earsucker

And now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger,
But we kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger – Ke$ha, 2009

The era of caring about authenticity in one’s pop music is long over. I came of age in the era of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, however, so forgive my naivety…

To the casual observer it would appear that Mick Jagger is having a dynamite year. A band called Maroon 5 has an absurdly popular and catchy song called “Moves like Jagger”. . Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Lopez have put out a truly horrible video actually featuring Mick Jagger. My puzzlement at the fact that someone would put something like that out started me thinking. These songs aren’t a touching homage to one of the grand masters of pop. They are a public relations campaign.

Mick Jagger has a new project, a group called SuperHeavy. In order to sell a new endeavor, he has to reach beyond the elderly crowd that can afford a three figure ticket to the Rolling Stones. So someone at his label has put together a marketing plan. Product placement is not new, but the product placement of a sexagenarian rock star is novel. It is also more involved than putting a Sprite can in the background of a Britney Spears video. It has to be art by committee. The Maroon 5 effort looks like it has something like an artistic vision. The second video, on the other hand, probably had a base-line and a computer graphics team before they went looking for demographically appropriate singers to record for it.

Allow me to emphasize that this is all speculation. The UK doesn’t really have free speech anymore, and I’d prefer not to be hit with a libel suit the next time I’m in London. So to repeat, no assertions of truth, this is purely speculation.

Is it that far-fetched though? Mick Jagger’s label for the SuperHeavy project is the Universal Music Group. Will.i.am’s label is Interscope, which is owned by the Universal Music Group. Maroon 5’s label is A/M Octone Records, whose parent company is…. The Universal Music Group.

Huh.

Rob Morris is a great dancer and a Libertarian. He posts videos as the More Freedom Foundation.