Aging Sprites & Rising Starrs
Fives on Friday 5/17/2024
Happy Friday!
I spend most nights in spring watching the National Basketball Association Playoffs, a tournament in which 15 teams valiantly try and prevent the despicable Boston Celtics from acquiring an 18th trophy. That’s simply too many trophies! Watching the NBA playoffs means watching a lot of basketball, as you’d expect. It also involves watching many, many advertisements. Actually, that’s a bit too grammatically vague. I haven’t watched many different ads. I’ve watched the same ads many, many times.
Is it just me or are there fewer ads in circulation on TV these days? Has the hyper-targeted data driven ad industry whittled down campaigns to only the most efficient and annoying nubs, or has my tolerance for marketing plummeted with age? Don’t the suits know that yet another trailer for Furiosa won’t change my behavior? I was already going to see Furiosa. You’ve got my money, stop wasting it! Other brands are not so lucky. The only thing that would make me buy a Google phone at this point is a signed contract declaring that they’ll never advertise again upon receiving my cash. And don’t even get me started on all of the gambling platforms that have clogged up airtime since the NBA started cozying up to Las Vegas in the last few years.
Even the ads that don’t infuriate me outright still suffer the fate of my sustained attention. One of the most frequent advertisers in basketball, and consequently one of the biggest recipients of my attention, is the lemon-lime soft drink Starry. Starry have spent the last few seasons of the NBA trying to win over the hearts and minds of soda drinking roundball enthusiasts. Other than their logo’s omnipresence on courts and ad-breaks I’ve seen no evidence of this media blitz on the real world, but I’m not Starry’s target demo. Being an artificially flavored carbonated beverage, Starry have their eyes set on children, teenagers, and college students in search of a cheap mixer. To that end, last year they rolled out a pair of colorful cartoon mascots, Lem and Lime, to yuck it up with celebrities and play out the “smart guy & dumb guy” routine so central to American advertising.
This year Starry have gotten bolder. No longer content to present themselves as merely an alternative to Sprite, Starry have begun insisting that they are the only lemon-lime flavored soda that matters. In one ad that debuted during the Superbowl and has since reliably played at least once per game during the NBA playoffs, Lem and Lime sit akimbo at the club next to Ice Spice, the cute-as-a-button New York rapper who went global last year. The young woman and her two cartoon companions are having a grand old time until they’re accosted by an older man dressed in yesterday’s idea of a young person’s outfit. The washed loser weeps and begs Ice Spice to come back to him. Though the logo on his shirt is obscured, it doesn’t take much savvy to fill in the blank. This man is Sprite incarnate. His fate all but confirms this. When Ice Spice refuses the man’s desperate advances, clear carbonated liquid erupts from the man’s pours in a comic display of sadness.
The gist of the ad is pretty straightforward: Sprite is old and busted, Starry is the new hotness. This is, incidentally, the storyline of the NBA playoffs so far. I’ve joked to the other 30-somethings that I watch basketball with that we’re experiencing The Twilight Of The Millennials. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Steph Curry, Chris Paul… all old enough to remember flip phones and all watching the rest of the playoffs from their presumably enormous couches. The only 90s kids left are the ones like Kyrie Irving that have hitched their wagon to ascendant zoomer superstars. This is the way of things in sports, of course. Players age out of the spotlight and younger players rush in to fill the void. Gradually the guys that used to be unknown wildcards in the tournament became familiar faces squaring off against a fresh batch of mysteries.
So yes, Starry are working with some pretty timeless material here, conceptually speaking. Still, the punchline to this Ice Spice spot is almost too perfectly calibrated for the current moment in pop culture. Who comes to mind when you picture a man who spends his time pining after younger women at the club and occasionally exploding into a mess of sticky soda? If you’ve been subjected to as much advertising as I have there’s a good chance the guy that comes to mind is Aubrey Drake Graham.
Yes, even Starry are getting in on it. As if the combined ire of Future, Metro Boomin, Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky, and Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar wasn’t enough, Drake has to take shit from a pair of anthropomorphic citrus fruits too. Given how central rap is to the NBA’s branding and how central the Kendrick Lamar vs Drake feud is to rap in 2024 I suppose it’s no surprise that the conflict would spill over into games. I’ve heard Lamar’s verses on “Like That” and “euphoria” play over highlights and the closing remarks of commentators throughout the playoffs. No one’s been nuts enough to drop “Meet The Grahams” on air yet, but hey, whole lot of game left.
Even though the corporate synergy between Drake’s comeuppance and Anthony Edwards calling Kevin Durant old on national TV makes sense the timing still feels real weird. Call it Room 237 syndrome: if you watch the same video enough times you’re bound to get at least *a little* conspiratorial. PepsiCo tacitly approving anti-Drake sentiment just before the rap world declared open season on OVO makes it hard to believe that the flare-up of hostility between Lamar and Graham is purely the product of organic sentiment. If this is all boardroom approved coordination from scandal averse mega-corps that only makes the beef’s most compelling mystery — why did Kendrick and Drake go nuclear now, after so many years of passive aggression — all the more juicy. Why is everyone getting out of the Drake business all at once? Did Kendrick pass by their offices whistling “The Farmer In The Dell”?1 Or does this mean that the FBI raids that Kendrick alluded to are no idle threat and that Drake really is a sex-trafficking pedophile? It would certainly behoove a family-friendly brand to make it clear what they do and don’t condone before the hammer falls in earnest.
The less conspiratorial explanation for this confluence is that it was simply time for Drake to get played off stage. After a decade plus of barraging the radio with hits from behind an impenetrable Canadian fortress, Pusha-T pulled Drake out into the open with “The Story of Adidon”. Without his plot armor Drake’s moves since have looked increasingly desperate. Emoji album art. TikTok “dance craze” bait. A sudden shift to house music. An equally sudden pivot back to rap on the coattails of a younger, cooler rapper. These are not the moves of an artist in control of the moment.
“But Ian,” you may object, “you’ve already admitted to not being in the soda drinking demographic. Surely that would disqualify you from judging whether Drake’s appeals to the youth are successful or not.” Look, I may be an adult with a refillable water bottle, but I used to be a pop-guzzling teen. Those days are still recent enough that I can remember what it was like to hear a rapper past their prime try to sound current. LL Cool J may have once been the hottest rapper alive, but when “Control Myself” dropped all that my high school buddies and I heard was a 38 year old man going “ZZZZ” in the club.
“But wait,” you may object again, “why isn’t Kendrick Lamar, who’s also on the wrong side of 35, subject to the same ticking clock?” Because Lamar has been playing the long game as an artist. He takes his time, makes records that, whether you like ‘em or not, are indisputably singular statements, and grapples with themes that make him a meaty subject for critics in the present and eventually in retrospect. At the cost of being difficult and corny in the moment, Kendrick Lamar secured his long term relevance.2
I’m not going to make any dramatic claims about Drake’s career being “finished”. A catalog like his is a luxury cruise liner not a sloop. By sheer inertia alone he’ll continue to rack up streams by the millions for the foreseeable future, even if he runs ashore. But it’s impossible to imagine that this concentrated blow hasn’t altered his trajectory. When the S.S. The Boy finally hits dry land it’ll likely drag itself all the way to the same golden tomb that the NBA has been coveting for the last half decade. Viva Las Vegas.
# # # # # The Self Promo Zone # # # # #
On June 1st I’m playing drums for Fictiones, a new band led by Dan Rico. We’re playing at Kaleidoscope Gallery in Ridgewood as part of a massive multi-media spectacle including sculptures, puppetry, dance performances, poetry readings, apparently even food?? It sounds like a real hoot.
Since I just spent the whole introduction to this letter talking about advertising I’m going to take this week off from telling you about my new album, The Lonely Atom, out now via Furious Hooves & People | Places records. I wouldn’t want to overexpose you to the record’s unique blend of alternative metal, indie rock, and electronic pop music. God, it’d just break my heart if you got sick of listening to these 11 songs about alienation and the desire for connection in an increasingly mediated world. I won’t even mention that you can hear them right now on your streaming platform of choice or on my bandcamp page until next week. That should give you some time to cool off.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Here are five songs that I enjoyed listening to recently! You can find a playlist with all of this year’s tracks at the bottom of this section.
“Συμμιαινόμεναι Διονύσῳ Ἐλευθέριῳ” by Hoplites (Paramainomeni, 2024)
The last time I covered the one-man Chinese extreme metal act Hoplites in this newsletter I focused exclusively on the project’s intensity. This track is still plenty intense, but Hoplites brought a lot more to the table this time around. If last year’s records were a single continuous scream, Paramainomeni is an essay of grammatically sound rhetoric, albeit still delivered at throat-shredding volume. Sound grammar can still be surprising. I certainly didn’t see a three way dual between saxophone, synthesizer, and guitar solos closing off this tune when it started.
“Recuerdos De Mi Tierra” by Mezquita (Recuerdos De Mi Tierra, 1979)
Part of the reason I’ve been listening to so much salsa lately is that I’m trying to listen to more music in Spanish in general. This means I’m also listening to a lot of Prog en Español, because of course I am. While I’m trying to focus on bands from South America, I’m not opposed to some European acts if they get sufficiently wild with it, which Mezquita certainly do. They’re like Yes if they grew up on North African jazz instead of British folk music, which might literally be the case since Mezquita are from Andalucía. Those chromatic inflections let these players run all over the fretboards. Great playing all around.
“Sube a Nacer Conmigo Hermano” by Los Jaivas (Alturas de Machu Pichu, 1981)
On the subject of South American prog rock, here’s a jamming track from Chile. Apparently the whole record is an adaptation of the Pablo Neruda poem of the same name. This track is a waltz at the speed of a whirlwind. Most of it is on the folkier side, but once the guitar solo erupts out of the arrangement halfway through the band never lets up again.
“Que Se Puede Hacer Salvo Ver Peliculas” by La Maquina De Hacer Pájaros (Peliculas, 1977)
You ever hear of the Argentine rock star Charly Garcia? I’ll admit that I’m only wikipedia-level familiar with him myself, but holy cow what a wikipedia page. His first band Sui Generis hasn’t clicked with me yet, and I haven’t taken a serious pass at his later solo stuff, but this short lived side project bowled me over. The whole album gets the coveted Lamniformes Seal Of Approval, but this was the track that hooked me. The first half almost sounds like a take on Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” but the second half goes full prog. I’ve been humming the big melody that ends this tune to myself all week.
“Down The Dolce Vita” by Peter Gabriel (Peter Gabriel, 1977)
Speaking of guys that sang for prog rock bands before going solo in the 80s, let’s check back in with our old friend Peter Gabriel. Though I think the third self-titled record is probably Gabriel’s best, I respect how all-out he went with his solo debut. I mean, what even is this song? Orchestral disco? Prog ‘Eye of the Tiger’? What’s with the “Auld Lang Syne” interpolation? The work of someone with no one left to keep him from being fully himself.
\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /
Here are five micro reviews from my high school and college CD collection. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories back in late 2020, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links so that you can actually hear the music instead of just taking my word for it.
The All Star Sessions by Roadrunner United (2005) - Metal (mostly)
Members of the Roadrunner Records roster both past and present mix and match to write a new album of originals. It’s a serious who’s who of metal circa 2005, including a lot of folks who have already shown up in these micro reviews. A very cool concept for a record. The music is pretty cool, but the real draw is the making of DVD. The behind the scenes footage made working on music in the studio look like the coolest job in the world, very inspiring to 15 year old Ian.
S&M by Metallica (1999) - Metal
Double disc live album recorded with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Perfect for proving to your classical music loving parents that the devil noise you listen to is “real art” lol. I love that they turned “Call of Ktulu” into a Bond theme, and generally any time the french horns kick in this rules. Some weird set list decisions, though. The Load/Reload material is a strange fit. Sometimes the mix can be a bit cacophonous. Still, a cool novelty in the Metallica catalog.
Black Holes & Revelations by Muse (2006) - Rock
I bought this when I was so desperate for more Radiohead that I’d listen to any band that people told me sounded like them. I quickly learned that Muse have nothing in common with Radiohead. They are a pop rock act built out of spare prog parts. I find the way they mix deeply conspiratorial lyrics with an almost Disney-ish romanticized version of “resistance” to be a bit disconcerting. It’s a very YA novel kind of vibe. Explains their popularity, and my disinterest. I like “Knights of Cydonia” because it reminds me that Muse’s singer is related to the guy that wrote “Telstar”.
Ashes of the Wake by Lamb of God (2004) - Metal
This is probably going to go down as the definitive American metal album about the Iraq war. Doesn’t have much to say about the why’s behind the war, and it’s perspective on its consequences are limited to the experiences of American soldiers. Sort of like Kathryn Bigalow movie as a metal record. It was a big deal. Lamb of God are all about precision. The compressed 00s sound actually works to their advantage by turning the whole band into an extended rhythmic instrument. Hardly any lead melodies, just a constant churning, like tank treads. An essential metal record from this era.
Sacrament by Lamb of God (2006) - Metal
By this point Lamb of God were already a huge band, but record still felt like it was aimed at an even wider audience. I remember thinking it was a major step down at the time. It really isn’t all that different from their previous stuff, though they have added more keys and the vocal production is fancier than their early albums. I think this is more a case of diminishing returns than selling out. Its a decent metal record, nothing special but well executed.
If you’re a white guy and you watch too much NBA basketball you inevitably start comparing things to The Wire, I guess.
There are plenty of other factors behind Lamar’s victory, from Drake’s tactical errors to the racial politics of mainstream rap, which Justin Charity and Jayson Buford and addressed far better than I could.