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Explorations of our brains' fragility fill the pages of Michael Paul Mason's book "Head Cases."
We've Lost Control
By Avishay Artsy on Friday, April 18, 2008.
We were all excited when the documentary Control, about Ian Curtis, the ill-fated lead singer of post-punk pioneers Joy Division, came out last fall. If you haven't heard Joy Division, you probably don't dress all in black, hang out in smoky nightclubs and write bad confessional poetry.
Anyways, we were sad to discover that the darkwave gods have become a marketing tool for corporate America. According to Wired (via Pitchfork), Microsoft is to release a Joy Division edition of its Zune MP3 player to coincide with the June 10th release of Grant Gee's Joy Division documentary.
The image above is an Engadget mock-up, but the finished player will actually feature Peter Saville's iconic artwork for the band's 1979 album Unknown Pleasures.
This bothers us a lot more than 2004's U2 iPod. But that's because while Bono happily raked it in, the ever-morose Mr. Curtis is probably spinning in his grave.
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It's not like this is the first time that we've seen this happen. Underground bands are always being used to sell products. Of Montreal allowed Outback Steakhouse to use one of their songs in a commercial. Blonde Redhead were on a Gap billboard. Starbucks released a Sonic Youth celebrity compilation. Nick Drake became famous again after "Pink Moon" was used in a Volkswagen commercial. Just as much as it's "selling out," it also exposes the artist to a new audience.