Morningwood vs. We Are Scientists vs. Who Gives a Damn
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The simmering debate making its way around the internet, concerning Morningwood and We Are Scientists and which band will be more successful in 2006, is absolutely not interesting. First, though, a disclaimer. Everyone’s tastes: They’re fine. I have no problem with them. Don’t take offense. Now, the bands. Neither of them are very good. That’s obvious. Morningwood is riding the ample bosom of their vivacious lead singer, but their music is naught more than calculated, bland trendhopping of the most vacuous variety—mainly copping glam-metal riffs (see: Electric Six) and Euro-Pop melodies. We Are Scientists, scooped from quasi-obscurity by Virgin after SXSW, are, if probably more “authentic,” still playing connect-the-dots post-punk while singing lyrics determined to appeal to lonely late-teens (that “my body is your body” pap is straight out of Ben Gibbard’s high school notebook). No wonder Spin loves them. Both bands are tailor-made for mass audience appeal—they both contain the proper zeitgeist-approved cultural elements while remaining resolutely uncontroversial and unchallenging.
But the fact that both of these bands suck isn’t the reason the debate irks me. It’s more complicated and cranky than that. While I’d never allow myself to get caught up in a tired, banal indie vs. mainstream dialectic, both bands’ appearance on countless blogs over the past few months is the result of Virgin and Capitol holding open the internet and pouring promo down its throat. Wait, you say…who cares? That’s what all musicians do—try to get noticed, lately through blogs. Sure, I reply—one hundred percent true. But that’s far from what’s happening with Virgin and Capitol’s promotion of Morningwood and We Are Scientists. They have millions of dollars and hundreds of employees at their discretion, solely devoted to marketing efforts for bands. They don’t need blogs for the exposure. They need them, us, for credibility. They’re siphoning the taste of true music lovers, conoisseurs, selfless distributors, and refiguring it as buzz. Even I received several e-mails from Capitol, trying to get Morningwood featured on my massively influential, internationally celebrated blog. If Virgin and Capitol wanted to, they could pay any store in any mall anywhere in the country to play the entire CDs of both bands 15 times a day, and get 100 times the exposure. Which they actually might already do. I mean, We Are Scientists were on freaking LETTERMAN. But they still want to be marked as “blogger-approved”. Warner Brothers did the same things with Secret Machines in late 2004. Secret Machines are a great band. That makes no difference. It’s still a corporation siphoning profits through independent music sources, under the auspices of bottom-up marketing, when it’s top-down like a mother fucker.
Morningwood and We Are Scientists both suck. But it doesn’t matter. I’m sure they’re both totally nice, and I’m actually very excited that a voluptuous woman like Chantel Claret has the opportunity to cast body-image influence over a generation of similarly shaped young girls. But the story of these two bands in 2006 should be one of a new corporate marketing technique—one that, while innocent enough, is only the sign of much, much more to come. Again, my point here is not to accuse bloggers who like Morningwood and/or We Are Scientists of being mindless automatons in between A&R stints. My point is to highlight the intent of record companies, of corporations, to gain a foothold in the blogs–to take a step toward attempting to incorporate them into their promotional plans. Which would really just ruin everything.
Filed under: First-World Problems me ranting about stuff Morningwood PR We Are Scientists
Totally with you. Both bands remind me of countless records I own from bands I never listen to–and never did–that I bought because they got spun like crazy at the hipkids record stores. I don’t know who did the spinning, but I DO know that I don’t listen to the Speaking Canaries at all and put on that Comas record once for about a half hour.
A-fucking-men to that Brother…. I gave up reading music blogs due in large part to the topic you have just so skillfully and correctly have addressed.
“They have millions of dollars and hundreds of employees at their discretion, solely devoted to marketing efforts for bands. They don’t need blogs for the exposure. They need them, us, for credibility.” Again, A-fucking-men to that! Marathon Packs has always been my favorite and if I do read a music blog this will be the one I read. And the reason is posts like this one.
Agreed.
Holy crap. Nicely done, my friend. I feel like a turtle when I start seeing bands like this buzzed about everywhere; I crawl back into my shell and ignore it.
The ‘blog-approved’ phenomenon is really strange. And I’ll be honest: I find myself falling into the trap. “Well, if it’s been on so-and-so’s blog and these many blogs, must be good!”
And as for the major labels … well, I had to pause when Warner Bros. (Warner Bros.?!?!) sent me (and no doubt countless others) the new E-40 single. What does WB need from me? After reading this, it’s pretty clear.
Nice work.
tooo funny. because all day I have been bookmarking anyone talking about those two bands so i could write my own entry about how these people whored themselves out to the labels. You beat me too it and probably wrote it better than I could. Even though I didn’t get any emails from the labels because my blog gets about 3 reads a week you could smell that going down from three hemisphere’s away. nice work gumshoes.
ha ha, yes, it seems they’ve been popping up quite a bit, doesn’t it? Did not know they are the beneficiaries of corporate largesse, I do remember the Secret Machines debacle though.
ha. nice man. i could care less about either band, but morningwood seem particularly weak in my mopinion.
Well said. I agree with you. Neither of those bands is very good at all.
i feel the only thing sadder than both of these bands is the loser who writes three paragraphs on it. Somebody needs a boyfriend to take up some of their time!!!!
How is that for liberal punctuation.
signed,
better than you
dear anonymous, I guess you didn’t read the three paragraphs because it wasn’t about the bands… you might want to read it and then comment, you may learn something. But I will say both bands do suck.
D
F’in right.
Well spoke sir.
Well spoke.
i disagree with anonymous’ post about your loserdom–if you don’t chew out these fagolas then they might slip through the cracks of illegitmacy–besides, do we really need another Bravery (who also played at SXSW)? Blogs are so 2005, Eric.. get with the trend. Lisa Frank diaries is what they’re writing in at Billberg.
At least We Are Scientists have a decent name. Morningwood is just retarded.
we are scientists aka art brut-47…are a great band and they had the spinto band open for them last summer both of those bands are pimp… if you dont like w.a.s. i would love to know what u listen to