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Tag Archives: selling culture


More on “Synthetic Nostalgia”

Friday, September 17, 2010

Escort’s Dan Balis answers a question from Nick Sylvester in a way that…well, read it first (I bolded the good part):
RC: How does your ‘memory of disco’ affect the disco you make? Do you knowingly exaggerate some elements while downplaying others, etc? What, if any, is the personal moment with disco [...]

Pretty Pack

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

From a Harper’s Magazine, early/mid ’70s, that I found in my office the other day.  Anyone else never hear of these? (EDIT: OH GOOD SWEET LORD THEY ARE IN THE 80S TOO)

Making Babies, 1912

Saturday, August 7, 2010

(via)

From the Department of Forthcoming Music-Related Conferences

Friday, August 6, 2010

The two biggies have recently sent out their CFPs.  One (EMP) is much more tailored to my interests than the other (IASPM), which means I’ve got a better chance at going to LA than Cincinnati.  So.  If you’re interested, though: EMP is much easier to get into (I’m told) than IASPM, which typically wants academics [...]

See?!

Friday, August 6, 2010

Re: that last mega-post, there are plenty of people doing similar sorts of work out there.  If you don’t read Tom, and you were at all interested in what I wrote in that earlier post, start!  Tom’s point here, about pop music, is anthropologically valid!  It’s also called “capitalism.”
Put crudely, you succeed in pop music [...]

Back In Circulation.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

In blog years, I’ve been away for long enough to put out a reunion album.  If only I had more to show for it.
Not that I haven’t been “being productive.”  The opposite, actually.  It’s just that said productivity hasn’t manifested itself publicly.  Yet.  Along with taking trips out of town for various reasons (the Pitchfork [...]

Hype Machine, 1905

Monday, August 2, 2010

Back soon, until then:
…(in 1905) the humor magazine Puck satirized this rapid turnover in a series of ‘diary entries,’ written from the point of view of a popular song, recounting its creation, its plugging, its meteoric rise, and its precipitous descent into neglect–all in the span of five weeks.
David Suisman, “Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution [...]

Jeez Dude, He’s Got a Lav Mic On

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

CNN’s Rick Sanchez, desperately trying to make some we were there first drama out of a sadly necessary BP CEO PR appearance. Or: trying to wring tabloid revenue out of a yet-undefined, heavily-scripted corporate necessity.  Svanberg, if it’s not obvious from watching this staged newspool footage, is saying “get him out of there” to that [...]

Dead Wrestler of the Week

Friday, May 21, 2010

If, like me, you spent much of your childhood glued to WWF broadcasts on television–or (also like me) if you spend much of your adulthood geeking out at well-crafted, incisive articles about the careful organization and marketing of commercial entertainment, then Deadspin’s “Dead Wrestler of the Week” feature is right up your alley.  It’s the [...]

Heroin, Tech Stocks, Gossip
(Not A Carnac Joke)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Maureen Tkacik, in the latest CJR, explaining the basic economic truths underscoring the decline and fall of print journalism.  I label a lot of the posts on this blog “selling culture,” and one of these days I’ll write a post explaining exactly what I mean by that.  In the meantime, Tkacik does a good job [...]