2 MusicWeek 12.07.13 NEWS


I’m not really sure it’s Justified EDITORIAL


“AND IT JUST SAYS... ‘DRINK COKE’.” There is an unrepeatable, searingly accurate riff on the ultimate


television ad campaign by the late comedian Bill Hicks, in which he unrelentingly mocks the so-called boundary-pushing shenanigans of the increasingly sexualised marketing industry. He illustrates an hypothetical, unapologetically explicit tableau in which a young, attractive female is strategically positioned within your TV screen, allowing males everywhere to gawp candidly at all her deity gave her - complete with soullessly rehearsed coquettish expression. Cue the killer line. Hicks’ largely unstated argument via this bracing, madly plausible image is simple enough: if advertisers are going to debase the practical lure of their product with teasing smut, they may as well go the whole hog and stick their brand on a shameless skin flick. It’s 90% forecast, 10% humour - a sniggering view onto the inevitable cheapening of consumerism set to befall those myopically and constantly chasing profit. I hadn’t watched this calmly incandescent bit of stand-up for


about ten years until this week, when a certain nonsensical music video brought it all rushing back. JT, here’s looking at you.


“There is really no need for pop music to mix with explicit porno. It makes us look a little seedy, and a heck of a lot desperate”


If you haven’t seen it, the new promo for Justin Timberlake’s


Tunnel Vision (and let’s just avoid the conversation about whether that title is itself born in sub-Viz innuendo) features loads of naked tits. No context, no relevance, no need. Despite this soft-grotathon subsequently being plastered on YouTube with every marketeer’s dream ADHD-milking label - EXPLICIT! EXPLICIT! - you’d struggle to find it genuinely obscene. We live in the age of constantly accessible, 24-hour porn. If a shadowy areola leaves you itching to call Points Of View, good luck with The Future, sunshine. The only genuine fibre of offensiveness JT’s effort twangs is perhaps the very clear and present one of female objectification. But if we’re going to start down that road, I’m going to need to call on about 25% of all music hits ever - and grab a few more pages. No, I’m not angry, Justin - just disappointed. For between yourself


and Robin ‘anthem of the summer’ Thicke - whose video for is-it-not- a-bit-rapey smash Blurred Lines is also needlessly nippletastic - the 2013 pop music industry is starting to look a little seedy, and a heck of a lot desperate. Both of these promos are brazen, calculated playground conversation-starters; conversations about songs, about stars, and, crucially, about where one should download. It’s a promotional tactic older than the Mickey Mouse Club itself. But I’m uncomfortable, because (i) this isn’t sensuality, sexuality


or even erotica mixed with music - it’s Razzle-under-the-mattress porno, casting an as-yet-unseen craven taint onto this industry; and (ii) because I still believe pop to be the most powerful, democratic and instantly accessible artform. Crossing the lines (the Blurred Lines?) with grubby ol’ porn can only ever impair that argument. The videogames industry pushed a diet of Lynx-soaked tits’n’guns marketing onto teens for decades. Now it struggles to convince the adult world it’s grown up. I for one hope pop music isn’t tumbling in the opposite direction. Sheesh. Rant over. Anyone else fancy a Coke?


Tim Ingham, Editor Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing tim.ingham@intentmedia.co.uk


Metropolis mirrors Motown model


INVESTORS NAMED, BRENCHLEY SAYS ‘FUTURE’S BRIGHT’ STUDIOS


Metropolis MD Carla Maroussas and CEO Ian Brenchley


M


etropolis has rebranded following its much talked-about company


restructure, and says its recently- launched brand partnerships division is bearing good results. The company, which operates


out of its West London recording studio premises, has attracted three investors since changing its setup in May, when its management placed former trading company Metropolis Group Limited (MGL), into administration. The MGL business and its assets were successfully transferred to Metropolis London Music Ltd (MLML), the group’s holding company. CEO Ian Brenchley told Music


Week that one investor in the firm was Metropolis chairman, Adam Freeman - a former executive director of Guardian News and Media. Another of Metropolis’s investors has been revealed as entrepreneur Kainne Clements, whilst the third remains unknown. As well as its four recording studios and famous mastering services, the company houses a creative agency and a production department, as well as artist services (publishing, sync, management) and events divisions - plus the brand partnerships team. It recently relaunched its website at thisismetropolis.com. “There’s not a brand in


London worth knowing that Adam Freeman doesn’t know,” said Brenchley. “If you’re a brand and you want to create some


www.musicweek.com


music content, we should be the No.1 place in London for you.” Brenchley said that


Metropolis brings a modern twist to the classic all-in-one model of Motown or Chess Records, as well as offering clients a “fully- fledged media services facility”. He used the example of the Justice Collective’s Christmas 2012 No.1 single He Ain’t Heavy (He’s My Brother), which has so far raised £350,000 for the families of the Hillsborough Disaster. “We recorded, mixed and


mastered that track here, plus we made the video and commercially released the final single on our own label,” he said. “It proved a very cost-efficient


way to create content; an end-to- end solution like Chess and Motown used to do - just with an amazing, huge studio facility at our disposal.” Recent brand partnership successes at Metropolis have included its work with Coca- Cola on the drinks brand’s


Olympic Sessions, which invited visitors to ‘experience every stage of the recording process’ in Metropolis, where Mark Ronson and Katy B recorded Coca-Cola track Move To The Beat. “The dust is still settling on


the restructure,” added Brenchley. “We’re striving to honour as many of our suppliers’ arrears as possible. That’s going well.” Brenchley said the recent


injection of investment into the business had given Metropolis the “ability to invest in content for all aspects of the industry”, adding that big deals were set to be revealed in the live and media sectors with companies “very well known to the music business”. He added: “Metropolis is


a premier creative home for talent. With new investors, a new direction, new branding, a new website and fresh cash in the business - whilst leveraging our 24 years of fantastic sonic excellence - things are looking bright.”


Sony promotes Savill and Barnabas


Sony Music UK has promoted Phil Savill to VP of marketing and Simon Barnabas to marketing director of the Commercial Group (CG). The promotions are in


recognition of an increase in sales for the Sony Music CG label over the past year, from


diverse projects including Keep Calm & Relax, The Trevor Nelson Collection, The War Of The Worlds, Voices, E-D-M, Chilled R&B, #HolidayAnthems, Michael Jackson, Honey Honey and Eddie Stobart Trucking Songs,


along with 400k+ sellers from Neil Diamond and Live Lounge 2013. The Sony Music CG label has also successfully partnered with Ministry Of Sound for compilations and, following its recent 50% acquisition, the Now! That's What I Call Music brand.


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