You seem to be arguing against points I never made. This is different from bands just putting their music in commercials – it’s up to bands to decide who they are comfortable aligning themselves with, and how much money it’s worth to them to be in bed with a given corporation who wants to leverage the band’s cachet to help sell their widgets. Some bands are quite comfortable with this money/credibility trade, and some aren’t. People will have opinions about it. Mine is negative, simply because I think bands disgrace themselves and devalue their music by ostensibly becoming jingle-writers.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this trend of things like Green Label Sound, this Converse campaign, the Levi’s cover song campaign, and the Bacardi thing. These are insidious, cynical initiatives that assume people are stupid enough to ignore that they’re just pawns in a marketing gimmick, and that bands think so little of what they do that it can be sold to the highest bidder.

It’s a who-gives-a-fuck attitude that I think is new to the subculture. “The new song by Fugazi, brought to you by Kahlua!” doesn’t bring a bell. Our subculture is rudderless and lacks any kind of unique or admirable ethos. Get the money while you can. I say sub culture instead of counterculture because counter implies against, when this current crop of acts (that are supposed to be the “coolest new thing”) have no problem conforming to the destructive American status quo of lusting after money and giving corporations control of our lives.

Makes me wonder what the real cool kids are listening to..