The death of culture? Am Chilled about it.
In the most impaired creative union since ladyhawk and a bottle of becks T-Mobile recently ‘Challenged’ josh84 to create a superband, using only his free texts and internet. Now, I must admit I set out to write a lovely piece of blogging acid to post up. But have subsequently come around
A bit of background first. T Mobile are a mobile Telecom company, like many companies they have advertising campaigns. In the last year they have organised some kind of flash mob at Liverpool street station and some terrifying cringe worthy karaoke event in Trafalgar square, attended by a group of people who some how make me feel like an alien to the rest of specialise. The latest campaign features Josh 84 and his campaign to create a ‘superband’ on behalf of t-mobile. Well believe it or not Josh 84 is a real human who lucked into this opportunity. Him and his superband have a single out at the moment that they are hoping will be number one this week, in the largest mobilisation of internet buying since rage against the machine (errr in a  few weeks ago).
Anyway as I said Josh84 is a real person…the guy you see in the adverts is not a paid actor or robot man, because he his made of flesh we managed to get him on the blower for this weeks show and asked him on his position on the whole issue of commercialism in music.
I am going keep the commentary minimal, but I will say I am a graphic designer by day. How is what Josh doing any different from me. He is doing a job and getting paid for it?  Do we hold music as some kind of sacred art form? As Josh says, it’s a day job. I don’t think there are many musicians who would not jump at the chance to make music for a living full time. Am pretty sure that the work the superband has done is pretty disposable, contrived, and nothing more than a nice bit of PR…but do we really think its anything else? It registers with me as much as say a jingle. Anyhow, check out josh’s real band…they’re alright.
What do you make of it all?
Stop over analysing and thinking every detail possibly adam?
I was speaking to Sam about the ethics of selling music for ad campaigns, and he to my surprise said he had no problem with the idea. What you said about comparing it to creating something visual for money made me think about it more, and I suppose I would have to say that I too would provide music for cash. But I’d feel more comfortable if it was something I had been specially commissioned to write just for that purpose, rather than something that I’d previously created, for no other reason than for the music itself.
The musical world is diffrent these days. For a lot of artists it’s quite unfesable to live of record sales alone, so if you want to be a full time musician you have to fond new ways to make your music pay.