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Tim McGraw and Def Leppard Serves Up The Crap

April 19th 2008 in From where I sit

I’m here watching my defending champ Spurs open the first round of playoffs againt the Pheonix Suns (spurs won in double overtime, YOW!) and the Tim McGraw and Def Leppard video for their co-written song “Nine Lives” comes on before the commercial.

First off, I’m floored that the NBA continues to display their utter disregard to, or ignorance of, their demographic by placing artists to perform songs in the playoffs that are more at home in the NFL demo (Tom Petty) or viewers of the daytime squawk-fest The View (Rob Thomas.)

Sure the song is crap, it’s fluff, it’s clown music and ridiculous to the ears to anyone that knows either country or rock music, but the thing that amazed me was how well it fits into the soft-rock MuzikMafia sound that is being cloned in Nashville these days. It was a like the fundamental elements that are usually fused into mediocre product were separated on stage into their separate elements of soft-pop-rock and soft-pop country.

Now I get why “artists” like Bon Jovi are heading over the the country side of the fence, the building blocks are not all that different. All instruments on 11, calculated hooks, trite imagery of god, country and family or idiotic lyrics that only drunken crackers can love (my personal favorite song when I’m a drunk cracker is Sweet Home Alabama.)

It’s all formula folks, like making Big Macs. Apply to any passable singer with a carefully tailored and sanctioned image, feed it to corporate radio, music television and complicit web sites , cross pollinate to the corporations other media holdings and off you go.

Want fries with that?

5 comments to...
“Tim McGraw and Def Leppard Serves Up The Crap”

John
wrote on April 21st, 2008

EXACTLY. Nuff said.

Bill
wrote on May 4th, 2008

You are an idiot – Johnny Cash did the same thing – the song rocks and I give it to Tim McGraw for such an expansive horizon. He treats Faith like a queen and obviously for us 40 somethings playing with a band who have sold 360 million albums worldwide as well as promoting it in a sports show such as the NBA is completely awesome. Take a pill and listen to “Photograph” – now Nuff said.

Baron Lane
wrote on May 4th, 2008

Bill, your sweet to say so, but I don’t recall Johnny Cash recording with recoding with a warmed over hair band, but if you could refresh my memory of the event I’m all ears. Recording with Def Leppard expansive? I bet you think Will Smith is aggressively urban.

I would have to take pills to listen to the crappy “Photograph.” If I’m going to play Def Leppard it’ll be “Bringing on the Heartache”

Tommy in louisville
wrote on August 4th, 2008

Def leppard are not and never have been a hairband. They were established long before the hairband movement and outlasted it by 20years and counting. By the way its heartbreak not heartache. Rick allens brother is tims road manager and thats how the collaberation came about..nothing calculated about it. rock on def leppard..the greatest and biggest selling and most popular band in history.

Baron Lane
wrote on August 4th, 2008

I stand corrected on the song title Tommy, but after High and Dry Def leppard became a hair band. Longevity has nothing to do with it, Poison, Cinderella and Ratt are still releasing music and touring. And to say the collaberation wasn’t “calculated” is like saying that Google and Apple made a deal because Steve Jobs played ultimate Frisbee with Eric E. Schmidt. It might have greased the wheels, but it is a (bad) calculated business move.

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