Posts tagged 'ethically speaking'

Singer/songwriter/ad man, Ben Birchall

Okay, I’ll admit it. I dance with the devil. He’s good looking, he pays for the drinks and he’s got the best record collection.

I’m a musician and I work in advertising.

But I’m on a dancefloor that’s fast filling as a new generation of musicians struggle to cope with a changing media landscape.

Advertising has always used music to sell. Waltzing Matilda was co-opted by Billy Tea in 1903. In the US, old-timey country radio shows were created by the sponsors, with popular musicians happily shilling the products. Like Hank Williams Snr on Mother’s Best Flour Show in 1951.

The idea of ‘selling out’ is largely a Baby Boomer construct. It would have been unheard of for Dylan to sell lingerie. Or the Beatles to sell sportswear. So they didn’t, at the time. But the boomers had the luxury of mass media culture and un-copyable records on their side. You could actually make money out of music.

Fast forward to 2010. Last week, the number one album on the ARIA charts sold 3600 copies. Music has become something we expect to own for nothing or stream for free. Add to that splintering audiences with the onset of digital TV and radio and it’s harder than ever to reach people. There’s no more Beatles on Ed Sullivan moments. Hell, there’s barely any Custard on Hey Hey It’s Saturday moments.

So our generation reaches the audience however it can. Little Red cash in on ANZ, Super Wild Horses get us into Bonds undies and Tame Impala check us into Crown.

Can we blame them? Impresarios with huge advances don’t knock on garage doors any more. But someone’s gotta pay for the studio. In my guise as an adman, I helped a friend place a song in a yoghurt ad I’d written. The money helped to pay for a home studio that he’s created three beautiful, homespun albums in. They might not exist without it.

The question is becoming not if, but how. You can do it well, as Radiohead showed us or you can do it horribly, as Jack White proved for Coke. It’s a matter of selecting what we endorse the same way we choose what we buy. But if musicians make music that’s true to them, however it’s consumed, they can make sure they’re leading and the devil’s following.

Ben Birchall is a musician and 3RRR Breakfaster who works in advertising. He is chairing Ethically Speaking: Advertising.

Over the weekend newspapers raged about racism in sport from AFL’s Robert ‘Dipper’ DiPierdomenico to rugby league’s Andrew Johns.

While statements about Aboriginal players have been seized by the press, there have been similar remarks about other races and the Australian’s Emma Tom pointed out the sexist nature of one slur.

The responses from both codes have been quick if limited. DiPierdomenico has been suspended as Auskick Ambassador with AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou commenting that DiPierdomenico’s statement was “stupid, ignorant and totally unacceptable”. While Demetriou called for players to “Start getting into the 21st century [and] conduct yourselves as normal human beings in a country that prides itself in welcoming people.”

The NRL was quick to remove Johns as assistant coach for the State of Origin but announced today that the disgraced player would be “invited to help promote anti-racism campaigns”. NSWRL general manager Geoff Carr believes “We have to move forward and it is important that Timana and Joey get together.”

Even actor and part owner of the South Sydney rugby league club, Russell Crowe has weighed into the debate. Crowe told the Perth Sunday Times he was proud of his club’s record on racism: “Apart from Aboriginal players we also have Maori, Samoan, Tongan, English [and] our football club chairman is Greek. At South Sydney we don’t care where you come from, we care about who you are.”

On Wednesday night the Wheeler Centre hosts Ethically Speaking: Sport, a forum on our athletes and their morality.