Friday, July 24, 2009

I was talking to my brother yesterday, and he mentioned an article he'd read. I haven't seen said article, and so can't link to it, but here's the heads-up: Corporations are changing their logos, due to the recession, to all-lowercase, in order to appear "friendlier" to customers. He mentioned Wal-Mart, right now the only thing that occurs to me is Pepsi, which I'd previously singled out for a new, stripped-down and bland design, which I was thinking of as a weird corrective to the perceived gaucheness of "cool" nineties branding: A willful lack of style to not chance anything. The mention of it brought to mind Daniel Clowes mocking non-capitalization in people's names in an old Eightball strip, but I guess Wal-Mart doesn't take it's marching orders from "I Hate You Deeply."

Meanwhile, in my mind I am trying to devise what I want the new canon to be for upcoming nineties nostalgia. The most recent discovery I've made from that time that I had not heard before was the Dog-Faced Hermans, who recently had their first record reissued by Mississippi Records. It would seem to make sense for Sun City Girls, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Helium, etc. albums to come back in print following being cited as influences, but the record industry is collapsing, so maybe that won't happen. (Although, it seems like in conservative times the back catalog gets milked hard and placed into deluxe packaging: Look at how many hardcovers the comics industry is pumping out in 2009.) Those bands have nothing in common with each other besides existing during the same time and being out of print. I'm really interested in seeing what are the things that come back into consciousness as nostalgia hits, since it seems like people never stopped talking about My Bloody Valentine.

1 comment:

Brian said...

I realized after posting this how nostalgia actually works. In all likelihood, music from the nineties that will be referenced will be things that people who were young at that time have emotional attachment to, which means things that are popular. Considering I have friends that have made dance remixes of New Radicals songs I should've seen this coming.