Matthew Dear does a GE commercial

[youtubehd]lcJG14NPXfI[/youtubehd]

As far as I can tell he's a great guy who makes great music and I hope he got a nice fat cheque for it.

  On 3/22/2015 at 8:20 PM, ussr said:

[youtubehd]lcJG14NPXfI[/youtubehd]

 

As far as I can tell he's a great guy who makes great music and I hope he got a nice fat cheque for it.

it's like an inverse Roger and ME

sure could go for a new refrigerator right about now

bill hicks was so full of bile and hate that he was like a liberal klansman who instead of hating blacks, he hated anything that even remotely was ever associated with america or 'american ideals'. the idea that he was so anti-capitalist and anti-corporate is a fucking joke because he wouldn't have been able to do any of the things he did without both of those things. the microphone he's holding, the buildings he held his hate rallies in, the cameras that recorded his shows when that happened, the audio recordings, the cd comedy albums and the companies who distributed those, the cars that drove people to see him, and him to the event, the list goes on and on. he hated success, he was successful, he hated america, he was an american, he hated capitalism even tho it gave him the platform to badmouth it. if he ran his mouth like that in russia he'd have just been killed. maybe he hated himself most of all, and my question is why does this guy get held up as some hero of intellectualism when he's really just a mouthpiece for white guilt, self loathing, and being anti-everything that separates us from a primitive existence as cavemen? is it because guilt (like fear) is a tool used to keep people in line with certain agendas? yeah probably.

but besides all that, the idea that just in general if you ever do a commercial for anyone, you can't be an artist, that takes a grade-A dickhead to say something like that. first of all, who the fuck was he to decide who gets to be an artist, and what actually defines art or what criteria can rule someone out? what if someone does a commercial for something they actually really love and use and want to support? i agree with the notion that someone doing a commercial is suspect, yeah, because everyone knows the people are being paid to say what they say. no shit. but even hicks liked being paid. and to suggest that nobody ever did a commercial and said things they honestly believed, or that they should be branded as untouchables who we can never trust or support ever again, that's just an extreme stance which i'm not surprised to see coming from a radical extremist hatemonger like hicks.

  On 3/22/2015 at 9:16 PM, MisterE said:

bill hicks was so full of bile and hate that he was like a liberal klansman who instead of hating blacks, he hated anything that even remotely was ever associated with america or 'american ideals'. the idea that he was so anti-capitalist and anti-corporate is a fucking joke because he wouldn't have been able to do any of the things he did without both of those things. the microphone he's holding, the buildings he held his hate rallies in, the cameras that recorded his shows when that happened, the audio recordings, the cd comedy albums and the companies who distributed those, the cars that drove people to see him, and him to the event, the list goes on and on. he hated success, he was successful, he hated america, he was an american, he hated capitalism even tho it gave him the platform to badmouth it. if he ran his mouth like that in russia he'd have just been killed. maybe he hated himself most of all, and my question is why does this guy get held up as some hero of intellectualism when he's really just a mouthpiece for white guilt, self loathing, and being anti-everything that separates us from a primitive existence as cavemen? is it because guilt (like fear) is a tool used to keep people in line with certain agendas? yeah probably.

 

but besides all that, the idea that just in general if you ever do a commercial for anyone, you can't be an artist, that takes a grade-A dickhead to say something like that. first of all, who the fuck was he to decide who gets to be an artist, and what actually defines art or what criteria can rule someone out? what if someone does a commercial for something they actually really love and use and want to support? i agree with the notion that someone doing a commercial is suspect, yeah, because everyone knows the people are being paid to say what they say. no shit. but even hicks liked being paid. and to suggest that nobody ever did a commercial and said things they honestly believed, or that they should be branded as untouchables who we can never trust or support ever again, that's just an extreme stance which i'm not surprised to see coming from a radical extremist hatemonger like hicks.

that's pretty stupid. it's not hypocritical to drive a car or use a microphone in an effort to challenge capitalism. capitalism doesn't just magically go away when you're a radical, it's still the essence of social and technological structure. this isn't even a political opinion, it's a mere observation. by your standards the only way to challenge the system is to completely break off from it into total obscurity. how convenient.

oh so the entirety of the points in my post go away due to yours, just completely nullified, but my pointing out that hicks used capitalism to get where he got doesn't even chip away at his message. how very non-stupid. his criticisms were extreme just like he was.

this thread is off to a good start

An artist licensing an existing song for a commercial often doesn't bother me. Grimes let her song used this travel commercial recently, probably at the very least clearing 6 figures by doing so. And hell, knowing that companies will probably just copy the song with lower paid session musicians is another huge factor to go ahead and do it. But this corporate synergy or some kind of tit for tat means of composing music. You can't completely control what happens to your music after it's released, but the actual composition and creative process can be 100% your vision if you want. To infuse it that with business interests, and especially fucking mufti-national corporate interests, that's pretty hard to dismiss or forgive.

I know making a living or career as an artist is difficult. Especially a no grant or non-commission basis, or in a context that isn't based on entertainment-oriented music and gig, or things like sound design, engineering or side-work, etc. But man, I feel this desperation to make money off of it by these endorsements is in no ways a good compromise.

I dunno, in this day or age it's easy for anyone to use, remix, and re-contextualize your music without your permission or knowing, especially online. Once you put something out there, it's out there forever. I understand anyone who takes advantage of an offer to let it be used for monetary compensation, even if it's for a commercial or mainstream tv show or film. But to actually create stuff for a corporation? That's pretty iffy.

  On 3/22/2015 at 9:16 PM, MisterE said:

bill hicks was so full of bile and hate that he was like a liberal klansman who instead of hating blacks, he hated anything that even remotely was ever associated with america or 'american ideals'. the idea that he was so anti-capitalist and anti-corporate is a fucking joke because he wouldn't have been able to do any of the things he did without both of those things. the microphone he's holding, the buildings he held his hate rallies in, the cameras that recorded his shows when that happened, the audio recordings, the cd comedy albums and the companies who distributed those, the cars that drove people to see him, and him to the event, the list goes on and on. he hated success, he was successful, he hated america, he was an american, he hated capitalism even tho it gave him the platform to badmouth it. if he ran his mouth like that in russia he'd have just been killed. maybe he hated himself most of all, and my question is why does this guy get held up as some hero of intellectualism when he's really just a mouthpiece for white guilt, self loathing, and being anti-everything that separates us from a primitive existence as cavemen? is it because guilt (like fear) is a tool used to keep people in line with certain agendas? yeah probably.

but besides all that, the idea that just in general if you ever do a commercial for anyone, you can't be an artist, that takes a grade-A dickhead to say something like that. first of all, who the fuck was he to decide who gets to be an artist, and what actually defines art or what criteria can rule someone out? what if someone does a commercial for something they actually really love and use and want to support? i agree with the notion that someone doing a commercial is suspect, yeah, because everyone knows the people are being paid to say what they say. no shit. but even hicks liked being paid. and to suggest that nobody ever did a commercial and said things they honestly believed, or that they should be branded as untouchables who we can never trust or support ever again, that's just an extreme stance which i'm not surprised to see coming from a radical extremist hatemonger like hicks.

  On 3/22/2015 at 9:16 PM, MisterE said:

 

  On 3/23/2015 at 3:14 PM, joshuatx said:

An artist licensing an existing song for a commercial often doesn't bother me. Grimes let her song used this travel commercial recently, probably at the very least clearing 6 figures by doing so. And hell, knowing that companies will probably just copy the song with lower paid session musicians is another huge factor to go ahead and do it. But this corporate synergy or some kind of tit for tat means of composing music. You can't completely control what happens to your music after it's released, but the actual composition and creative process can be 100% your vision if you want. To infuse it that with business interests, and especially fucking mufti-national corporate interests, that's pretty hard to dismiss or forgive.

 

I know making a living or career as an artist is difficult. Especially a no grant or non-commission basis, or in a context that isn't based on entertainment-oriented music and gig, or things like sound design, engineering or side-work, etc. But man, I feel this desperation to make money off of it by these endorsements is in no ways a good compromise.

 

I dunno, in this day or age it's easy for anyone to use, remix, and re-contextualize your music without your permission or knowing, especially online. Once you put something out there, it's out there forever. I understand anyone who takes advantage of an offer to let it be used for monetary compensation, even if it's for a commercial or mainstream tv show or film. But to actually create stuff for a corporation? That's pretty iffy.

 

  On 3/22/2015 at 9:16 PM, MisterE said:

bill hicks was so full of bile and hate that he was like a liberal klansman who instead of hating blacks, he hated anything that even remotely was ever associated with america or 'american ideals'. the idea that he was so anti-capitalist and anti-corporate is a fucking joke because he wouldn't have been able to do any of the things he did without both of those things. the microphone he's holding, the buildings he held his hate rallies in, the cameras that recorded his shows when that happened, the audio recordings, the cd comedy albums and the companies who distributed those, the cars that drove people to see him, and him to the event, the list goes on and on. he hated success, he was successful, he hated america, he was an american, he hated capitalism even tho it gave him the platform to badmouth it. if he ran his mouth like that in russia he'd have just been killed. maybe he hated himself most of all, and my question is why does this guy get held up as some hero of intellectualism when he's really just a mouthpiece for white guilt, self loathing, and being anti-everything that separates us from a primitive existence as cavemen? is it because guilt (like fear) is a tool used to keep people in line with certain agendas? yeah probably.

 

but besides all that, the idea that just in general if you ever do a commercial for anyone, you can't be an artist, that takes a grade-A dickhead to say something like that. first of all, who the fuck was he to decide who gets to be an artist, and what actually defines art or what criteria can rule someone out? what if someone does a commercial for something they actually really love and use and want to support? i agree with the notion that someone doing a commercial is suspect, yeah, because everyone knows the people are being paid to say what they say. no shit. but even hicks liked being paid. and to suggest that nobody ever did a commercial and said things they honestly believed, or that they should be branded as untouchables who we can never trust or support ever again, that's just an extreme stance which i'm not surprised to see coming from a radical extremist hatemonger like hicks.

 

 

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totally agree.

  On 3/22/2015 at 9:16 PM, MisterE said:

bill hicks was so full of bile and hate that he was like a liberal klansman who instead of hating blacks, he hated anything that even remotely was ever associated with america or 'american ideals'. the idea that he was so anti-capitalist and anti-corporate is a fucking joke because he wouldn't have been able to do any of the things he did without both of those things. the microphone he's holding, the buildings he held his hate rallies in, the cameras that recorded his shows when that happened, the audio recordings, the cd comedy albums and the companies who distributed those, the cars that drove people to see him, and him to the event, the list goes on and on. he hated success, he was successful, he hated america, he was an american, he hated capitalism even tho it gave him the platform to badmouth it. if he ran his mouth like that in russia he'd have just been killed. maybe he hated himself most of all, and my question is why does this guy get held up as some hero of intellectualism when he's really just a mouthpiece for white guilt, self loathing, and being anti-everything that separates us from a primitive existence as cavemen? is it because guilt (like fear) is a tool used to keep people in line with certain agendas? yeah probably.

 

but besides all that, the idea that just in general if you ever do a commercial for anyone, you can't be an artist, that takes a grade-A dickhead to say something like that. first of all, who the fuck was he to decide who gets to be an artist, and what actually defines art or what criteria can rule someone out? what if someone does a commercial for something they actually really love and use and want to support? i agree with the notion that someone doing a commercial is suspect, yeah, because everyone knows the people are being paid to say what they say. no shit. but even hicks liked being paid. and to suggest that nobody ever did a commercial and said things they honestly believed, or that they should be branded as untouchables who we can never trust or support ever again, that's just an extreme stance which i'm not surprised to see coming from a radical extremist hatemonger like hicks.

I'll start by pointing out that capitalism does not equal liberal democracy. Russia and China both utilize capitalism as an economic policy mechanism. So not sure why you felt the urge to jump from criticism of capitalism to talking about Russia.

And it's not hypocritical of him to criticize a system that exists in the time and place he was born into. It would be hypocritical of him to bash Apple while using a MacBook, or to slam Starbucks and then go drink a venti flat white. We improve systems by offering critiques of them.

There are many problems with the type of corporatism Hicks criticized, especially in media, and especially relating to A&R men. There also many problems with capitalism as practiced around the world. The fact that are problems with other economic systems is not germane to the conversation as he is discussing capitalism and corporatism, not comparing capitalism to other systems.

As for the whole what constitutes an artist thing, well obviously everyone has different ideas of what art is, so on that I will agree that his criticism is mostly vapid pandering. I will say though, it would be awfully hypocritical of someone like say...Jello Biafra to make music for a commercial. But he hasn't and won't.

I'm just gonna leave these here...

Richard

BoC

Bibio

Amon Tobin

guess we better stop listening to these guys as they're no longer artists....

Ah so use a microphone (or stand in a building) and you're no longer allowed to criticise any aspect of capitalism. Gotcha.

As far as ads go, I'm nowhere near as zero tolerance as Bill Hicks, autechre popping up in a phone ad halfway through midsomer murders is pretty cool. Queens of the stone age on a recent car ad did depress me a bit though.

This whole debate comes from being jealous of people's sucess. The fact that they can make fat stacks of cash more easily. And I'm sure Bill Hicks wasn't exactly broke. If anything he burned some bridges and ruined some opportunities by saying what he did.