Popped In, Sold Out

I was out last week for a mate’s birthday. Whilst talking to Rodders about music in a new bar in Liverpool called Mojo (I’d recommend it for the music, but you need a 2nd mortgage to get a drink in there) we were talking about one of our favourite artists = Iggy Pop. As well as being a highly influential singer in one of the 60’s greatest bands, The Stooges, Iggy stood for everything you wanted from a rock star: notoriety, danger, hell-raising anti-establishment and all round good old fashioned sticking it to the man!! … That is until he starred in that recent rather cringe-worthy car insurance commercial!!! Shame on you, Iggy! By the way, did you like what I did with the title of this Blog? Everyone knows that multi-global products and corporations use well known faces from the world of entertainment to endorse their products, but you usually expect to see people like George Clooney, Michael Jackson or Cannon & Ball popping up between your weekly fix of Coronation Street (or if your Pughy: Sex in the City) One particular set of characters you don’t expect too see are Rock Stars who have a history of drink & drug abuse to be advertising them. I often wonder why these companies have to pay so much money for a ‘face’ when they could spend only a fraction of their money on a relative un-known. An idea would be for them to hire some random fella from the street telling everyone why the product is so good? Imagine some Kidda from ‘The Johns’ doing an advert for Pepsi: “Er, e ar Lid, buy dis Pepzi as it’ll get ye tool sucked by some rat at de back o’ de Aggies Labour club”. If that doesn’t make you rush out and buy a bottle of Pepsi, I don’t know what will!! Personally, I don’t touch such vulgar sugar-based products!! The biggest of all sell outs in rock music though has to be the mighty all-American Kiss. They basically sold everything ranging from dolls, ashtrays and I’m sure they even made Kiss Dildos available as well at some point!!! At the height of their fame they even did a low budget (other words for: shite) film that turned out to be utter hawk!! The film was that bad fans of the band did what every disgruntled youth of the late 70’s and early 80’s did and smashed their Kiss records in the street then set fire to them. These antics always baffled me as they could’ve at least waited for the emergence of Ebay and maybe make a few quid from them! The other most notable sell out had to be from Sigue Sigue Sputnik in the early eighties. They were the first band ever (and probably the only band still to date) to advertise a product, in this instance it was L’Oreal, in between songs on their debut album ‘Flaunt It’. Personally I couldn’t see the head of the L’Oreal Corporation’s marketing department keeping his job for much longer after taking that decision due to the fact that the band didn’t play their own instruments or even sung live (allegedly) Oh, and they were utter shit as well (fact)! There is another type of sell out in music: The Political Music Sell Outs! Anyone ever remember a band called Hooty and the Blowfish? They ‘ran’ with Bill Clinton during his election (I did say election then by the way) of 1996. after their ‘successful’ spell at Bill’s side I thought they should have changed their name to Hooty and the Blow-Job Fish in honour of Bangin’ Bill’s (alleged) affections for the fairer sex. They could have done a superb version of ‘Wham! Bam! Thank You Mam’ by The Small Faces to boot!! Eighties glam metal band Twisted Sister also went on the campaign trail with Arnie Schwarzenegger during his election as Governor of California belting out their ‘classic’ ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ in front of Arnie’s adoring crowd of voters. Hahaha, always made me laugh that as Arnie faced numerous protests from Gay Rights activists about his stance on gay marriages during his campaign trail. We’re not gonna take it (up the arse) would have been more appropriate don’t you think? Other American political sell outs include: Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and, er, Paris Hilton! Although the artists (and celebrities) in question will always come out with the usually bullshit of “really believing in this man/woman to lead our country to great things” Yeah yeah yeah, why don’t you tell us why you’re really doing it for mate? Ch-ching! As regards British music sell outs and politics does anyone remember D-ream? Do you really believe D-ream thought things were ‘gonna get better’ under Tony Blair’s New Labour? Er, I don’t think so, they couldn’t give a shit about his political ideology as they absolutely raked in the £££’s due to their song being used in the 1997 election. Things well and truly got better for them!! Pity the rest of the country didn’t receive such a fiscal boost to their incomes isn’t it? Right! … Proper Rant Time (Had a pretty bad week so …) Which brings me to British Supermarkets: Ah, supermarkets, everyone’s favourite place. And if you have believed what most adverts tell you, you have a pretty good chance of clashing trolleys with Richard Hammond or Denise Van Outen whilst out doing your weekly shop!! I’m surprised Richard Hammond wasn’t sitting in the kid’s seat anyway!!! Prick! Anyway, the one that really gets to me is that M&S advert with Take That and that bevy of busty babes cavorting around the house in they’re sweats! Totally fucking outrageous! Imagine going round to your Ma’s on Christmas day and you walk into the living room and Gary Barlow is banging the arse off Michael Essien’s bird underneath their Christmas tree? M&S Christmas or S&M Christmas? Either way, it’s never really gonna happen (unless your Take That, or course) is it? And it’s not as if Take That have enough frigging money in the first place is it? No! They have to go and rub it into the rest of us penniless bastards faces by spending Christmas in the afore mentioned house with a choice of outstanding birds queuing up to suck them off while they contemplate what jumper to wear for their Evening’s game of Charades!! Oh, and just to make matters worse: they even supply one of their songs for the Morrison’s advert!! Total bastards! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand breathe So, next time you go to Tesco, think about who you’ll vote for at the next election or wince at the sight of Lenny Henry arsing about in a certain low budget hotel chain’s bath with a rubber fucking duck, think about the money most of the above hard-working musicians/celebrities have earned for their days work and think to yourself: do they really need it? As you’re doing that think about this quote from the late, great and much missed Bill Hicks (who would be turning in his grave now had he witnessed the Take That M&S advert no doubt) … “Is anybody in here involved in marketing or advertising? … If so, kill yourself! I’m serious, kill yourself!” Mol