Last night after 6 people took one cab from Perry’s roof to Brightest Young Things, silbatron was lost in a single cab and passed bright lights and a red carpet warehouse party on 14th. Later we crashed the party and had a blast. The picture below of Jesus 2, deserves a detailed recounting of an unsolicited dance floor confession to one shocked E =Wsq, but it is better told over a pint, and in a setting where the language can be fully appreciated. You can read fellow crasher Bassik’s write up here and my photos here…

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The Coke Wars as Analogy for Presidential Candidate Branding

If you don’t remember New Coke, it’s probably because you weren’t kicking it in 1985 (also you should check out Wham’s ‘Careless Whisper’). The short synopsis is “Coca-Cola’s original drinks market share had been shrinking fast, from 60% just after World War II to under 24% in 1983, in the face of fierce competition from arch rival Pepsi-Cola…as more consumers showed a preference for sweeter drinks, [Pepsi]” and as a result Coke tried to reinvent itself as a sweeter drink. Instead of introducing a sweeter version under a name like Coke Zero, they stopped selling the original Coke formula altogether, and instead sold a new formula under the same name.

This “New Coke” was a huge failure and was abandoned after 77 days. The failure was a surprise to the company because overwhelmingly people preferred the new coke to old Coke and Pepsi in taste tests. It seems people rejected the new iteration of a classic brand, and were sometimes actually hostile to the idea of a new version of an old brand. In the south, people actually poured the new coke in streets in protest.

In the presidential primary, Barrack Obama is a new comer dominating a market held by a party and family over the last decade. He is Pepsi. The Clintons are coke, an outdated brand trying to reestablish dominance by serving the needs of voters. In response to Obama, Hilary has attempted to co-opt everything people like about his campaign, i.e. change, and like New Coke’s launch, the result has been a massive failure demonstrated by a string of primary defeats.

First, some small examples of HRC co-opting the Obama campaign’s message: Sen. Obama says, “Yes We Can,” she counters “We are a Can Do country;” He remarks, “It’s time for a change,” she pivots, “I have the experience to bring about change;” and then she hands out change signs at her rallies.

Taking the next logical step, Edwards is Clear Pepsi….just kidding.

It should be noted, however, that after reintroducing the original formula and abandoning New Coke, Coke was able to usurp Pepsi and become the number one soda again. Coca- Cola was able to remind people of their significance and reasons why they used to buy the drink, and perhaps Clinton’s brand vacillation will ultimately help her in the remaining primaries by reminding voters of the 90s.

Both the NYT and Boston Globe spent the weekend trashing the state of hip-hop, which like the recent coverage of the music industry’s decline purports that as the larger business model flails to survive the digital era, the quality of music suffers. Sorry, I don’t buy that the absence of Puffy like superstars damn the future of hip-hop. In fact this year, several albums stand out, and are included below.  The artists themselves offer some compelling reasons as to why major label efforts fail, and why tycoon rappers like Puffy may have ruined the game. 

Lupe, The Cool. Innovative, irreverent lyrics coupled with solid production. More in line with the native tongue artists of early 90s fame and in-line with Gil Scott-Heron, the poet and funk musician who many credit for fathering political hip-hop, and who once served as a clarion call for progressive intellectuals, pushing for environmental and social conciseness.

Best Line: “and im mouthless which means im soundless, now as far as the hearing i found it, it was as far as the distance from the earing to the ground is”

Jay – Z, American Gangster. Five years ago, I could have cared less to pick up a jay-z album – but he has grown as an artist and I eagerly await each new album, mostly because he is one of the few artists creating releases where tracks contextually build a whole greater than a series of singles. Who else would prevent Itunes from selling the album track-by-track and force listeners to discover hidden gems like “Ignorant Shit”.

Best Line: “there all actors looking at themselves in ther mirror backwards cant even face themselves, don’t fear no rappers they’re all wierdoes Diniro’s in practice, so dont believe everything your earlobes capture it’s mostly backwards.”

GhostFace, Fishscale.  Artists like P-funk, Outkast and Sun-ra  have all pushed their respective genres into the area of science fiction and outer-space towards the end of their careers.  As people long for the return of the Wu-Tang, Ghostface breaks new ground by turning inward, instead of outward, focusing on the crack game in such a militant fashion that it’s code, habits and culture become lampooned and ludicrous, framed in a comic book style. Skits refer to Tony’s girl as Mrs. Sweetwater in a Dick Tracy radio show from the 30s. It feels like a later p-funk album with its own unique obscure terminology. 

Best Lines: “Paranoid as a motherfucker right now, who the fuck?
Close the blinds and shit! Who that? Captain Kirk?
The stark…enterprise, enterprise I was on and some shit?
..I need some, though I’m ready for a catwoman or something”

Here is a good example of Scott-Heron.