Modest Mouse on American Idol - Rocksploitation Case Study − 14 March, 2007
Good News for People Who Love Bad News" - Modest Mouse
I remember a few years ago washing the dishes over at a our place on Riley street. The TV was on in the big room and I wasn't really paying attention. But all of the sudden I heard a strange noise coming from the TV. I looked up to see a soccer mom loading some groceries into a white minivan. The song was "Gravity Rides Everything" from Modest Mouse's "The Moon and Antarctica" ( a desert island album for me).
Flash forward to tonight's American Idol and I'm watching the contestants doing their own music video for "Float On." I am the least likely person to lament the selling out of a personal idol. I have no problem with artists who find success. But there seems to be something patently false with Ford co-oping "Float On" in this context. First, the contestants just don't possess the same grit in their voices for the task. It's a punk ballad at heart. Though the melody is runs deeper than punk currents will allow it, the idol vocal palette just doesn't have enough wisdom to pull it off. I could say the same about their attempts to cover Diana Ross songs as well (which is the theme for this week's songs). And I will. We cannot expect the Idols to possess the 'it' factor each and every one of them for any given tune. And yet, that's not what's bothering me either.
What's bothering me is that I feel like the label system is allowing these incongruousness happen. Modest Mouse needs to eat, as it were, and the best way for them to ensure that is to be with a major label. And more so, as someone who respects Cadillac co-oping Jimmy LaValle's songs for Tiki Barber's Cadillac story, I understand how artists will eagerly lend their musical textures to a corporate beat. I happen to know Jimmy's manager and can attest that the living Jimmy makes comes from having an open mind about these kinds of things. His music has remained pure in spite of its commercial appeal. U2 wouldn't be U2 without the bombast they've been able to cultivate for themselves. And Jay-Z would be just another thug in the spotlight were it not for the Budweiser ads and the limited edition of the Yukon Denali (which is another brilliant move, in my mind, in the history of rock-and-roll 'sploitation).
You see, whereas the first time I heard Modest Mouse on a TV ad, I thought it was strange, but it only bothered me for a minute. I got a slight emotional twinge as I realized that my college band - the one Aaron and I would listen to high in his grandpa's Cadillac El Dorado - was now commercially viable. Then I realized that their sound was enough to bend popular taste into their atmosphere by creating a kind of punk gravity as only they could. So be it. It was never about being anti-establishment, my love for good music. It was always about emotion. So when Cadillac buys the mood The Album Leaf generates, it's for the same reason directors use Newman kids movie and Williams for high dramas. You can't feel life through the eyes alone.
But Ford has crossed the line with their latest. Getting 12 idols to do a rock video for "Float On" is just silly. It looks silly. It sounds silly. And frankly, I don't feel it. Anyone of any age could have prevented that from happening. While Modest Mouse surely has profited from it, I'm sure they were given the chance to opt out, but why? They should live in a world where ripping, mixing and burning is something fans should be free to do. They should also live in a world where corporations and their partners in marketing know the difference between fan-driven homage and dollar-lusting kitsch. Nobody was fooled and we're all just Sad Sappy Suckers.
I remember a few years ago washing the dishes over at a our place on Riley street. The TV was on in the big room and I wasn't really paying attention. But all of the sudden I heard a strange noise coming from the TV. I looked up to see a soccer mom loading some groceries into a white minivan. The song was "Gravity Rides Everything" from Modest Mouse's "The Moon and Antarctica" ( a desert island album for me).
Flash forward to tonight's American Idol and I'm watching the contestants doing their own music video for "Float On." I am the least likely person to lament the selling out of a personal idol. I have no problem with artists who find success. But there seems to be something patently false with Ford co-oping "Float On" in this context. First, the contestants just don't possess the same grit in their voices for the task. It's a punk ballad at heart. Though the melody is runs deeper than punk currents will allow it, the idol vocal palette just doesn't have enough wisdom to pull it off. I could say the same about their attempts to cover Diana Ross songs as well (which is the theme for this week's songs). And I will. We cannot expect the Idols to possess the 'it' factor each and every one of them for any given tune. And yet, that's not what's bothering me either.
What's bothering me is that I feel like the label system is allowing these incongruousness happen. Modest Mouse needs to eat, as it were, and the best way for them to ensure that is to be with a major label. And more so, as someone who respects Cadillac co-oping Jimmy LaValle's songs for Tiki Barber's Cadillac story, I understand how artists will eagerly lend their musical textures to a corporate beat. I happen to know Jimmy's manager and can attest that the living Jimmy makes comes from having an open mind about these kinds of things. His music has remained pure in spite of its commercial appeal. U2 wouldn't be U2 without the bombast they've been able to cultivate for themselves. And Jay-Z would be just another thug in the spotlight were it not for the Budweiser ads and the limited edition of the Yukon Denali (which is another brilliant move, in my mind, in the history of rock-and-roll 'sploitation).
You see, whereas the first time I heard Modest Mouse on a TV ad, I thought it was strange, but it only bothered me for a minute. I got a slight emotional twinge as I realized that my college band - the one Aaron and I would listen to high in his grandpa's Cadillac El Dorado - was now commercially viable. Then I realized that their sound was enough to bend popular taste into their atmosphere by creating a kind of punk gravity as only they could. So be it. It was never about being anti-establishment, my love for good music. It was always about emotion. So when Cadillac buys the mood The Album Leaf generates, it's for the same reason directors use Newman kids movie and Williams for high dramas. You can't feel life through the eyes alone.
But Ford has crossed the line with their latest. Getting 12 idols to do a rock video for "Float On" is just silly. It looks silly. It sounds silly. And frankly, I don't feel it. Anyone of any age could have prevented that from happening. While Modest Mouse surely has profited from it, I'm sure they were given the chance to opt out, but why? They should live in a world where ripping, mixing and burning is something fans should be free to do. They should also live in a world where corporations and their partners in marketing know the difference between fan-driven homage and dollar-lusting kitsch. Nobody was fooled and we're all just Sad Sappy Suckers.
Comments:
kga245 (March 15, 2007. 06:35pm)
The two videos are from the two songs mentioned. I don't think Gravity Rides Everything has an official video, so I just pulled the one I could find. Float on is 'official' as it were. Just couldn't find the lame American Idol version of it by today though. <a href="http://www.avclub.com/content/node/23015">Here's a link to an interview with MM where they talk about the Nissan commercial.</a>. Like I said, I have no problem with the use of a song in a commercial. I just have a problem with that commercial being so lame :-)
6079 (July 6, 2007. 02:53am)
Well said. My opinions have jumped back and forth on artists lending music to commercials, but I think I say why not take the money? Gene Simmons says if you're selling t-shirts, then you're in the music business, why not go a little further.
MTV can use songs for their own shows if the artist made a video for them. Hearing "Aenima" play in the background during a bitchy spat on The Real World seemed like a scene straight from Hell.
On March 14th or 15th, Isaac actually spoke about this. His manager said they shouldn't, but Isaac just thought it would be funny to hear someone try to sing his "souldeling" - soul yodeling, as he calls what he does.