A guest blog by My Chemical Toilet‘s Stuart Waterman…
You probably think you’re so cool and selective in what you listen to that you’ve never heard The Script’s music. You are wrong.
Do you listen to the radio? You have heard The Script. Do you watch television? You have heard The Script. Do you visit the shops occasionally? You have heard The Script. Do you burrow under the ground in the middle of the night in order to find nice, plump, pink wriggly worms to stick up your bum for sexual thrills? You have heard The Script.
You might not know what any of their songs are called, but you’ll recognise them. They’re tunes for people who think Snow Patrol‘s Chasing Cars was a bit too hard-edged. The Script are the latest in a procession of bands who you suspect record music specifically to soundtrack lachrymose scenes from American TV dramas. See also The Fray.
Now, there is an interesting discussion to be had about this phenomenon, and indeed Observer Music Monthly featured such an article recently. Are TV soundtracks the new radio? Is a 20-second spot on House worth more than repeated plays on The Box?
This is not the place to continue that discussion, however. This is the place to slate The Script’s aural boregasms, and the fact they’re helping to usher in a depressingly cynical new age of music video.
As if The Script were not already the worst thing ever – and don’t forget, they are – they’ve now teamed up with the soulless coin-fellating mercenaries behind Clikthrough. Clikthrough is a technology which takes a music video and allows brands to advertise within it, vomiting up clickable links to buy, say, that amazing ‘ethnic’ scarf your favourite pop star is sporting or the shiny Desert Eagle revolver being brandished by your gangsta rapper of choice. It’s kind of like what Pop-Up Video would have resembled if Saatchi and Saatchi had produced it.
Clikthrough has predictably provoked shrieks of anger from music purists, naked cartwheels from marketing folk, and resigned sighs of “what took them so long?” from those who sit somewhere between the two.
One can’t help wondering how long it took Clikthrough to settle on The Script as their first ‘artist’ to partner with. Did they try Snow Patrol first? Coldplay? Or did they spy up-and-coming beige rockers The Script and realise that if the band was willing to make music that commercial and undemanding, it would be a cinch to get them to act as a singing Argos catalogue?
It wouldn’t be overly surprising if Clikthrough’s model becomes the norm, as ways of squeezing cash out of music become more elusive. And if it does, we’ll probably get used to it ? but if we don’t, we’ll always have it as an extra weapon with which to beat The Script. Not that we really need one.
This has been a guest blog by the unstoppably talented Stuart Waterman from My Chemical Toilet. Go there now. But then come back when you’re done.
Tom J says
So where are we actually going to find these advert-laden videos? Because it sounds to me like the sort of thing we’d see on Hecklerspray as a “Sponsored Article”. Just saying.
Thomas says
I find it funny that you dog out Clikthrough, because they are only answering the time honored question of where can i get that. The best part is, if you dont want to clik you dont have too. Just watch a video if you always did and if you want to learn more about something you do, not like you have to buy.
Fans like us that love our artists want to know more, its just a better way to make videos.