After spending years pretending music downloading would go away, and then applying the ‘use a sledgehammer to crack a nut’ approach, the music biz is trying a different approach. They’re now asking fans to not illegally download music, pretty please!
Likening it to a drink driving campaign, Music Matters is a UK based initiative supported by Spotify and music retailers Amazon, HMV and Tesco.
The campaign is centred around a website which uses a softly, softly approach; offering advice on legal ways to purchase music. In effect the site is a showcase for a series of animated short films which look like your average first year film school student film. The films use a pedagogical feminist approach to analyse in a post structural context … (okay we made the wanky academic bit up) the music of artists ranging from The Jam to Kate Bush, Sigur Ros to Nick Cave.
Tone Deaf watched the Nick Cave and Kate Bush ones – the former would have embarrassed Nick with its glib ‘music saved Nick from a life of crime’ message, while the Kate Bush one has grammar errors and states that she has retired from music to bring up a family. Clearly they forgot her comeback releasing Aerial a few years ago. The initiative is being spearheaded by Niamh Byrne of Universal Music in London.
Since it seems like a film school assignment, Tone Deaf has pulled out our red pen and given it somewhere between a pass and a credit, with our comments reading ‘A noble idea let down in execution by condescending narrative, low production quality, factual errors and poor grammar’.
Decide for yourself at www.whymusicmatters.org
