of The Wall at the NIA, even though I haven't listened to the album in almost 30 years.

I was never a Pink Floyd fan; I missed that era by a few years. My formative musical early-teen years were dominated by metal of a much more basic variety but the gigs I went to were populated by those with an appreciation of Floyd, one that I'd never fully bought into.

It's an odd day when you get to confront your own hypocrisy. In many ways I've been doing that in public (though not with great visibility as it was via this blog) over the last few weeks in trying to square my views on 'synching', or the use of popular music for commercial/brand purposes.

It was spurred initially by a knee-jerk reaction, a 'how dare they' moment, to the VW commercial and its use of what I consider to be one of the greatest songs ever recorded. I did make the point at the time that my thoughts and views were compromised and far from clear cut. There's a grey area where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and your position is influenced by your views on that artist or piece of music.

I like Volkswagen, it's important that you should know this. I've bought two of their cars in the last decade, it's a reliable brand and I'd be happy to drive with them again. This is not about VW; it's about the denigration of art by association, or commercialisation.

Naturally I'm aware of how pretentious that sounds, I know very little about art and not that much about music but I do know what the song 'God Only Knows' means to me, and it doesn't have anything to do with a fucking van.

I was ready to unleash a stream of bile, an invective, a torrent of abuse against the commercial use of one of my favourite songs; then I paused.

I frequently tell myself (and others) not to hit send on something they might regret, or may not even be fully understood. If I take stock on this maybe it isn't that important, most people don't take music that seriously. Others may just believe that the song concerned is just a nice pop tune, not the major development in popular music or timeless classic that I believe it to be.

It's all about perspective. Maybe some people do love their cars that much, probably the creative types involved in the commercial believe that they're paying homage to the song and the vehicles involved.

It is subjective, of course. I was also wary that I was unleashing vitriol against a company to whom I'd recently proposed a sponsorship deal. They foolishly knocked it back in preference to one of their own ideas, one that they don't actually have the budget to execute properly. Generally speaking I don't take these things to heart and it certainly didn't influence my feelings about the ad - I was having those before the 'knock-back' and would've published them either way.

I suppose I didn't want to think that my thinking, and consequently my writing, was compromised. If I'm going to commentate on popular culture and express my deep-held beliefs then I should just get on with it. Those will be printed above, very soon.

Recorded music, it's in the sync: Synchronisation that is, a buzz word that's been knocking around for a few years the meaning of which has been bastardised to neuter the actual intent.

Let me start again. In commercial music terms 'syncing' is the means by which a song is used in a TV show or a film, a game or a commercial - often in partnership with the creators of the aforementioned to help to popularise the song or artist.

The term first came into popular usage (for this purpose) when the industry - in which I include publishers, managers and record labels - realised that this could be a vital new promotional stream for acts and songs and that they should view it more pro-actively, rather than charge standard fixed commercial rates for each usage.