Dorks And Losers

Oddly enough, I didn’t hear much of a fuss when Feist became the lat­est artist fea­tured on an Apple iPod com­mer­cial. I had some reser­va­tions about her music being so bla­tantly pro­moted along­side the ubiq­ui­tous portable music player, but since I didn’t read much resent­ment on any indie music blogs, I guess no one minded either.

That’s all changed with MadTV’s recent spoof of Feist’s “1234” video (found here). I per­son­ally don’t think it’s funny or clever. But some peo­ple do, while oth­ers don’t.

There are two things that should be noted other than the spoof being unfunny. One, the song is a pretty good one (real video here). Two, the song is the most com­mer­cial song that Feist has ever made. So it’s a ter­ri­ble song to judge the rest of music on because most of her music is noth­ing like it.

The for­mer is a con­tin­ued procla­ma­tion of me think­ing Feist as a great artist who makes great music. The lat­ter is more of a gripe because I never would’ve thought that I would hear a Feist song on the radio, and now I hear it every­where because it was fea­tured on a freak­ing iPod com­mer­cial. It’s a lot like how I felt when Regina Spektor’s “Fidelity” was con­stantly played on the radio this past sum­mer. It was also Regina’s most com­mer­cial song, and any­one who’s ever lis­tened to her ear­lier music can attest that fans of “Fidelity” prob­a­bly wouldn’t be as open to (i.e. like) her more exper­i­men­tal stuff.

I guess it all comes down to what came first, the chicken or the egg. And if you want to be even more cyn­i­cal, does the ques­tion even mat­ter if you like chick­ens and eggs?

Feist made great music long before her asso­ci­a­tion with Apple (both when she was with Bro­ken Social Scene, and with her solo works Monarch and Let It Die), She will con­tinue to make great music long after Apple finds another artist for its ads, and long after “1234” stops get­ting reg­u­lar airplay.

So it comes down to whether you think Feist deserves the pop­u­lar­ity and the sales bump she gets because of the expo­sure. Am I glad that Feist is get­ting the recog­ni­tion she deserves? Absolutely. I am going to be dis­ap­pointed try­ing to find tick­ets to her con­cert, though, since I’ll be fight­ing more teenage girls for them.

But do I think Feist should have tried another pro­mo­tion avenue for her music? Yes and no. The iPod has a funny his­tory. It’s an amaz­ing device. Some will argue it has lost its appeal because mil­lions own one and mil­lions more con­tinue to buy it. But the main demo­graphic of iPod users tend to match those same demo­graph­ics of pro­fessed indie fans. So log­i­cally, shouldn’t indie music and iPods go hand-in-hand? Tough one.

Indie artists strug­gle most in the music indus­try because they always have to walk that fine line between indie cred­i­bil­ity and com­mer­cial suc­cess, and I think it’ll be best to leave it at that.
____

You know half of the world is com­ing to an end when Ams­ter­dam is crack­ing down on sex clubs. The other half will come to an end when… God for­bid… drugs become ille­gal.
____

Sur­prise. Deser­tions in the U.S. Army is up. I don’t get it. They knew what they were get­ting into when they enlisted, right?
____

Cof­fee shops dis­crim­i­nate against women? Doesn’t make any sense. Oh wait, yes it does when the woman needs three min­utes to describe the kind of drink she wants…
____

Quote from Dex­ter:

Debra: “Dex­ter, just a head’s up. It’s bad in there.“
Dex­ter: “Okay.“
Debra: “I’m seri­ous.“
Dex­ter: “Okay.“
Sgt. Doakes: “She’s not kid­ding. It’s your wet dream in there.”

Pop­u­lar­ity: 9% [?]