Miss Imperial is now a done deal.
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16 November 2006

"They're gonna wrap you up in corn silk."

Seattle Public Library, Seattle, WA, 08-Oct-06

"They're gonna cry
like you were spilled milk."

When I first saw the ad, I couldn't believe my ears. I thought it was the work of a sound-alike, if only because I couldn't imagine them doing this.

But why not? A friend once reasoned that the term "selling out" only applies when a band changes their approach to suit the dictates of an organization offering money. On what appears to be the classiest message board thread ever, I read an interesting, surprisingly polite discussion on the internal discord that might occur if one's "sound" is retained while singing an ode to baby back ribs. The participants don't mention that a band from Dallas could also very well love barbecue, and therefore have no problem paying tribute to it, even if the tribute is recorded for a specific restaurant chain. (I actually found this suggestion on another message board; unfortunately, that thread quickly devolved into the usual message board cliché of pointless barbs and comments posted out of sheer boredom, so I didn't bother linking to it.)

Like many of the people discussing the commercial, I won't stop enjoying the band's music. [E]ricg75 makes a good point when he writes that people don't love Gene Hackman any less just because he does voice-overs for Lowe's. I certainly don't, and I don't love Jeff Bridges any less because he lends his voice to Duracell. (Even my love for Billy Crudup wasn't diminished by his voice work for MasterCard's "Priceless" campaign; rather, my love for him was diminished by the story of him leaving his pregnant girlfriend for a much younger woman. But...that's love. It's a whole other story.)

My favourite point in the thread, however, is a different proposal by ericg75: that the people who complain about artists "selling out" should quit their jobs and form a band. His hypothesis? "I bet most would be recording jingles for Wal-Mart in no time flat."

Ah, ericg75. I hear you.


3 comments:

Nirmala Basnayake said...

Er...I'm pretty sure that Jeff Bridges also left his wife for another woman (though this "other woman" has been his wife since the mid-Seventies). It's a detail that I conveniently forgot when writing this entry.

(And who knows? Maybe Gene Hackman's first marriage ended because of an extramarital affair, too. Should I cut Billy Crudup some slack?)

Anonymous said...

Leaving aside the love lives of the stars, this post is awesome because, out of the clear blue, for no particular reason that I can discern, I soundtracked today's commute with some Old 97's - specifically the anthology you lovingly compiled a few years back. Serendipitous, wouldn't you say, daughter of Serendip?

/a

Nirmala Basnayake said...

Ha! Synchronicity (I think). Did you then have an inexplicable craving for Chili's?