Overthinking pop, without a martini

okay… Alexa told me about the lips on the 30th. $55 isn’t too bad I guess… but here is my comment/question.

You couldn’t pay me to go to that show. Would you like to know why?

Okay.. I shall explain.

Beyond the fact that I would miss Lotus at SeaoDreams, I.. for the first time (I THINK) in my life… I am concerned about the “sell out” thingy… or the …no. No…. not sell out. At all.

Actually.. I know it has nothing to do with that.. as Gnarls is COMPLETELY self referential, and they dress up in so many costumes… tennis clothes, clockwork orange, their SF set they dressed as chefs and sang Hungry like a Wolf. So they make me smile. And you cannot sell out if you are self aware. Scott Stapp from Creed can sell out. Not these guys.

I think the idea is commodification of the radio, yes back to clearchannel… and the nature of well crafted and gifted pop. Actually.. in this case it is Gnarls Barkley’s Downtown recordings, owned by Atlantic, owned by Time Warner/AOL.

So there is this song “crazy”. I have never in my life… I think… *EVER* seen the proliferation of a song through popular media like this song.

AND.. albeit I think we are not completely culturally inept.. and a lot of good music burgeons due to the fans… but licensing has completely become a streamlined process, and songs can be exchanged and used ALL over the place…. you know? I mean, since clearchannel/viacom and Time Warner/AOL own TV, radio, and print… they can choose to help expose Gnarls Barkley everywhere… on the PA at a sporting event, on a trailer for a movie or TV show… etc. So they help kill the song. In a grocery store. An ad for a psychologist.

But what is different now compared to the 80’s is that the one hit wonder was a typical cosign curve… you know… that steady, measurable curve of up… peak… down… just a normal spike.

BUT now.. it is like a tangential line… a completely steady state system where the public is no longer able to dispose of pop. Pop, by nature is disposable… but if the popular media that creates and maintains it doesn’t allow it to go because they have saturated their own markets with it… it doesn’t get a chance to go into hiding waiting to be on a compilation that is “TOTALLY 2006”.. because it never leaves the collective conscience.

SO… this is an incredible situation where a song will become completely reviled by even the most accepting and arduous of fans… or at least, will become an ironic (maybe) simulacram… right? Like… transcending music and becoming a living caricature of itself.

My problem is this:

Before these people would go into hiding… and come back for a VH1 episode about where they had been hiding. Strawberry Alarm Clock, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Loverboy, Whatever…..

Now I know that “CRAZY” will fade away, but the saturation is what I am talking about. I am not sure if any song has ever had the cross marketed madness with a song like this

(which is, of course, capitulating to Time Warner/Clearchannel based demographics reports… IE: “You have signed with a Time Warner label, here are our pop culture demographic reports…. your song will be more popular if you use this pop element, this hip hop element, etc… then mix it well… etc — which actually may negate the use of costumes as nothing more than a well orchestrated play to demographic reports of consumption habits by live nation types… IE: the Flaming Lips dress up and are popular, so other bands should do it too)….

… and I am pretty sure that I am right about the saturation, because the first real saturation was when Moby became the first person ever to sell the rights to *every* track of his album play…. since then it really hasn’t happened. Gnarls is on downtown, a subsidiary of Atlantic…. and just to prove Atlantic isn’t all that… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Records#Media_references

I am sure some stupid song flooded the market before it.. but remember.. it typically wasn’t pop culture navigating ads. It was a “commercial jingle”.. an ad agency came up with a whistle and quick hook. I believe it was car commercials to first start using popular songs. Not sure… just an estimate.

WELL… point being.. if anyone followed this…

Danger Mouse is, without a doubt, one of the most talented and mind alteringly deft producers I have ever seen… The JAY-Z Grey Album Beatles mashup and Mouse and the Mask were both stunning… I mean like WHOAH… I even went and saw MF Doom cause of that fucker… and I realize it is all Danger Mouse. Cause MF is just that.. a mother fucker (but singing about Adult Swim and food is pretty funny)

SO….

will this producer ever get to walk away and make beats again? Or will he be caught up into the machine and costumes and goofy 90 minute shows with no depth?

Just talking. Just wondering.

I am sure everyone will forget the song, DM will create another pseudonym… (I suggest Penfold, and for those of you really fucking hip… huzzah).

But it is so played out, will that song *ever* not hang over him?

I say no.

Toodles.