Corporate Music - How to Compose with no Soul

[guitfnky]

liked his videos at first, but it soon became clear he has a thinly-veiled 'my opinion is right, therefore if you don't agree, yours is invalid' sort of attitude. smart guy--and funny--but a bit of a jerk, IMO.

anyhoo, I think the idea that advertising music should have some sort of life to it is a bit absurd on its face. most advertising is a soulless endeavor in the first place. they're sometimes trying to sell something worthwhile (for me, ads about helping animals are very effective), but the vast majority of the time, they're trying to convince people of a need that isn't real (oh, I need to be able to lock my Buick from my cell phone--useful, sure, but hardly necessary, and good lord, I hope not soul-stirring). why should anyone expect music with soul to accompany such hollow endeavors?

but it would be weird to have ads without music. so here we are.

that's part of the beauty of any art form--it can be as meaningful, or meaningless as you like. you can say Thomas Kinkade paintings are soulless, but they serve a purpose, for many. how is commercial music any different? why should it be?

if you want to rail against soulless music, I say go at it in the arena where it (arguably) does the most damage--pop culture. there's plenty of soulless pop out there that's huge one day, and forgotten the next. I'd rather see a world where popular music is vibrant and soulful than one where the music in...freaking commercials is.

[SoulState]

Reasons in no particular order:
1. Because they just are.
2. Bono

3. and that time everyone in the world found they had a U2 album conveniently deposited in their iTunes folder without asking for it. How thoughtful

[Proboscis]

One field where music still can play an elevated role, is in good movies or TV-series. There, a symbiotic thing can appear and an ok song can be uplifted by an good movie, and an ok movie can come better off with a really interesting soundtrack.

I went to the cinema last week to see 'Joker'. Apart from being a very beautiful, dark & powerful film, the incidental music was truly incredible. Apart from a few commercial songs scattered around, the original score is orchestral. Composed by Icelandic Cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir

As much as you or I might be moved by such a score, would it have the same conscious impact on people who are not musicians, or for that matter anyone who doesn't have the ability to appreciate music beyond top 40 hits ?

I guess what I'm getting at here is that one of the highest grossing films for some time will unlikely change the way many people consume music.

[Proboscis]

HELL YEAH!!!!! The revolution will NOT be televised.

Oh and we have a Gil Scott-Heron reference. Bravo, sir

"The Revolution will not go better with Coke"

[MrFigg]

HELL YEAH!!!!! The revolution will NOT be televised.

Oh and we have a Gil Scott-Heron reference. Bravo, sir

"The Revolution will not go better with Coke"

Well done yourself

[Yonatan]

Would be more interesting if the video took it a bit further, and investigate if the going nowhere music used in empty advertisement videos, made impact on the pop music. If using of sponsors for artists impact their music etc.
Now only example is U2 without further analysis.
I hope he would elaborate more. Now is more pointing to something obvious. The corporate music is lame or bombastic clisches and goes nowhere furrher than trying to compell us to buy something. yes, we all know that and dont expect anything comprehensive.

So, does these many many video ads with simular background music templates, impact producers and artists the otherway around?

How does corporate dominated world impact the way we listen to and produce music?

We all know of the tendency to fall into 120 bpm 4/4, in the key of C, starting with drumloops etc.

Before the DAW revolution, we where a bit less nudged to the same kind of sounds and forms.
Different bands copied eachothers guitar riffs or sounds of drums etc. Still it differed a bit because of small variations of analog and human hand.

But then came the synths, drum machines and sequencers, being able to replace more and more of human differences.

And now we are going in towards an AI world.
Maybe this will take us back to more human feel again? The AI gets more human than the machines been hithereto.
Imagine jamming together with both human and AI players, where they listen and respond to eachother. AI that actually listen and behaves like an studio musician. As now we can program with human feel, but not really play live yet in an intelligent way.

[kitekrazy]

I don't waste time with these since they are a dime a dozen. To sum it up the average listener is stupid when it comes to quality music. Yet they buy the stuff. The rest of us buy DAWs, countless plugins, samples, instruments, in hope of persuading the stupid listener that they need to stop listening to crap. Sometimes I tend to envy the former.

[kitekrazy]

No soul - vaguest term in music. People say that about dance genres but they forget that it's not about this soul thing but for people to dance to.

[kitekrazy]

Hey man, I've done corporate music. My only regret is not making more!

It puts money in the pocket and food in the plate so... Frak it!

Fun video, he makes fun with the bread and butter of the thing!

Oh no not a tip from Real World 101!