artsex

artsex

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

Say It Isn’t So, Ben.

After posting yesterday on the Violent Femmes song “Blister In The Sun” being used to sell hamburgers, I saw another favorite artist’s work being used to shill for Hilton Hotels: Ben Folds’ song “Landed.”

It was only a snippet of the song and the commercial itself is an animation of line drawings, so I think my memories of the song will not be damaged as badly as, say Marvin Gaye’s “Heard It Through The Grapevine” and those goddamned California Raisins.

Still, this is a painful event. I like to think that I “discovered” Ben Folds. Ben Folds Five appeared on the second stage at the Lollapalooza show that played at the State Fairgrounds in 1996–with big names like the Ramones, Rancid, Soundgarden and Metallica. I went out and bought their first album and my friends and family haven’t stopped hearing about him since. I’ve seen him play twice since and bought nearly everything he has put out–EP’s, strange side project with William Shatner(!), soundtrack for animated movie “Over the Hedge”.

I’ve done my part, why does he need to sell out his artistry so some corporate twit can claim that the advertising campaign attempts to “reinforce the ability of travel to serve as a trigger to the special moments in one’s life.”

James Poniewozik, who writes a blog for Time on popular culture, was having a similar problem. He found a way to save his fond memories of Ben Folds and his music–the amateurs who post their renditions of his songs on YouTube.

When You Think Of Wendy’s Hamburgers. . .

the most common image you have is that of a blister in the sun!

Yep, I recently noticed that the Violent Femmes song has been stolen from fans and delivered to the capitalists, recruited to sell crappy fast food. At least this affront was opposed by some in the band. The bass player and co-founder of the band Brian Ritchie had this to say about the sale of the song:

“For the fans who rightfully are complaining about the Wendy’s burger advertisement featuring Blister in the Sun, Gordon Gano is the publisher of the song and Warners is the record company. When they agree to use it there’s nothing the rest of the band can do about it, because we don’t own the song or the recording. That’s showbiz. Therefore when you see dubious or in this case disgusting uses of our music you can thank the greed, insensitivity and poor taste of Gordon Gano, it is his karma that he lost his songwriting ability many years ago, probably due to his own lack of self-respect as his willingness to prostitute our songs demonstrates. Neither Gordon (vegetarian) nor me (gourmet) eat garbage like Wendy’s burgers. I can’t endorse them because I disagree with corporate food on culinary, political, health, economic and environmental grounds. However I see my life’s work trivialized at the hands of my business partner over and over again, although I have raised my objections numerous times. As disgusted as you are I am more so.”