In Praise of Selling out...in the Chicago Reader

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

BREAKING THE MOLD

 

POP MUSIC: 'Fragile Army' finds Polyphonic Spree rocking and more than a little peeved

 

 

12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, June 23, 2007

 

By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News

tchristensen@dallasnews.com Thor Christensen

 

When most bands make an album, the title is the last piece of the puzzle. But for the Polyphonic Spree, the title got the whole album rolling.

 

"When I heard it, it hit me like a ton of bricks," Spree frontman Tim DeLaughter says by phone of The Fragile Army, the title of the band's third disc, which came out Tuesday. "I thought: 'Wow! What a broad, wonderful statement. That's our next record!' "

 

The phrase came from the lips of director Mike Mills, who had hired the Spree in 2005 to compose music for his film Thumbsucker. The words came to him as he tried to describe the sprawling Dallas rock orchestra.

 

"As big and happy as they can sound, they are sort of The Fragile Army to me," he wrote in the Thumbsucker CD booklet. "The Spree is all about fragility."

 

Nobody knows that better than Mr. DeLaughter. As the band's leader, he has the delicate task of trying to run a 24-member avant-pop group without going broke or crazy.

 

But he wasn't just thinking of the Spree as The Fragile Army. To him, it described the entire human race

[Good Old Neon]

first, I bet it is actually Fergie...not Feist. I've seen Kohl's and Candie's ads on TV w/ Fergie in them.

 

to ... : yes, your fear makes sense, but I think it's irrational. why? due to the very vehicle we are using to communicate right now. the corporate paradigm of music distribution is too easy to get around due to the web...indie labels have flourished by the ease of it's use to market artists and, in growing numbers, allow artists to market themselves. what i'm saying is, is that as the major labels and corporations merge and (sort of) shrink in #...the amount of independent labels and artists utilizing other means to release music grows.

 

personally, I think it isn't the advertisers that are telling us what we need to hear...but, due to the recent slew of indie non-big ticket pop artists being used in their ads, they are adjust their advertising to what we want to hear.

 

plus, i still think ad fatigue is a cop-out and is a viewpoint mired in a victim mentality. avoiding it isn't impossible and even if it is in front of you, you can choose see it and discount it's presence. again, until someone has clockwork oranged your eyelids open and strapped you down in front of a continous loop of VW ads, it's not truly unavoidable. take some accountability in the transaction and choose to deflect it rather than let it affect you.

 

I don

[EL the Famous]

I don

[Edie]

I don

[mpolak21]

since when is there a piano in "we've been had"?

 

In 2002-2003 when Wilco would play it Mike or Leroy would add keyboards to the song, but anyway the article is referring to Walkmen's song of the same name.

 

--Mike

[mfwahl]

I'm not complaining, but it is amazing that this debate keeps going on. It's mad trippy

[bjorn_skurj]

I could be wrong, but I think the .... guy's central problem is with capitalism itself and he resents anything that he likes being tainted with it in any way. I respect that, but that's gotta be an awfully hard way to live your life. There a great many things that I do not like about capitalism, but I look at it like Churchill looked at democracy:

 

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

[bjorn_skurj]

I'm not complaining, but it is amazing that this debate keeps going on. It's mad trippy

Heh. I'm not lobbying to be an admin, but if I were an admin, I would call some sort of halt to it. I don't foresee either side converting its opponent.

[Beltmann]

Heh. I'm not lobbying to be an admin, but if I were an admin, I would call some sort of halt to it. I don't foresee either side converting its opponent.

Thing is, it's not about "converting" anyone. It's about having an interest in a topic and enjoying the discussion about that topic. If people are still posting about it, then clearly there is still interest in the subject, which makes it fair game for continued debate, in my opinion. As long as things stay (relatively) on topic, let the topic run its natural course... like all threads, it will die a natural death when its time comes. It will eventually fade all on its own.

[mfwahl]

that's deep

[EL the Famous]

Thing is, it's not about "converting" anyone. It's about having an interest in a topic and enjoying the discussion about that topic. If people are still posting about it, then clearly there is still interest in the subject, which makes it fair game for continued debate, in my opinion. As long as things stay (relatively) on topic, let the topic run its natural course... like all threads, it will die a natural death when its time comes. It will eventually fade all on its own.

 

Bingo...or we could just talk about our favorite Wilco track on summerteeth. again. and again. and again.

[bjorn_skurj]

Thing is, it's not about "converting" anyone. It's about having an interest in a topic and enjoying the discussion about that topic. If people are still posting about it, then clearly there is still interest in the subject, which makes it fair game for continued debate, in my opinion. As long as things stay (relatively) on topic, let the topic run its natural course... like all threads, it will die a natural death when its time comes. It will eventually fade all on its own.

I'm sorry. All the talk about surpressing rebellion in the Civil War thread has brought out my inner dictator. This is why I cannot be trusted with power.

[caliber66]

I have never known an artist of any sort that didn't want their work consumed by others.

Yep.

 

Or you could look at it another way; the record industry (A&R men) went nuts with greed in the 50's and 60's, producing untold billions of crappy LP's (yes it WAS the "Golden Age", but any vinyl nut knows it was also the worst period of commercialization - I typically have to whip through 100 LP's at a yard sale to find one of interest)

Do you think that yard sales in fifty years are going to be overflowing with CDs you actually want to buy? More likely, the people giving the yard sale are clearing out the crap, and keeping their Beatles, Elvis and Smokey Robinson records. There's LOTS of shit out there today that's not going to be worth anything in ten years, let alone fifty. God knows, I've sold (or tossed) a bunch of CDs where I asked myself, "What the hell were you thinking?"

[hondo0524]

I can only hope that the thread about the thread about selling out ends up having more pages that the thread about selling out.

 

Also I hold out great hope for the thread about the thread about the thread.........

[LouieB]

Hey, she's probably just trying to make some easy $. I doubt they're worried about exposure or anything.

LouieB--I think you're probably right about it being Feist rather than Fergie, though it wouldn't be ridiculous to think otherwise.

I only have a passing notion of who either of them are.

Thing is, it's not about "converting" anyone. It's about having an interest in a topic and enjoying the discussion about that topic. If people are still posting about it, then clearly there is still interest in the subject, which makes it fair game for continued debate, in my opinion. As long as things stay (relatively) on topic, let the topic run its natural course... like all threads, it will die a natural death when its time comes. It will eventually fade all on its own.

I think this topic will continue to be interesting for some time to come. We watch a bit too much TV at our house and frankly it is funnier than hell to indentify the artists flogging some product or other these days. I know the classic rockers so that is fun, but sometimes I just know that the indie rockers are also people we know, but can't always identify them. In fact this topic hasn't even been close to exhausted.

Do you think that yard sales in fifty years are going to be overflowing with CDs you actually want to buy? More likely, the people giving the yard sale are clearing out the crap, and keeping their Beatles, Elvis and Smokey Robinson records. There's LOTS of shit out there today that's not going to be worth anything in ten years, let alone fifty. God knows, I've sold (or tossed) a bunch of CDs where I asked myself, "What the hell were you thinking?"

Abso-freaking -lutely.

Does anyone think that the "records" being produced now are of higher quality than those of the 50s and 60s or even the 20s and 30s or the 1890s? Look through the cheapo bins for used CDs at any record store and there will be tons of artists that are unidentifiable. I have been reading alot lately (well over the last decade) and really in many ways the music business is not that different now than it ever was. It is not even about recordings, since sheet music was the main way people made money from music in the past and stores hired "song pluggers" to push certain titles to customers (George Gershwin had such a job as a young man). Payola was not something that only occured during the 1950s; can there be any doubt that promotional activities on behalf of certain artists or labels continues to this very day.

 

Wilco, just like every other band or musician needs to find active markets for its music. They are doing what every other artist is doing in this day and age. While it is good that Wilco gives away its music, there can be no doubt (I have no dobut about this) that in the long run that doesn't always help with actual sales. It continues to please those of us here who like hearing their music in advance of offical releases, but giving something away ultimately does cut into actual sales, it has to. I certainly don't deny Wilco's need to continue to sell their product to new fans through whatever system they deem necessary. Fans come and go; those who were around in the AM era aren't necessarily still here buying Sky Blue Sky. By exposing new fans through these ads, some new fans will go buy SBS and then the back catalogue, while others are no longer interested in Wilco, even though they got on board during YHF. (That 15 year old kid I talked to at North Hampton was a toddler when AM came out. I have several friends who own AM or Being There and very little else of Wilco's calalogue - actually I am going to guess that most "older" Wilco fans own Mermaid Avenue and not AGIB.)

 

Clearly Sonic Youth knows that the "youth" who bought their albums way back when (which is getting to be a long time ago now isn't it??) aren't necessarily buying Rather Ripped now, so dropping a best of at Starbucks can only help them survive as a viable band for a few more years. Music is a business like any other and without savvy and sometimes not so savory marketing, most bands fade away and end up the crap you don't buy at your local yard sale.

 

LouieB

[Dr. Steve Brule]

And the corporations -- what do they get out of the deal? Well, less than a week after Fergie, I saw the Walkmen play Taste of Randolph Street. They're one of my favorite bands going, and almost every one of their songs is tied in my mind to a certain time and place, the way all my favorite songs are. But when the piano riff that opens "We've Been Had" started up, all I could think of was the Saturn commercial I heard it in back in 2003.

 

 

This is the only problem I have, and it is strictly personal. I do not begrudge Wilco the extra VW money to feed their children and get them a good edumacation, however, my first night in New York Sunday I was watching "Frasier" and saw the commercial featuring "Sky Blue Sky". When they played that song live all I could thing about was the episode of "Frasier", and it wasn't a very good one.

[LouieB]

This is the only problem I have, and it is strictly personal. I do not begrudge Wilco the extra VW money to feed their children and get them a good edumacation, however, my first night in New York Sunday I was watching "Frasier" and saw the commercial featuring "Sky Blue Sky". When they played that song live all I could thing about was the episode of "Frasier", and it wasn't a very good one.

 

LouieB

[owl]

There'll be two kinds of artists: corporate whores and those who do it for the love of music

 

Just keep in mind that the non-"corporate whores" are also people who then must have day jobs if they want to tour.

[LouieB]

Just keep in mind that the non-"corporate whores" are also people who then must have day jobs if they want to tour.

Actually alot of those folks can't tour because of day jobs.

 

LouieB

[Edie]

This is the only problem I have, and it is strictly personal. I do not begrudge Wilco the extra VW money to feed their children and get them a good edumacation, however, my first night in New York Sunday I was watching "Frasier" and saw the commercial featuring "Sky Blue Sky". When they played that song live all I could thing about was the episode of "Frasier", and it wasn't a very good one.

 

haha

 

Interesting, though I would probably not do that association during a live show. There is too much going on. I can definitely see associating while listening to the record.

[Dude]

I was a lot more put out by Dylan's Bank Of Montreal ad campaign. But, I was so much older then....

 

I was more put out by Bob's Victoria's Secret ad - mostly because it was creepy in a 65-year-old lusting after a 19-year-old in underwear and wings kind of way.

[Sir Stewart]

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[Dude]

I liked to think of Dylan as the bra designer in that ad.

A bra designer with a penchant for cowboy hats and weekends in Venice. Yeah, I could see that.

[LouieB]

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[Atticus]

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