I’ve seen others recently, but the two I saw today are a Capital One commercial and a Progressive commercial.
In the first, the Capital One guy is talking to a couple of people. He is asked what he does for fun, and he does not know what to say. Then, they cut to him getting ready to sleep at the bank.
Another is the Progressive commercial where Flo talks with another woman about vacations. The other woman doesn’t seem to know what a vacation is. Flo begins describing what one is. In the end, she says she doesn’t really know, gives up, and says she’s never been on one either.
I was thinking about them while driving and came to the title thought.
The propaganda goes deep. Listen to country song lyrics, and what they are actually saying, convincing working class people to keep working, and buy alcohol, and not question reality.
As recently as the 90s you had mainstream country acts releasing songs like “Pass it on Down” and “We Shall Be Free”
And they got a ton of play on the radio. The former hit number 3 on the billboard country charts. The latter hit number 12 on the country charts.
Then again, the lackluster performance of “We Shall Be Free,” particularly considering the megastardom of Garth Brooks at the time, was due to some stations boycotting it for the line “when we’re free to love anyone we choose.”
But even then, there wasn’t a massive company that owned most of the radio dial back then, so boycotts had limited influence.
as an amateur musician, #12 does not feel lackluster. #100 feels like a life goal.
It’s low for Garth Brooks in the 90’s, but I get what you’re saying.
the height of my musical career was either getting paid in tacos instead of money or getting paid in spaghetti instead of money.
i’m not complaining, i fucking love tacos. and spaghetti (though i’m more partial to cavatappi) i’m just trying to give a sense of what skill level amateur musician i am.
Somehow I’m not surprised that the music genre attributable to poor rural white folk is heavy on boot licking, especially considering how many voted for Trump.
Country music is just as commercial as any other music these days. Nashville is a machine that pumps out corporate friendly garbage.
It’s striking how much better country was when they had class consciousness
Edit: no pun intended
Tyler Childers gets it. You just gotta stay away from the shit that airs on the radio.
Well you had songs like Sixteen Tons, what else am I missing?
Oh, so many! Check out Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Sixteen tons was written by Merle Travis, who’s got a bunch of other great music as well.
were those country (was that even a genre back then idk) or “folk”? I mean i think of the Guthries as folk musicians now, but i missed their heyday.
Tbh, I think they started early enough that it all still fell under the same umbrella, but folk, bluegrass and country gradually diverged between the 40-60s
i should ask my brother he plays “americana not country” whatever that means.
Isnt Americana new age folk music?
I don’t think it’s propaganda. The music and the ads too are just trying to do a “fellow kids” move, and that’s what they’re seeing. Because that’s what we’ve become.
It’s like seeing a mirror and getting spooked by how disheveled the person in it looks.
Don’t judge me! I turned the camera app on, and didn’t realize it was going to start with the front facing camera! I got spooked!
And drive their trucks on the highway