REIFICATION: HOW LICENSING KILLED ROCK’N’ROLL
MUSIC IN PHASE SPACE EPISODE 47
Twenty years ago, licensing a rock song in a TV commercial would be met with immediate cries of “sell out.” But within the last decade, commercial syncs are providing an additional source of income as record sales continue to slump — so it’s no surprise that the number of classic rock songs in advertisements has increased. As AC/DC (whose music is now in an Applebee’s commercial) once pointed out, “Money Talks.”
Songs carry emotional information and some transport us back to a poignant time, place or event in our lives. It’s no wonder a corporation would want to hitch a ride on the spell these songs cast and encourage you to buy soft drinks, underwear or automobiles while you’re in the trance.
Tom Waits
Think of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” in a Cruise Ad a song about heroin (the mother of all addictive drugs) which opens with a William S. Burroughs reference as a fitting song to sell family cruise trips. Even if you miss the heroin-specific references (including the cringe-inducing “Of course I’ve had it in the ear before”), there’s the repeated “Liquor and drugs” line — which Royal Caribbean turned into “looks so good” when they tapped the tune for a series of commercials.
The Western canon’s aura makes it just the thing for pitching luxury brands like the Lincoln Motor Company, whose 2017 holiday ad unfolded over a track of Shostakovich’s swoony Waltz №2. GNR’s breakout hit “Welcome to the Jungle” is a harrowing warning about Los Angeles to newcomers,(“If you got the money honey we got your disease”) and selling your soul to make it (“you can taste the bright lights but you won’t get there for free”). At least, that’s what it was about in 1987. In 2016, it’s about Taco Bell’s quesalupa.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” in a Jeans Commercial
Like Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In the U.S.A.” and Ronald Reagan, the true meaning behind John Fogerty’s “Fortunate Son”was a biting critique about the privilege and hypocrisy of rabidly patriotic politicians for a denim ad. The fact that they axed most of the lyrics (lines prescient of George W. Bush’s adult life) but kept the “oooo that red, white and blue!” part showed that Wrangler was either willfully ignoring the song’s real message.
Then you have Viva Las Vegas” by Elvis Presley vs. Viagra. An Elvis classic ruined for the rest of your natural life and Mercedes-Benz” by Janis Joplin vs. Mercedes-Benz with the car execs hitching a ride to the point on Janis’ satirical take on materialism.
What we see here is how Capital uses music to carry out its teleogicla purpose utilizing music a sort of stand-in for this late stage capitalism. These advertisements can sometimes be funny, and often even move (that David Bowie’s “Starman” Super Bowl).
REIFICATION
Of all the terms that have arisen to explain the impact of capitalism, none is more vivid or readily grasped than “reification”-the process of transforming men and women into objects, things. The principle of reification, emerging from Marx’s account of commodity fetishism, provides an unrivaled method for understanding the real effects of capital’s impact on consciousness itself.
Our point is that contemporary perceptions of sense and reality have been reified, and that esthetics can express why this is the case, with major consequences for understanding the role of music. If you can harness the trappings of a style — taking its surface level idioms and cliches, while deliberately leaving behind any emotional authenticity to be a backing track that helps someone sell something, you’re probably half the way there.
Reification signs are proliferating around us-from the branding of products and services to ethnic and sexual stereotypes, all manifestations of religious faith, the rise of nationalism, and recent concepts such as ‘spin’ and ‘globalization.’
SIGNIFIER, SIGNIFIED, SIGN
Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys vs. Sunkist
The 1966 “pocket symphony” by Brian Wilson cost a record-breaking $50,000, along with his health. It went on to market a carbonated orange beverage. According to Swiss linguist and semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure, there are two main parts to any sign:
- Signifier: This connotes any material thing that is signified, be it an object, words on a page, or an image.
- Signified: The concept which the signifier refers to. This would be the meaning that is drawn by the receiver of the sign.
The example below shows how this can be understood.
A great example of effective use of semiotics is found in the use of metaphors. These commonly understood concepts tend to resonate easily with your target audiences. For example, “a glass half full” is perceived as a sign of optimism and positiveness.
In 1978, the original “Good Vibrations,” sung by the Beach Boys, was used to introduce consumers to “The Sunkist Soda Taste Sensation.” In 1981, Sunkist Orange Soda became one of the ten best selling carbonated soft drinks in the United States. Today, the tradition continues; Sunkist and Diet Sunkist, sold by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages.
For this ad, a strong message is effectively communicated without the use of much words.
Music is different to the spoken language in many ways, but possibly the most important way is that it can communicate without pointing to something in the real world or having a precise meaning. In other words, it has a degree of non-conceptuality.
Reification is the mental process of transforming the non-concrete into something concrete, a ‘fact.’ The US national anthem will be a perfect example of a reified piece of music. And by explaining this reified music we say first of all that its meaning is solidified:
The mind does not go off on an interpretive journey when we hear it — this music means USA. Consider for example the popular use of the anthem at Woodstock in 1969 by Jimmy Hendrix, generally viewed (probably incorrectly) as an act of anti-war sentiment. This interpretation was possible only because there was no doubt what the melody meant-it wasn’t an ad lib set of notes, like a free jazz solo, it was the national anthem-something that was identifiable.
Let’s focus for a second on words. Think about what happens when you talk for a minute. Words denote different things and provide us with a shortcut to convey information. If we combine words to explain something, we create a very unsatisfactory depiction of nature. Consider of the difference between asking you what it’s like to be in a car accident, or kissing someone, versus the real reality of being in a car crash or kissing someone. Actual experience is almost nothing like hearing a first-hand account.
One of the reasons for this is because spoken language is itself reified — used to construct an approximation of experience — to work around the limitations of our senses and leaving out a whole world of information in doing so. Worse still, there are more than likely facets of knowledge we are not yet in a position to understand or interact.
Music is often thought to have a stronger link with the non-conceptual for a few reasons. It can provoke vague and difficult to define emotions. It can exist without communicating anything specific. It can mean different things to different people. In fact, many say that the allure of music is that you can say things with it that you never could with spoken language.
So, if you’re wondering where I’m going with this — here it is. A shorthand description: When music is reified, it behaves a lot more like a spoken language. It means something specific. It can be described easily. It is unable to change because its meaning (or for semiotics people, its signifier) is fixed. The melody of the US National anthem doesn’t require me to engage with the non-conceptual. I know what it is.
So one good way of telling whether a piece of music is overly reified or not is if you’re able to describe it easily in words. They have all in different ways become a thing. A known musical object. This is of concern to composers because we recognise the value of the abstract nature of music, which allows us to communicate in a way that the spoken language is often unable to do.
If you have problems wrapping your head around this how the iconic banjo duel scene in the movie ‘Deliverance’ caused a powerful association with his instrument that has overpowered how audiences listen to it ever since.
In this case, it’s not any particular melody or song that’s reified but the instrument itself and it’s also worth noting that it’s happening against the musician’s will. In the example of the banjo — it is no longer free to communicate musically — instead becoming a humorous shorthand for backwardness. And the US national anthem represents its country so strongly that it can’t be mistaken for anything else. In all these examples, interpretation is resisted and the music is unable to change.
There are so many other ways that music can be reified: rules for example can lead to reification — for example the idea that chorus must always follow verse or that the opening movement of a symphony must use sonata form.
Over-reliance on rules or patterns may create repetitive musical artifacts that do not engage the listener but merely remind them of what they’ve heard before. Especially in music, lyrics are a kind of reification by people like Taylor Swift who use them to convey to the listener what they should feel, in case they turn their brains on to perceive meaning for more than five seconds.
LETS ROCK — CREATIVE PROBLEMS
No matter where you stand on this, it’s obvious that all facets Rock’n’Roll, be it prog, Metal, blues, indie etc faces a mounting artistic problem: that almost everything about it is a foregone conclusion: from the intro riffs to the choruses all the way down to the lyrics. Getting new is harder and harder because there’s too much desire to be the same.
There are riffs and there are bridges and there are choruses And this wouldn’t be so bad if was in service of a larger musical idea. But no. But all we get is well worn references linked together with forgettable filler. A big budget greatest hits medley.
So, let’s talk about the Black Keys and how their music borrow from other composers and bands. I should say at the outset, that I own all Black keys album and have enjoyed their music, and I should also say it’s impossible for a piece of music to avoid doing this. Dan Auberbach and Patrick Carney don’t really begin each new work with a completely ‘blank canvas’ because they carry with them what the philosopher Theodor Adorno calls ‘the handed-down musical materials of history’ — which are the genres, tonalities, structures and other musical traditions that we all grow up with.
Things that already have meanings, rules and associations tied to them. So music is always reified to a certain degree. While writing the music for their albums, The Black keys or QOTSA or the Foo Fighters draw from a large range of well known sources. There’s heavy referencing of Led Zeppelin, Canned Heat, Jim Kimborough, Bachman Turner Overdrive etc. While Patrick Carney grew up on punk groups like The Clash and the Cramps, Dan Auerbach came up on bluesmen like Junior Kimbrough and southern rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd. Throw in Steppenwolf, T. Rex, and Captain Beefheart/.
“Little Black Submarines” is very similar to “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin but I’m not saying that Black Keys or QOTSA are plagiarists or hacks because the artistry in their music is in combining musical ideas with pre-existing meanings to form new meaning, breathing life into the original genres and conjuring a sense of otherworldliness and fantastical adventure. Like all music, there is a certain degree of reification going on, but it’s very creative.
So the problem then is one of degrees. In other words, there comes a point where a piece of music is so reified that it’s glued up completely; where its meaning is so obvious that there’s no room for maneuver. This can be illustrated by looking at the newer albums QUOTSA, FOO FIGHTERS — which for me sit here on the reification-o-metre (- pretty reified.- very reified).
This time, they are working without Danger Mouse, the producer whose modern/retro fusion helped prime the band for their crossover. His fingerprints in particular were all over the psychedelic hodgepodge of Turn Blue and its kitchen-sink strings and keyboards. “Let’s Rock,” in turn, opts for a streamlined approach: just Auerbach, Carney, a pair of backing vocalists and as many overdubs as it takes to get the job done.
In truth, Danger Mouse’s absence leaves more room for riffs, and “Let’s Rock” doesn’t skimp on them. “Shine a Little Light” kicks off with a torrent of brawling guitars, the embodiment of those old speaker ads with the guy in a chair blowing away his living room. “Lo/Hi,” about reckless thrills and brutal comedowns, is even more undeniable, pure leather-jacketed swagger.
Most of “Let’s Rock” hits its mark, but sometimes the band cribs so overtly from their influences that it feels like cheating off of a test. The guitars on “Walk Across the Water” ape the suave glide of T. Rex’s “Jeepster,” while “Sit Around and Miss You” lifts its lick so shamelessly from Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You” that it’s hard to hear it without picturing Michael Madsen slicing off a dude’s ear.
Elsewhere the influences are subtler — shades of Steely Dan in the amplified soft-rock of “Breaking Down,” a hint of the Isley Brothers in the nimble lick of “Tell Me Lies.” The Black Keys are no longer really drawing from different musical inspirations to create new experiences. They are largely drawing from himself to create the same experience.
Since so many big moments rely on pre-existing material. And the problem with reusing pre-existing material is one of diminishing returns. At its worst, rehashed music can descend into meaninglessness. To give an example of what I mean, let’s look at the use of Wagners ‘Ride of the Valkeries’ in film.
When used in Apocalypse now it was a deliberate artistic juxtaposition — drawing from the original meaning of the music to provide a subtext of false glory and horror. It was done to make us think. Now let’s look at it’s reuse in the film ‘Watchmen’ directed by Zack Snyder.
The music here isn’t appropriate at all because the intention of this part of the story, written by the fantastic Alan Moore, was to illustrate the complicated inner struggles and regrets of one of the main characters. But Snyder, as always, employs the lowest common denominator approach: ‘since Apocalypse Now takes place in Vietnam and this scene takes place in Vietnam let’s just use the Apocalypse Now music.
The music is now super-reified. Ride of the Valkyries isn’t being used for any deeper meaning — it just means ‘Vietnam — but also, remember Apocalypse Now?’.
And it’s this meaninglessness that Rock’n’Roll is in danger of going towards if mishandled. lifted the well worn themes we’ve heard a million times and placed them at strategic moments to achieve maximum cliche.
GUITARS
During and immediately after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences large jazz bands tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, the development of jump blues, with its guitar riffs, prominent beats and shouted lyrics, prefigured many later developments. Keith Richards proposes that Chuck Berry developed his brand of rock and roll by transposing the familiar two-note lead line of jump blues piano directly to the electric guitar, creating what is instantly recognizable as rock guitar. Similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll.
So now, what’s possibly the most reflective and powerful weapon in Rock’n’Roll is just being thrown around to give weight to a moment that would otherwise feel pretty silly. This I think gets to the route of the problem. The original use of guitars had enormous power because of how it was structured. Inspired by electric blues, Chuck Berry introduced an aggressive guitar sound to rock and roll, and established the electric guitar as its centrepiece, adapting his rock band instrumentation from the basic blues band instrumentation of a lead guitar, second chord instrument, bass and drums.
65 years later and there is never a moment when I felt it was being used as a storytelling device as much as a dog whistle. It doesn’t provide any kind of deeper meaning or allow me to ponder or interpret way was going on. Its sole function was to point out when something rock related was happening, which I already knew about because I’m listening to the album. This is extreme reification and it hurts the movie. Perhaps it’s time to consider organizing rock’n’ roll in a different way. It doesn’t have to be based on guitars.Or it could be different guitars. Think King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizard microtonal guitars.
This music was new to us and we now associate it with youthful folly and their plight. Later on, when it branches out into different styles like progressive rock etc it emerges more powerfully. It’s now tragic because the Boomer’s wish has been granted in the most horrible possible way. Then, at the climax of the genre, the theme reappears one more time to mark the moment that boomers overcome their self-doubt, thereby completing their character arc in a meaningful and satisfying way.
The style develops as the boomers develops. This is how you tell a story with music. Now look again at the Black keys. Oh look… it’s that guy… from the commercial … except the music is now telling you what to feel. It isn’t earned. It’s cashing in that cheque written by the original generation. But it’s not a blank cheque. Eventually, this theme will lose its potency completely, it will become a known artefact that disallows interpretation.
So part of the problem here is audience expectation. I’m going to call this the ‘I know what that is’ conundrum. Because we’re all familiar with the Rock’n’Roll musical language. ….. Composers are faced with the choice of either referencing that language or abandoning it to create new music. With the latter, composers open themselves up to criticism by not doing what people expect and run the risk of their creative experiments failing.
By quoting established material, they’re guaranteed some degree of acceptance while avoiding the possibility of misinterpretation. Audiences are often very insistent on seeing and hearing things that they recognise and the compulsion to give into this demand is very powerful
Being different is dangerous but it’s also the only way to achieve new heights. This leads me to a quick aside about Rock’n’Roll as a consumer product: many post-marxist thinkers use the concept of reification to attack aspects of modern capitalism. One famous argument, again from the philosopher Theodor Adorno is that art in capitalist societies have a tendency towards intellectual stagnation due to the financial interests involved — because complicated and thought-provoking art is less likely to appeal to mass audiences it will therefore will not satisfy one of the hallmarks of capitalism, which of course is mass production motivated by profit.
Now, it’s not hard to see how the Rock’n’Roll collapsing industry can be used as an example to back up this argument — with what remains of the music industry being too afraid to deviate from customer expectation and choosing bands who are happy to churn out very similar material over and over again. It’s up to you to decide to what extent this is happening but it seems to me pretty obvious that it is, at least, happening.
MUSIC B
NOTHING MUSIC
So one of the unfortunate consequences of businesses appropriating this kind of music for advertising is that corporate hacks get so used to it. It’s not long before it begins to affect how they communicate through music with their customers.
The purpose of using music is to help sell the idea that product being sold is the culmination of some kind of profound altruistic endeavor aimed at the betterment of humanity. And when they’re not going the ‘we’re making the world a better place’ route… then … sigh… they instead go for the ‘isn’t life just awesome!’ route.
Then there is we’ve designed a ludicrously expensive gadget to help — until it breaks or until we design something even more expensive. Let’s make the world a brighter place by wasting our disposable income!
For this you’ll need monorhythmic piano chords. Every year the destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest intensifies. This makes us sad. Here at Shell, we are sad. And that’s what Music that stands for Late Stage Capitalism is. Pretending. Pretending to be something a human would write
And no matter how hard it tries, it just can’t help but reflect the banality and inauthenticity of the corporation that uses it. And that, I suppose, is the one emotional insight it’s capable of providing… it is a pretty accurate portrayal of what corporate life is really like: dull, hackneyed and completely lacking in substance.
TCHAIKOVSKY
Tchaikovsky was working on the first movement of his 4th symphony in 1877. However, he was faced with a problem: at that time, the first movement of a symphony was always structured according to something called ‘sonata form’ — a detailed process where two very small musical ideas are weaved together to form a large musical journey.
This is a very analytical and abstract way of writing — where the goal is sense of musical ‘resolution’ at the end. However, this formula didn’t sit well with some Romantic composers at the time because it resisted their more modern interest in storytelling and biographical self-expression.
In this case, Tchaikovsky was in the middle of a personal crisis: he had recently married — a move generally considered to have been a smokescreen to hide his homosexuality from the public — and it had ended in acrimonious disaster after only a couple of months, leaving him with feelings of depression and alienation. So going into his 4th symphony, it was these emotions that he wanted to express.
But the highly technical framework of the sonata form was a problem: feelings relating to an identity crisis are difficult to express when following a tried and tested formula. However, due to audience expectation, Tchaikovsky didn’t feel that he could simply discard sonata form altogether and so decided to make some now very famous alteration— the insertion of an unexpected waltz in the first movement.
By today’s standards that sounds almost laughably unrevolutionary but consider the social function of the waltz at that time: found at events where young men and women of the elite would dance, form connections and generally have a good time. Tchaikovsky’s use of the waltz — shoved into a structure it was never intended for — Mirrored his own feelings of social failure — an inability to dance in step with everyone else.
The emotional quality of the music was also unique — for all the attempts of the Waltz to sound light-hearted and frivolous, it was being knocked about by dark and turbulent symphonic forces — a hopeless display of frivolity that reflected the futile charade of his own marriage. In other words, Tchaikovsky took structural expectation and used it as a way to communicate something completely unique about his own experience.
SET IT FREE
So, in short, Rock’n’Roll needs to change. We should not as audiences expect to be pandered to by relentless reference to stuff we know. It will never satisfy us. The original tunes were, well, original and that’s the only thing — originality — that has any hope of delivering a truly breathtaking new Rock’n’Roll experience. And if that entails throwing away what we know so what? It’s a price worth paying. Familiarity and recognition are nice but they can never replace the feeling of a completely novel experience.
If you love it, set it free
