Re:gifting
American marketing schemes call to me, even while I’m overseas. This holds to be some semblance of truth when you consider the consequences of repackaging that America tends to embrace; a few examples, such as beer cans, popular music, and the internet. To start with the latter, let’s consider the concept of clicking through; to me, this is usually found to be true in the e-mails people send with attached hyperlinks or nowadays, in many web logs such as,
Deadspin or
freedarko that require extra-dimensional viewing of the ethereal complexity, or not, of lassoing in on the information that means something to you while you’re online. For many beer companies, in particular those who have “American” values, there is a tendency to find new ways to sell “old” (status quo) product with newer, shinier packaging that tries to appeal to a new base of consumers, for example Busch Beer’s camouflage containers or Candyflouge, or better yet the Coor’s Light aerodynamic Lockheed-Martin Can of the future! (
No funnier beer company than the one with the CEO who got a DUI). With music, there is a strong cultural identity among aspiring “American” producers to jump on the “remix” game.
Who invented the Remix? Was it Sean Combs? Was it P-Diddy? Was it Ben Stiller?
P.Diddy - Bad Boy For Life I’m not quite sure, but
Musik Konkret is institutionalized, so that makes it special to some people…anyhoo, it’s a dense labyrinth, this remix. Like a fluid, it knows no volume on it’s own, the remix relies on a solid foundation of an already established artist by which to use as a “soundboard”, in quotations because it is not just aural, visual as well when referring to a listener base. I don’t know where to begin with this, but I do want to raise a point of awareness; big music companies send out samplers of “Hip-Hop” hit singles, let’s use DMX’s “Party Up in Here” with such great B-Side cuts such as the
DJ FA Remix. If you really took the time to study each of the tracks and how they reinterpret some facet of the original, enough so to openly claim their reference in the first place, they are comfortable enough with it to put their own name on it, which changes the new containers of that substance. So, if I had to put in my two-penny head’s direct response, I’d say the remix was invented by either Phil Spector, for stealing the Motown sound; like here with
“How Do You Sleep?” by John Lennon. I used to read about James Jamerson, the name when it came to Motown session men on the low-down 4 string skanking bass; that guy was potent. Or maybe the remix was invented long before, when blind poets would rouse up a string of imitators, masquerading as philosopher kings, and one day they would be translated in to other languages to have their word’s revisited and regurgitated and, perhaps in an ideal world, refined.
Beer, is delicious. Beer, is deceitful. Beer, prescription strength. Cheap Beer is an interesting phenomenon; what’s the point of expensive beer anyway, the average Natty Light 30-Rack holder may ponder aloud while carving his jousting helmet. For many companies, the need to reinvent an old brand is as old as the concept of the market itself. The makers of the 30 can pack are kind of insisting you drink a lot of beer; if they feel otherwise, perhaps they should offer other ways by which to accomplish the selling of 30 beers in a way that doesn’t seem so bohemian. National Bohemian, as a counter-example, or Natty Bo as it was told to me (retelling, haHA!) on a recent trip to DELMARVA, doesn’t look like it has ever changed it’s logo or can/box concept (
it does appear to be owned by Pabst Blue Ribbon, another hallmark of holding steady on its symbols). The Coors Brewing Company, makers of such fan favorites as Blue Moon Winter Ale and Blue Moon Spring Ale (all fans, please, raise your hands, post haste!) recently repackaged the light version of it’s signature brew with a new, awfully convenient, can that ensures even greater freshness of the same great taste that prior consumers of the product enjoyed while attempting to reach out to a new extreme of the consumer base, the advertisement campaign isn’t cheap, but maybe it is effective. Another example of repackaging an old formula comes from another heavy hitter of the blackout beer industry, Belgian behemoth Inbev, formerly known as Anheiser-Busch. Insert Vaudeville interpretative dancer here. Busch and Busch Light brand beers have been spotted in some rural areas, like Princeton, New Jersey, sporting a fucking camo box and can wrapper;
basically, if you go hunting, you ought to be drinking beer, and when you think about your hunting beer, it better be Busch, because the drunk guy who just buckshot you in the face drinks AMERICAN BEER! Or maybe it’s just funny and since we pull so much of this repackaging off as a culture, that we should embrace the beauty of “American” dishes like Tofurkey and Spam, what the fuck the British did LONG ago. Beer, yes beer, we got it from another country, most certainly, there were no Natives that I can remember reading about with last names like Bush or Cheney, those kind of sound like the last names of the guys who took their land and gave them syphilis, I’m just telling it like it was told to me.
For the final example, the internet, you can look no further than the above words that I recently published in this here web log. America is a nation of thieves, the old adage being that there is no honor amongst them, pillaging and plundering and plowing through like wild beasts amongst the litany of “purer” producing cultures; this is most evident in the world of “drugs”, another vague term that needs updating. Ok, thanks for reading, this was my first time trying to write something a little bit longer about exactly what I write about, or think about, in my head.
Love,
Al
