TheMaker

That was definitely a warm little set. I liked. But did anybody notice that it was sponsored by Chevrolet? Ooooooh, shit!

But the paradigm has shifted! Don't you know? Jack White only wants people to be exposed to his music through Coke ads.

Yeah, it's readily available. Pretty fucking great, although it's way too early to compare and contrast to previous releases. I'll say this, though: Jack's damned consistent. Definitely one of the more talented songwriters out there in the world today.

Pfft. What a sell-in.

Man, if nothing else, this has been a pretty potent reminder of why I haven't listened to FM rock radio in years. Stuff I've learned in the last ten minutes: 1) Jack White is "ridiculous" live. The new album is a real "face-melter." 2) FM rock radio is exactly the same from city to city. 3) The ads these stations play remind me of being in an amusement arcade.

Just make up a fake U.S. address. I'm in the process of trying it right now. I'll let you know if it works. Update: It does. Just make sure you use an actual area/zip that exists. Use Google.

Yeah, I got his back over in the "The Wilco Sell Out" (picture JT, all in a tub of Heinz beans 'n' shit) thread, but In the Aeroplane is actually my number one most overrated album of all time. It's screechy, simplistic, and the imagistic lyrics don't do a thing for me.

Also, Tweedy has always been a strong proponent of his audience playing an active role in the creation of his art. "Really, 50 percent of music is the listener's reaction to it," he once said in an interview, and he's certainly espoused the sentiment elsewhere. If you really want to stick on Tweedy "selling out," maybe we should examine this philosophy. When Jeff wrote "The Thanks I Get," I wonder if he ever thought his audience's reaction to the piece would be to buy a Volkswagon or turn the channel. I wonder if he's pleased that thousands of people will be doing those things. That's food for

Fair enough. Would that I'd ever accused Tweedy of "selling out," eh? It's not a very incisive term, and it doesn't quite fit what I'm "accusing" him of doing. Which is helping to sell cars by leasing his music. Which... is what he's doing.

Ouch! Sort of fun in a reckless way, but goddamn, talk about tuneless. You'd never know one of the more literate and accomplished tunesmiths in modern pop was responsible for this thing.

How many times do I have reword it, Ninjas? Holy fuck. So, what, you're saying I should be okay with it because Tweedy is? Yeah, because it's that simple and that easy, right? Is Tweedy's approval going to make hearing snippets of "The Thanks I Get" in a 30-second car commercial any more enjoyable for the people who hate sitting through that sort of thing? Will it stop me from imagining a giant Wilco-shaped bag of money every time I listen to the song? No, of course it won't.

I'm okay, you're okay! With due respect, I can't meet you in such a liberal arts college Happy Place. It'd sure be nice if I could, but this particular principle of mine is one of the few I consider inviolable. Are you asking me to change my way of thinking with this paragraph, even after I've amply demonstrated that this leopard's spots ain't about to change, or are you simply stating that others are entitled to their take on this scenario? Because if it's the former, you haven't been paying attention to what I've been saying. And if it's the latter, you still haven't been paying attention.

Oh, shit, is that cover legit? That's laugh-out-loud awful! (Of course, once I've become inured to the joke, I'll probably make this face every time I have to look at it: )

Jesus, I'm glad I didn't. "I don't appreciate your totalitarian tone (?), so I'm going to fire back by effectively treating your opinion as if it were completely invalid." Gee, thanks a bunch, teach. Seriously, though, I'm pretty snarky. Okay, I get it. I also think it's something that's been well established over the course of the last four or five years and is unlikely to change in the near future. Hey, Beltmann, you've got your opinion, and I've got mine. Jeff Tweedy is clearly all right with "The Thanks I Get" being eternally associated with Volkswagon products, and you don't care one wa

No contest for me. "Sometimes I think I'm gonna loooooose my mind..."

Well, look, my point is that everybody who's been engaging in this debate over multiple pages has been reduced to trotting out some really ridiculous statements at this point. Seriously, in the context of this conversation, who gives an honest shit about whose mom paid for his Bonnaroo vacation, or whose farmer family needs to consume X thousand litres of gas a year in order to get by? When a dude tells me that the very principle to which we're objecting doesn't exist, you know the debate is over and it's time to move the fuck on. I won't be checking back in on this thread, at any rate.

Well, then you're just flat-out fucking wrong, my man. Because thanks to this idiotic thread alone, every time I listen to "The Thanks I Get" I'm going to start thinking about shitty German cars. Sorry?

Cheers to this. Stick around, man. If there's one thing I've noticed over the years, it's that this place is an absolute fucking neo-yuppie haven, but there are some good folks and good conversations to be found hereabouts. You're nothing remotely close to an internet troll in my book. That said, holy crap, you know the internet discussion is past over when people are asking other people to empirically prove that all Humvee drivers are assholes. Let's we all take a step back, examine that request and laugh, okay?

Aw, come on! "Conquest" rules. It sounds like some fucked-up crazy Asian mariachi song, straight outta Kill Bill. If you can listen to the very beginning or very end of the track without thinking of a ninja wearing a sombrero, you're a far better man than I. Awesome lyrics, too, perfectly attuned to Jack's kooky neo-feminist vibe. This and "You Don't Know What Love Is" both kick untold amounts of booty.

I've never even heard of the Enwave Theatre. Any Toronto folks able to confirm that it, uh, even exists?

No, but it's definitely dad-rock. Oooooh no he di'int! As for my whole "album track" comment above, I guess I just assumed that this was the single, but now it occurs to me that maybe it isn't. All I meant was that it'd probably sound better amongst a bunch of other songs. I've listened to it three or four times now, though, and it's a real grower. Very nicely put together!

Again, you seem to be looking at this strictly in terms of dollars and cents, whereas I can't get past the principle of the thing. To quote Tom Waits yet again (or at least paraphrase him), commercials are an unnatural use of a songwriter's work. It's like sewing a cow's udder to the side of their face - painful and humiliating. Yeah, "The Thanks I Get" is Tweedy's to do with as he pleases, and I'm cool with that. I'm just baffled and upset by his decision to farm it out the way he's done. He's obviously a guy who cares a lot about his music, otherwise I wouldn't even bother taking exception

I think it's a tremendous shame that certain parties have dragged questions of mainstream success into an argument that's only ever been about artistic integrity. To reiterate my stand, which seems to be in line with that of several other posters, I find it crass when an artist leases his or her work to a corporation to aid in the selling of a product. Period. I really don't have an opinion on whether it grows or diminishes their fan base, and I'm certainly not resentful of how new fans become clued into my favourite artists. The more the merrier, right? Personally, I couldn't give less of a

It's okay, but it should have been an album track. The harmonies are really nice, but it lacks the exuberance of the best NPs songs. I think I like every song on Twin Cinema better than this one.

I'm with Jnickerson on this one, too. I don't watch television (aside from three or four shows, all of which I grab as torrents online), or even own one, for that matter, so I haven't seen the ad in question. And although I haven't been exposed to it, it nevertheless galls me to some degree that Wilco has leased one of their best songs for use in a VW commercial. This sort of activity often creates an indelible association in the mind of listeners between the product being sold and the tune being used to hawk that product. To this day, I can't listen to Sgt. Pepper's without skipping "Gett