Backassward

Sigue Sigue Sputnik were thisclose to getting the future right!

They famously sold ad space on their 1986 debut record Flaunt It!, as part of their tongue-in-cheek "so capitalist that it's punk!" aesthetic. So, between the two singles and six other tracks of sloganeering Giorgio Moroder auto-dross, there were thirty second commercials for the likes of Loreal and I-D Magazine (which had a sneery Brit rhapsodizing hyperbollically on the glories of the style mag: Once considered the most pretentious magazine in the history of the world...now, simply the best! over a hodge-podge of then-modern beatbox sounds). The UK ate it up for maybe a season; no one here cared.

But what's hot was how they got their ideas about pop music and commerciality exactly backward. Now bands must seek to have their music in commercials, as it's the only way the moronic public will hear it.

I just wonder how much different things would have been if Mr. Tony James and crew had gotten it right. We might all have flying cars now and cash money for wallpaper!

"21st Century Boy". Ooh, Blade Runner-y!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28hFIxgtv0o