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From:
James Mason
To:
IDM List
Date:
Mon, 22 Apr 2002 21:56:53 -0400
Subject:
Re: [idm] This month in Wired
Msg-Id:
<B8EA37A5.9E06%jmason146963@comcast.net>
In-Reply-To:
<001d01c1ea63$fdf2e360$68f60d44@tu.ok.cox.net>
Mbox:
idm.0204.gz
You're just jealous...
quoted 123 lines From: Teknoguy <teknoguy@teknospace.com>> From: Teknoguy <teknoguy@teknospace.com> > Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 18:12:47 -0700 > To: IDM List <idm@hyperreal.org> > Subject: Re: [idm] This month in Wired > > Interestingly enough, he says the same thing in this article. The article > contradicts him on many points though, when talking to his sales and > marketing people. Here's a couple key passages on this point- > > ============================================================ > It's no accident. Moby is a brand with two carefully crafted elements: > The business ventures and the everyman musician who drives them. > Like any proper hitmaker, Moby has incorporated commerce into his > creative method. He sells his music to commercials and soundtracks;he sells > his likeness - such as it is - to advertisers. Moby's successes on this > score have been, in many ways, unprecedented. The dozen and a half songs on > Play, for instance, have been sold hundreds of times for commercials, movies > and TV shows - a licensing venture so staggeringly lucrative that the album > was a financial success months before it reached its multi-platinum sales > total. > > .......Moby offers a soft-focus view of how this all happened. "That was > just, like, taking advantage of an opportunity," he says. > "There was not strategy involved. They called us up and said, 'Can we use > your song in this commercial?'" > Moby's managers, Marci Weber and Barry Taylor, offer a decidedly > different account. Even before the release of Play, with its record-setting > run of commercially licensed songs, Weber says the strategy was core to the > Organization. > ..........Hundreds of phone calls and faxes later, all but one of the songs > on Play had been "exploited," as music-publishing vernacular puts it. > "Porcelain tinkled away for Bailey's Irish Cream and Nordstrom;"Find My > Baby" was hooking hipster consumers for American Express. > > Wired Magazine 10.05 p90-94 (sorry for any typos) > ================================================================ > > So, in an effort for this magazine to show all the yuppies the incredible > business man that Moby is, they laid down specifically what everyone knew > for a long time- Moby is a no good sellout. Just looking at his musical > history can show this. If you look at all of his music up until Play, its > completely different (also very very bad). Play is an obvious attempt to do > some sort of watered-down FatBoy Slim remake and sell records. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Greg Clow" <greg@stainedproductions.com> > To: "IDM List" <idm@hyperreal.org> > Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 10:04 AM > Subject: Re: [idm] This month in Wired > > >> At 12:08 PM 22/04/02, Teknoguy wrote: >>> The Moby article was educational in that they explained exactly how > Moby >>> sold out. It turns out that every single song on that cd was licensed to >>> some sort of advertisement or movie etc. It seems that the album was >>> designed entirely to sell to the masses >> >> I don't think Moby specifically *intended* "Play" to be a crossover > success >> and a licensing bonanza. The album actually had a very long shelf life, > and >> took quite some time to build in sales and recognition. >> >> I saw an interview with him last year where he said that when he was first >> approached for licensing tracks from the album to commercials and movies, >> he was quite reluctant. But then one of the offers he rejected ended up >> getting some studio musician to record a track that was >> almost-but-not-quite the same as one of his tracks, so he figured "what > the >> hell" and signed some deals, partly to avoid such rip-offs to continue, > and >> partly because the album was getting little to no support from radio or > MTV >> (remember, he's on a major label in North America, so sales *matter* >> whether anyone likes it or not). >> >> And most of the money that he's been making from those deals has been >> donated to some extremely worthy causes, like environmental & animal > rights >> groups, so I think that the ends somewhat justify the means. >> >> I know that Moby has a pretty bad rep in the "underground" for being some >> sort of sell out or phony. To me, "selling out" means changing your style >> and recording music that you don't personally enjoy in order to sell lots >> of records, and perhaps I'm naive, and I really don't think that Moby did >> this. He's always jumped from style to style, and seems to dig a lot of >> different types of music - he just happened to get lucky with "Play". >> >> Personally, I don't care for a lot of his music, and I thought he was a > bit >> of a joke when I saw him on the See The Light tour with Orbital and Aphex >> back in the early 90s. But I still think that "Play" is an enjoyable >> downtempo album even despite it's popularity, and I find his new single >> pretty groovy in a electro-glam sorta way. >> >> >> Greg >> >> >> >> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Greg Clow ::: greg@stainedproductions.com >> ::::::::: concert & event promotions ::: http://www.stainedproductions.com >> :::::: electronic music radio & reviews ::: http://www.feedbackmonitor.com >> ::: electronic/experimental record label ::: http://www.pieheadrecords.com >> ::::::::: 158 Close Ave. 2nd Floor ::: Toronto, Ontario M6K 2V5 ::: Canada >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org >> >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org > For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org >
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