The sell-out of Mr Jarvis Cocker continues. The Sainsbury's ad I half-caught out of one eye I think was slightly different. From what I can remember, it had a guy led in bed at night lamenting that his dream of opening a cocktail bar on some tropical beach somewhere (what a thoroughly hackneyed idea) had never come to fruition. Is it possible Jarv's done a series of these ads?
And so, just when I thought being able to possess a Never Mind The Bollocks-themed Virgin credit card signalled the end of the world as we know it, he goes and does this. Good god, what the hell is he thinking? I could just about cope with that ad he did back in the 90's (was it for Nike?) The Eurostar one? Well, fair enough, he probably uses the service quite frequently. But Sainsbury's. One of Britain's cornerstones of rampant capitalism and consumerism. Notwithstanding it's slightly snobby reputation (common people definitely not welcome here), this would be the same Sainsbury's that's also jeopardising the entire ecosystem of the Antarctic by sourcing vitamin supplements from krill oil, would it? Now heartily endorsed by a man who only a few years ago took a trip to the very same spot to the see the damage that we in the western world are doing to it. Does he now care not a jot for his integrity or reputation? And if he really needs the money badly enough to do something like this (which I seriously doubt) at the very least make it entertaining and original. Or for something he cares passionately about. (I don't know why but something like Werther's Originals sweets sprang instantly to my mind.) Advertising Sainsbury's in this way is neither inspired nor worthwhile. And on hearing the idol of my adolescence whispering in hushed tones at the ad's end, 'Sainsbury's: Live Well For Less' (or whatever vacuous marketing bullshit they use these days) a little piece of me just died. In the words of the man himself: 'F*** the morals, does it make any money?' I couldn't have put it better myself.
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'Wasting all my time on all those stupid things that only get me down...'
I assume this must be it, I haven't seen it on the telly, but since the advent of iplayer I don't see much in the way of TV ads any more, even ITV edits them out on its replay service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbIYP3M3X8c
John Peel did loads of adverts, had a very distinctive voice and all that. It's a bit of an animal was my favourite. Iggy Pop is selling car insurance of all things. He brought that up in his lecture last year, and his logic was that if he had an income from stuff like that, he didn't have to concern himself with whether any more artistic activities were commercially viable or not, he could just do what he felt like. At least the ad agency were with it enough to concoct the narrative that Iggy has far better things to do than spend his life organising car insurance - their selling point is that theirs is meant to be really simple to arrange. Then there's the "I can't believe it's Johnny Rotten selling butter" adverts. I think it's too easy to get worked up about these things. There are many commercial organisations in our world that have to make their livings and provide employment and services we all need and advertising seems to be necessary for them to get business, much as I hate being bombarded with it everywhere. And we even remember a few of the more entertaining ones years later. I like Sainsbury's, have always shopped there cos they're nice and friendly and I hate Tesco's with a deep loathing. I can't say I have ever heard of the issue about vitamin supplements and krill, but there are an awful lot of things that go on that are far from ideal and keeping up with all of them is pretty impossible. We are all part of a global system with loads of things wrong with it, but unless you opt out completely and go and live in a cave, you have to go along with it to some extent and try to work towards cultural shifts in attitudes. And you find that many issues are rather more complicated than we might like to admit when you get into it. Though to be honest, vitamin supplements seem like one of those things that are totally unnecessary for any healthy person with a decent diet, I'm sure there are some medical conditions where they are important. Like bottled water, another completely unnecessary product. As I usually say at this point, it's not pushing heroin to 11 year olds.
This is Jarvis singing a Ewan MacColl song, The Battle is Done, at the start of Radio 3's Late Junction from a couple of weeks ago, 10 days left on iplayer. It is from a collection of songs by many singers commemorating the centenerary of MacColll's birth. The programme said there is going to be a CD at the end of October and live shows in November. I seem to remember Jarvis did some event relating to this in Glasgow earlier in the year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06fvjj5
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We'll use the one thing we've got more of, that's our minds.