Tuesday, July 16, 2002
There’s a certain amount of self-delusion when artists justify peddling their music to corporate bidders, being prompted to say such things by their neo-conservative handlers and public relations masters as “I want my art to reach the greatest number of people.”
You know they think of music as just an institutionalized shopping experience. Because what my radio receives is just as abysmally the same as anyone else’s in the US, this sister is hoping to swing out soon.
In the meantime, I’m going in for the enforced mall music just like everyone else. After all, what other choice do I have if I happen to be low on some necessities. In fact, I today strolled from shoppe to shoppe in my precious village to have a listen to some of the finest commercial tones. I listen to the mildly percolatin’ jazz bubbling up at the Starbuck’s marveling that this is somebody’s idea of “peppy” and they have the cd on display in case I want to buy those disposable tones as a memento of my time spent staring at the same prints on display in every other Starbuck’s.
Then at the pseudo-Pottery Barn, I could if the music were any good break into a subdued samba in the aisle while pawing through the pastel linens in the napkin baskets. There’s a cd on display there, too, in case I want to recapture that sensation of tropical blandness I felt when I found those perfect plastic napkin rings.
For a little titillation, I can hit the big mall and paw through the badly-sewn lace on the mauve rack at a Victoria’s Secret kind of place while listening to their idea of sensual muzak. The cd of timid bumps and grinds is available in case I snatch a teddy from the rack and want to recall what passes for excitement.
The same is happening everywhere. At the boutique, amidst the acres of batik fabrics, hemp handbags and African earrings, there’s world shopping music on cd that has been playing and is displayed for sale close by the register. In other more tropical resorts, I’ve seen cd’s being given away with each pair of $80 sunglasses sold at the yuppie kiosk.
I wonder how low these artists will go.
I know I am inventing the wheel here. Combining merchandising with merchandising, I came up with the idea of real “tinkle music.” This can be a multi-level ad attack. My idea is musical splash mats in men’s urinals. A variation of the squeeze for play sound device, soothing instrumentals from a celeste could resound at the long sink in the men’s room during a relief stop. Don’t worry, these devices can be implanted in the deoderant splash bars, too, so there is no men’s room anywhere in the nation that wouldn’t be available to these artists.
Women’s rooms, too. For both “men and women” the cd display could be placed strategically on a bamboo easel on the stainless steel shelf right under the mirror. The attendant who provides the handtowel or brushes the stray hair off the shoulders of the suit could then put to use some of that free time they waste standing around waiting to be summoned for service to politely collect a twenty for the disc.
How long, then, before the cd is included with a four-pack of toilet paper, a cheap enticement that costs the manufacturer scarcely a penny to better prompt the consumer selection for that brand of tidy-wipes?
I wonder who’s going to be the first to do this. If I had made the mistake of leasing my music in any of the above referenced ways, I would be groveling and asking for forgiveness. ¶ 7/16/2002 01:06:00 PM
You know they think of music as just an institutionalized shopping experience. Because what my radio receives is just as abysmally the same as anyone else’s in the US, this sister is hoping to swing out soon.
In the meantime, I’m going in for the enforced mall music just like everyone else. After all, what other choice do I have if I happen to be low on some necessities. In fact, I today strolled from shoppe to shoppe in my precious village to have a listen to some of the finest commercial tones. I listen to the mildly percolatin’ jazz bubbling up at the Starbuck’s marveling that this is somebody’s idea of “peppy” and they have the cd on display in case I want to buy those disposable tones as a memento of my time spent staring at the same prints on display in every other Starbuck’s.
Then at the pseudo-Pottery Barn, I could if the music were any good break into a subdued samba in the aisle while pawing through the pastel linens in the napkin baskets. There’s a cd on display there, too, in case I want to recapture that sensation of tropical blandness I felt when I found those perfect plastic napkin rings.
For a little titillation, I can hit the big mall and paw through the badly-sewn lace on the mauve rack at a Victoria’s Secret kind of place while listening to their idea of sensual muzak. The cd of timid bumps and grinds is available in case I snatch a teddy from the rack and want to recall what passes for excitement.
The same is happening everywhere. At the boutique, amidst the acres of batik fabrics, hemp handbags and African earrings, there’s world shopping music on cd that has been playing and is displayed for sale close by the register. In other more tropical resorts, I’ve seen cd’s being given away with each pair of $80 sunglasses sold at the yuppie kiosk.
I wonder how low these artists will go.
I know I am inventing the wheel here. Combining merchandising with merchandising, I came up with the idea of real “tinkle music.” This can be a multi-level ad attack. My idea is musical splash mats in men’s urinals. A variation of the squeeze for play sound device, soothing instrumentals from a celeste could resound at the long sink in the men’s room during a relief stop. Don’t worry, these devices can be implanted in the deoderant splash bars, too, so there is no men’s room anywhere in the nation that wouldn’t be available to these artists.
Women’s rooms, too. For both “men and women” the cd display could be placed strategically on a bamboo easel on the stainless steel shelf right under the mirror. The attendant who provides the handtowel or brushes the stray hair off the shoulders of the suit could then put to use some of that free time they waste standing around waiting to be summoned for service to politely collect a twenty for the disc.
How long, then, before the cd is included with a four-pack of toilet paper, a cheap enticement that costs the manufacturer scarcely a penny to better prompt the consumer selection for that brand of tidy-wipes?
I wonder who’s going to be the first to do this. If I had made the mistake of leasing my music in any of the above referenced ways, I would be groveling and asking for forgiveness. ¶ 7/16/2002 01:06:00 PM
