Desi-related snippets in American TV ads:
Nice work Manish, nice. MIA I wanted to see. Anything with Gupta in I want to see (Catherine Zeta-Jones is a nice bonus). Aasif Mandvi is an amusing fellow.
But 'some random desi dude' in an ad...is this going a bit too far?!
Actually I'm serious. I DO remember the time when I felt like saying "whoa!" when a brown face was on TV here. But now there are loads, in fact sometimes I feel they're over-represented (not a bad thing!) Is there still a whoa-factor stateside?
As a reward for your hard work (I approve of everyone who wastes time on ads), take a look at what I just downloaded. It's related to all the ads I was posting up the other day.
Actually, why not take a look at this too?
Night night.
I recently saw an ad on CNBC on which an American Guy fakes a desi accent on phone ( among others... chinese, etc.). It was something abt housing discrimination. Forget what it was abt..
a small correksion - isn't that actually a T-mobile Ad?
Guys, you should consider storing the files on a different server, something like yousendit.com or others simply to save your bandwidth costs. Or do the bit-torrent thingy as you sometimes do.
On a different note, apparently the new film "Lord of War" uses the AR Rahman instrumental "Bombay" at some point (from the Tamil film -- subsequently dubbed in Hindi-- of the same name)
I recently saw an ad on CNBC on which an American Guy fakes a desi accent on phone ( among others... chinese, etc.). It was something abt housing discrimination. Forget what it was abt..
I saw that one on another chnnle, but forget which one now. It was few months back.
Oh yeah, yousendit.com is pretty good. I have come across this site many a time while downloading some 'K***y', S**y', unadultered stuff........u know what I mean........Its really cool......
SM should follow that.....will help in the long run....
Is there still a whoa-factor stateside?
Sadly, yeah.
isn't that actually a T-mobile Ad?
Cathy Zed-Jones shoulda tipped me off. Thanks, fixed.
Guys, you should consider storing the files on a different server, something like yousendit.com or others simply to save your bandwidth costs.
Will look into it. These files are actually not much bigger than front page, and our free BitTorrent service only kicks in at files > 10 MB. These clips don't add up to 10 MB together-- maybe I should add in a random Sania Mirza clip to top them off ;)
On a different note, apparently the new film "Lord of War" uses the AR Rahman instrumental "Bombay" at some point...
Yeah, it's a gorgeous song. It's used when the gunrunner's plane is forced down in Africa, the plane is stripped by the locals, and Nicolas Cage is handcuffed by Interpol for 24 hours out in the open field.
MIA's music sounds better when it's not attatched to the cheesy videos that she's made so far. I like her, i really do, but those videos I've seen so far don't do her music justice
Yeah, I thought the 'Galang' video was cheesy, but this one was pretty slick.
The whole "Look, a brown face on TV!" thing is so 2004. Can we move on to something new now?
eeeeeeewwwwwww. what a terrible sell out thing to do.
I love the title of this post.
hmm... desi music (mia) for a fav yuppy desimobile (civic). someone in honda finally made the connection.
What the? Why are people having a go at MIA for 'selling out'? I'm not as devoted a fan as many on here, but I like her a lot and how on Earth does having your music used in a Honda ad mean you're a sell out?
Number 1 - I doubt she had much to do with it at all. Honda didn't ask her, they asked Interscope.
Number 2 - Where does it say in the musician's handbook that 'You must never make money from your music'? She probably got a fat wodge of cash for it and what's wrong with that? She's not pushing drugs or clothing that exploits kids.
Number 3 - Millions will watch it and some may say "ooh what's that music", head to the Internet to find out then go and buy Arular.
You'd have to be an idiot NOT to take up an offer like featuring in an ad for one of the world's biggest car companies.
Actually, the yuppie "desimobile" is the BMW 3-series. Any variation.
We have money. Civics don't showcase that.
Also, if you're going to call her a "sell-out", be prepared to do so to a couple hundred other Indie acts who have sold their tunes to Madison Ave. The music I hear between television programs is infinitely better than the excrement on commercial radio.
It's completely erroneous to assume an artist is selling out b/c you hear their song in a commercial. There are alot of young, hip people in marketing, and advertising; if they like a song, they will approach the artist. If the artist turns the offer down, the agency will hire musicians to basically redo the song, with a few minor differences, just enough to avoid lawsuits. So, it's sometimes best to get paid for the song in the first place, then have some gawdawful copy of your song without any financial merit.
Here's a hilarious example.
I don't think it's mentioned in this article, but I think BK did ask s.k. for their cooperation about a year before the chicken fry ads - so it's not really a coincidence, as bk claims.
What Bongsy said. Plus the fact that A&R staff at record labels are notoriously *not* the smartest in the lot. What makes it to radio as a single may not be the best cut on an album. Take the example of Sting's "Desert Rose", featuring Cheb Mami. For some reason the label didn't think to pose that song as a strong radio single. It would have forever been buried deep in the album, enjoyed only by rabid Sting fans who bought the album on his name alone. Yet, one smokin' BMW ad and the masses can be treated to a really unique song, that crappy mainstream commercial radio (Clear Channel murdabad!) would've squashed and never given heavy rotation airplay.
Having a greatest hits album at this stage in her career is a sell out, making a little extra coin and reaching more of your desired audience who probably doesn't listen to the radio (hello iPod!) is marketing, yo.
That was a visceral reaction. And an inarticulate one.
But it does turn me off, and there's nothing wrong with declaring that. Don't get so antsy. You just prove the fact that today selling out is not only accepted, its considered 'hustling'*. To object would be idealistic.
Its not so much a critique of MIA, but more so the indie princes and princess of my universe.
I'm not asking you to get angry about her making 'a wodge of cash', if it doesn't trouble you, there's nothing wrong with that. But it troubles me, and I spoke my piece.
kisses,
Kithra
*which implies exploiting capitalism for ones personal gain, but its still colluding in the same project.
How about Vijay Singh putting on a frozen lake in the PGA ad?
Hey Kithra. I dabble in music but I'm glad I don't do it full time. The reason being that many of my friends do and it's a tough life. MIA is doing well - she has been nominated for awards and has sold a decent amount of units. However she's not in the stratosphere yet. So passing up on an opportunity like having your debut single featured in an ad that will run at prime time slots (it's not as though it's a small debt consolidation company broadcasting at 4am) all over America would be very, very foolish.
Gone are the days of eaking out a living as a conscienscious hippy singing protest songs with a guitar. In the age of downloads, paying the bills is a musician's primary concern. You can be in favour one moment and yesterday's news the next. It's very easy to sit in your office chair (not you, hypothetical) and say she's sold out. I'd agree if it was lo-fat yoghurt, Microsoft, McDonald's (Justin Timberlake anyone?) or Coke.
Nah, I don't think you've grasped what a musician's life is like. It's the most fickle business there is, believe me. Maya's like anyone else, she's looking to see where the next paycheque is coming from. To look a gift horse in the mouth...uh..I can't remember how that saying goes, but you get what I mean. You mention capitalism. Should musicians be anti-capitalist to avoid being sellouts? Bono has raised millions for charity, met world leaders to talk about the environment and famines, but he's advertised Apple, so is he a sellout? I don't think so - but the case is stronger for saying he is, as opposed to MIA, as he certainly doesn't need the money.
If you are a professional musician then I apologise, but I doubt it with your opinion.
Selling out is not about making money from a commercial, but about selling and using your image to market a corporate product. As a musician with fans you are selling those fans the idea that "Oh, buy this and you'll be like me." whether you mean to or not.
Read the words of John Densmore: Riders on The Storm.
Sad thing is more and more artists and musicians are selling cuz they have no choice. Radio stations are owned by the corporations and conglomerations that force them to sell out. They can't get their songs played on the corporate owned radio, play in the corporate owned venues, or promote in corporate controlled markets because of companies like Clear Channel and Radio One.
Blame it on the Telecommunications act of 1996.
and yes, Bono Is A Sell Out
So if you yourself have admitted there is no alternative to 'selling out' then what do you suggest new artists like MIA do? Sit around and twiddle their thumbs and fight the good fight while Honda go off to another musician?
I'm baffled how you can draw parallels between a girl with one single released and The Doors! Sure, when MIA's in Densmore's shoes then I'll be a harsher critic. Let's have a little perspective, outside the Sepia Mutiny world, she's a minor star. She didn't walk onto a set and say "Buy a Honda and be like me!" Her name isn't mentioned in the ad.
A star DOES become a sellout when trading on their celebrity. Hey, I'm Bong Breaker, smoke Laramie cigarettes etc etc. Fine, I accept Bono can be defined as a sellout. But not MIA.
Bono, a sell-out? So what if U2 shills for Apple. Didn't they sort of earn the right to make money out of their name? And isn't some of this selling out giving them not just money, but power? As in, you get presidents and prime ministers to listen to your african debt relief plans? I don't get this kiddie sell-out stuff. So they should refuse to endorse products because they want to make money because that would make them bad people, because, why, exactly?
I don't get this kiddie sell-out stuff. So they should refuse to endorse products because they want to make money because that would make them bad people, because, why, exactly?
I've just noticed that U2 have gotten really impatient (or antsy) when asked about all the complications that arise out of turning yourself from an artist into a brand and then lending your brand identity (and brand-"cool", if you will...though I realize "cool" is terribly dated and uncool at the moment) to promote a corporate product. They get (unnecessarily) defensive and start swearing and telling people to "go work in a coal mine if you have a problem with that". Other than being quite funny, its also a testament to the fact that they're really touchy about the subject. Why do people refuse to critically look at the self contradictions and compromises made by artists?...ones which in some sense are necessitated by the culture of capitalism we live in. Why do walls go up, and why are calls made to 'go work in a coal mine' or go eat your vegan trans-positive granola...or whatever.
Anyway, the point, I feel, is that when bands lend their 'cool' to multinational corporations it masks the process that goes into the actual making of the products ads are hawking. It creates a conveniently anonymous relationship between the person busting their ass to make something and the person buying that something. It makes the factory workers at Honda plants and the workers for Microsoft, (or coal miners for that matter) more invisible. Corporations essentially succeed in absorbing some of the indie cool of the artist and projecting it onto their corporate identity.
Not to get all Naomi Klein on your ass, or to assume that you don't have awareness of these things already...I just want to put this out there.
The point isn't (for me) whether this is good or bad (though for me I have problems with it), but lets not pretend its not the case. Selling out is selling out. Whether its something to be dismissed is another question all together.
Just some food for thought. cheers
Hurling the epithet "sell-out" is a much-loved hobby of pretentions wannabes and hipster tools everywhere. When your entire life is defined by being "holier than thou", you have to "discover" band "X" before everyone else or you're a follower.
Similarly, in a matter of months (this process is being shortened as we speak, soon it will be a matter of weeks)you also have to condemn "your discovery" first, lest someone hipper beat you to it. "Wha-? You STILL like MIA? How pitchfork-six-months ago."
abhi - cute, very cute. May I refer you to Howard's End (she says cryptically....only connect, is it?)
pree good point - I have no problem with selling out, obviously, because I see nothing wrong with lending your name to a corporation, necessarily. There's lots worse than Apple. But still, they ought quit squirming and just admit it. And I'd sell out if it gave me the chance to really effect change as U2 has tried to do with it's African debt relief (although I have two minds about the actually policy aims themselves).
You know, here's why I can't stand the sell-out epithet. And it all comes back, naturally, to me. Yes. I am that shallow, but you knew that. I mean, my whole life as an Indian-American Princess is a sell out, so quit throwing that label around! It hurts my feelings.
Litany of sell-out:
1. Go to medical school: check.
2. Marry nice Indian boy: check (and then unchecked, but I still get points for that, okay).
3. That's about it, but I'm sure I could think of others.
Selling out is the very basis of my being. How can you all just reject it out of hand without trying it?
Yeah, there is this whole hipper than thou posturing connected to the phrase "sell out"...
but that doesn't rule out the validity of critiques about selling out. There is a difference. I know people drop band X like its got genital herpes as soon as the "sell out" label is used...but its also used in non holier/hipper than thou way that has nothing at all to do with the whims of pretentious wannabe hipsters, etc.
ok, I'll shut up now.
Regarding selling out, I always remind poeple:
"No buck, no Buck Rogers"
From "The Right Stuff"
There is no circus, if there is no one willing to buy tickets. Sure, in personal life I do things that go against grain of conventional wisdom (like not working in oil industry in a $70/ barrel climate) but that is my personal choice for now (i repeat for now).
Selling out is the very basis of my being. How can you all just reject it out of hand without trying it?
Heh, maybe only those who haven't sold out at all are allowed to criticize sell-outs.
I don't get waht being on iPod commercials has to do with helping Africa. Am I missing something? Bono's been doing the humanitarian aid thing for years. I clearly remember articles on him being the rock star politician back in the late 90's.
I was at her concert in Toronto on Sept 26th and she made a formal announcement to the crowd of her new ad to a raucous of boos.
Composed yet a little taken aback she said something like this "Well there are 200,000 Tamils in the Toronto area & at least 100,000 of'em drive a Honda."
Too true. She's not being defensive. She's being honest. And you have to respect the lady for that. Well that and it was pretty damn funny.
true, Snapdragon. Just check out the parking lot at any mandir and it's Honda, Toyota, Toyota, Honda, Honda, BMW and Mercedes (a few), Toyota, Honda, Toyota, Toyota, Toyota, Honda. Bas.
Don't forget the occasional wild and unconventional type who decides to really live life on the edge by splashing out on a Lexus ;)
Now you can buy MIA brand rubber flip flops! wheee.
oh, consumerism.
