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If your girl likes Cristal
StoreTags: jay-z, cristal, bling
Author: skab on July 18 2006 Viewed 4475 times. 10 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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slightly old news, but since the hilarious "spat" between jay-z and frederic rouzaud i've been thinking a lot about brands and music. the good old days of celebrity endorsements seems to have been surpassed by the current batch of rappers name-checking brands without getting paid.
leornard pitts in the chicago tribune said: " Rap could have been, should have been, a truth-teller and world-shaker. Instead, it has largely contented itself with being free advertising for corporate titans, selling fake cool.
It is painful to know that Jay-Z has sold that lie to young people by the millions. What's more painful is that apparently, he also bought it himself."
gideon rachman in the economist said: "n his number one hit “Hard Knock Life”, Jay-Z raps, “Let’s sip the Cris and get pissy-pissy”. Cristal has been so visible at Mr Combs’s concerts that onlookers have wondered whether the venerable champagne house was sponsoring the event."
what bugs me the most about all of this is that big corporations (not cristal, tho) are spending millions of dollars employing marketing firms not just to advertise their products, but also to train the next generation to be better consumers and more responsive to advertising.
anyone up for making a compilation dedicated to dissing brand names?
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07/19/06
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mlbot
MegaZeus is more subtler.
edited: Jul 19 2006
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skab
this megazeus?
link
what do i get for tattooing "ml life" on my chest in gothic letters?
which brand would you diss on?
this one?
link
07/19/06
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p
the main problem with hip-hop is that the majority of its listeners are too young to remember what it was like when it was interesting...when you'd put on a record that made you feel as if some swat team would bust down your door for even having it playing. It's been made safe by marketing people down to choosing artist that are relatively safe in their views (massoginistic and violent messages are in line with conservative values.. I mean look at the Nascar/NRA crowd).
Hip-hop is the cartoon version of the movie you liked growing up that still contains most of the characters from the original but has become even more watered down for saturday morning viewing. What else is the cartoon other than the vehicle to sell the new toys and hip-hop cereal. I don't blame the corporations...they aren't paying for the ad-space.
07/19/06
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mlbot
skab said: "this megazeus?
link
what do i get for tattooing "ml life" on my chest in gothic letters?
"
throw in a coffin lunchbox, a corset and some longh black gloves, and you'll get drool from Lowlifi.
skab said: "
which brand would you diss on?
this one?
link"
lollapalooza!
07/19/06
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implexgrace
brand names are for whores. DIY if at all possbile.
i make my own T-shirts from generics. i buy clothes from friends who are fashion designers.
this type of gross advertising makes me want to make myself throw up and sell it.
07/19/06
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mookid
I do love the way that UK rap has taken its own path now. The UK music industry has always made habit of being the inventor not the immitator.
I think stuff like Jamie-T, The Audiobullys', and of cource The Streets, have all proved that there is still a place for songs from 'da street'.
On the other hand, american hip-hop is going though its Elvis at Las-Vegas years. It's all too pimped up, too far, and as someone previously mentioned, it has in fact become a sad piss-take of itself.
I think the whole 'bling-bling, gold-plated semi-auto, 'pop a cap in yo' ass' thing 'jumped the shark' about ten years ago. Nothing more than a theme for agro, or the prelude to a shooting. It gloats at the malnurished, and scared sheep with its 'Hey, I was the shit from your block too. Now look at me, I wipe my ass on dollar bills, and own a solid-gold mobile.'
Sacha Baron Cohen mocked it with his Ali-G character. But dat only made it worst dan before, innit! The sheep relished in it, soon every kid under 20 started talking in thiis self-developed accent, that sounds like a cross between Estuarian and West Indian.
Anyhow, I will soon be promoting OXO in my music.
'lemme hear you crumble those cubes!'
07/20/06
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bbwax
p said: "I don't blame the corporations...they aren't paying for the ad-space."
are you sure about that? if corporations will pay guerilla marketers to pay good looking people to sit at a bar and loudly order their brand of liquor, or smoke their brand of cigarette and walk around asking people for a light, they'll certainly pass some money to rappers to namedrop in lyrics and highlight products in music videos. hollywood films do it all the time. doritos and pepsi's on the main characters table, the cool people all drinking heiniken, etc.
i love what they did in repo man, with all the black and white generic label items. really stands out and makes you think. and that was made like, 20 years ago or more.
07/20/06
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bbwax
christ, marketing and advertising classes should be required in school, not only for future marketing and advertising majors, but to alert the rest of the population to the inside secrets of their slimy industry tactics.
07/20/06
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Zanf
mookid said: "Sacha Baron Cohen mocked it with his Ali-G character. But dat only made it worst dan before, innit! The sheep relished in it, soon every kid under 20 started talking in thiis self-developed accent, that sounds like a cross between Estuarian and West Indian." Round these parts its known as talking in 'Jahfaken'
07/20/06
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tantan
I kill my own cows for leather so I can make my own shoes.
07/20/06
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p
bbwax said: " p said: "I don't blame the corporations...they aren't paying for the ad-space."
are you sure about that? if corporations will pay guerilla marketers to pay good looking people to sit at a bar and loudly order their brand of liquor, or smoke their brand of cigarette and walk around asking people for a light, they'll certainly pass some money to rappers to namedrop in lyrics and highlight products in music videos. hollywood films do it all the time. doritos and pepsi's on the main characters table, the cool people all drinking heiniken, etc.
i love what they did in repo man, with all the black and white generic label items. really stands out and makes you think. and that was made like, 20 years ago or more."
you know what? that last sentence didn't make any sense...I think I was trying to get my rant back on topic...it doesn't even go with (and largely contradicts) the sentence before it. Besides the fact that I work in advertising (where else can I get a few thousand bucks a year for drawing pictures?). You know the whole thing's getting out of hand when people in marketing are upset about the amount of product placements in television/movies (can't call it film anymore, film implies personal expression or art).
I was actually reading a book about guerilla marketing a couple of days ago. Hopefully, if it happens enough and people get accustom to it...it might lead to more people thinking for themselves (probably not but it's a nice thought) as they can't trust others' recomendations to be genuine.
also on the product placement front, hollywood is also a cartoon version of something once interesting . When you've got numbers guys and megaconglomerate corporations running studios instead of actual filmmakers can you really expect anything other than 2 hour $200 million dollar commercials for pepsi? They only make TV shows to sell products. Every media format is viewed by business people as a vehicle for ad revenue. It's crazy that entertainment rates second in the entertainment industry.
I guess what I'm saying is it's sinister but that's the only reason any of it exists. All social situations are a marketing venue...thus staying home and working on our own media (art, music, and videos) devoid of product placement and logos is the only way to be sure any entertainment exists outside of that sphere...
ps thanks for getting me ranting again
07/20/06
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soft
Zanf said: " mookid said: "Sacha Baron Cohen mocked it with his Ali-G character. But dat only made it worst dan before, innit! The sheep relished in it, soon every kid under 20 started talking in thiis self-developed accent, that sounds like a cross between Estuarian and West Indian." Round these parts its known as talking in 'Jahfaken'"
is that where teh jahfakake comes from?
back on topic - speaking of guerilla marketing.....
wasnt there a good thread on the old em411 about some ridiculous marketing scam going on over the net??
i think someone posted a link to a story about some stupid marketing thing, some company was paying loads of people to do.
my memory is sketchy tho.
edited: Jul 20 2006
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tantan
I guess what I'm saying is it's sinister but that's the only reason any of it exists. All social situations are a marketing venue...thus staying home and working on our own media (art, music, and videos) devoid of product placement and logos is the only way to be sure any entertainment exists outside of that sphere...
I agree to an extent but also think that this is overly cynical. You're totally right that mainstream entertainment industry artists have to cow-tow to marketing requirements, but I also think that it's easy to overstate this. Entertainment is not entirely in service to the numbers guys. There are plenty of directors, musicians, writers, editors, visual artists working today in mainstream entertainment who are able to convey their own vision while balancing the requirement to place product--and in fact, sometimes doing a rather clever and creative job of placing product (2046 and Minority Report both come to mind as fine examples of making the best of this requirement).
From a purely financial perspective, television does indeed exist as a way to put money in the pockets of people who sell advertising time. However, that doesn't mean that television doesn't host some of the greatest creative talent we have.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I think it's a bit of a disservice to mainstream artists to assert that artists have no voice of their own. Does that make sense? I think that they find ways to communicate, in spite of what the money guys make them do.
edited: Jul 20 2006
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p
you're right, tantan, that does make sense. I went a bit overboard. I still watch tv and have been to some movies lately (I still listen to some hip-hop). I wasn't trying to imply that those that work in the industry are devoid of talent or creativity or lack a voice (you should see my movie collection..I'm obsessed...though I'd say many of those at the top probably lack vision which leads to alot of bad movies)...hell that's what I wanted to do (though it's hard to direct when you aren't good at collaberation). I'm envious of those individuals who seem to be able to go mainstream or make a living despite making things that feel very personal (jones, linklater ,gondry, and lynch stuff comes to mind).
07/20/06
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bbwax
p said: "
ps thanks for getting me ranting again "
hehe. you're welcome. nothing like a good rant every now and then.
it's kind of amazing that those guys (jones, linklater, lynch, etc.) can exist inside the mainstream system and continue to put out quality works. they've found the sweet spot. i think it has to do with reaching a certain level of financial independence and then flying under the radar. or every now and then making a larger commercial work - to pay the bills. there's this weird zone an artist can get into where they work relatively cheaply, produce on time and under budget, make a decent profit for the studio/companies, and then they are pretty much left alone to do what they want, ie. creative control and final cut. a nice place to be. i would definitely like to be one of those smaller type artists like them rather than a shymalan or singer with the weight of huge blockbuster category movies on my shoulders.
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