Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock
Titolo: Corporate Folk

http://music.guardian.co.uk/folk/comment/story/0,,1972199,00.html
Plucking hell
That folk isn't funny anymore, says Rob Fitzpatrick
Rob Fitzpatrick
Saturday December 16, 2006
Guardian
Do me a favour. Have a quick look outside your window for me, would you?
Now, tell me, are there any flaxen-haired waifs, or star-kissed
sun-children strumming acoustic guitars out there? Is there, perhaps, a
painfully shy oddball-bombshell plucking the bejeezus out of the business
end of a harp? Hmmm? Perhaps there's a recently rediscovered 1960s
hippy-pop icon wobbling past on her old Gypsy caravan waving a wad of
banknotes thick enough to choke a horse? No? Still just a coven of teen
killers thrashing about on tiny bikes, then.
Strange, because all I hear on the telly is plangent, vaguely pastoral
folk music. Everything comes with a folk soundtrack these days. Take, for
instance, Cathedral City cheese, a brand that until very recently screamed
1970s dinner parties louder than a clunky Betamax recording of Yootha
Joyce wheeling a hostess trolley full of quiche towards Earth, Wind &
Fire. Now, the nondescript milk by-product is served on the crisp biscuit
of Devendra Banhart's drowsily groovy At The Hop.
Then there's search engine Ask.com, who are involved in a business so
cut-throat it would make Sweeney Todd wet himself in fear. But none of
this stopped some wonk considering them to be the perfect match for Sam
Beam's Iron & Wine project, the sound of one man sat on his creaking back
porch plucking an ancient banjo while croaking into a gramophone horn.
T-Mobile have realised that near-forgotten 1960s hippy-pop heroine Vashti
Bunyan is, like, really, really good. Certainly good enough to flog their
phone packages with a song written at a time when Ms Bunyan didn't even
have a home to put a phone in.
And what's good for T-Mobile is good for Orange, who have weighed into the
whole "flog it with folk" barn-dance by attaching New York Blackout by
Joanna Newsom to their product.
Also, is that really Claude Visori's incredibly rare Folk Guitar getting
an airing on the new Specsavers ad? Yes, unbelievably, it is.
Most impressive of all, though, is MasterCard's new Christmas ad, which
features Findlay Brown's brilliantly melancholic Coming Home. Brown is so
new he doesn't release his debut album until next summer. This is a man
who used to skin adders and hang out with bare-knuckle Gypsy boxers. A man
who only "found" music after ingesting LSD at a farmhouse party before
spending the night listening to Jimi Hendrix. Just the man to persuade you
to pile a wodge of more unaffordable debt on top of the mountain of pain
that already threatens to crush you.
Do ad people think we'll forgive them their venal trade if they attach the
sound of plucking and crooning to whatever bucket of cack they're punting
this week?
Well, I will if they grow the balls to go the extra mile. I want 1970s
Irish prog-folkers Mellow Candle doing Tena Lady slots, Philadelphian
oddballs Espers working for Woolworths and Dando Shaft to reform purely to
flog Dairylea Dunkers. If we're going to do this, let's do it properly. 
*Rey
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 That folk isn't funny anymore, says Rob Fitzpatrick
Qui c`e` una pubblicita` di una societa` di Assicurazioni che usa un pezzo
dei Tin Hat Trio in sottofondo.
Secondo me e` una cosa positiva. Supponiamo che tu sia incaricato di
sviluppare una pubblicita`, scegliendo la musica che ritieni piu`
appropriata. La cosa piu` economica sarebbe quella di usare un gruppo di
musicisti assunti per quello scopo, bypassando il problema delle
royalties. Invece commissioni il lavoro a un gruppo che stimi e che ti
piace, dando a loro l`opportunita` di guadagnare un pochino ( opportunita`
che puo` essere benissimo rifiutata).
D`altronde chi ascoltava musica colta e iamrica ai tempi, adesso e` un
executive di qualche ditta e fa soldi a palate, la colpa non e` di nessuno.
Chissa` cosa farebbe il Rob Fizpatrick se fosse lui a scegliere la musica,
mah.
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