Dear Corporate America,
Hello and good day. We would like to applaud you for your unmatched ability to fund and exploit emerging cultural or social movements that could eventually prove to be broadly palatable to the tastes of white America. In doing this, you have achieved two primary goals: The first achievement involves relating to youth culture and therefore gaining a broader consumer base, either by means of collaborating with popular social media (American Express) or producing a marginalized medium (Scion). Your second main achievement is the creation and/or destruction of an artist or musical group. Your support of a close-to-mainstream indie act, à la Arcade Fire or The National, will more than likely boost them to some sort of upper pedestal within the realms of musical popularity, more than likely utterly obliterating whatever musical credibility they once maintained. We don’t blame you for this, Corporate America, we know it’s about the profits and there’s no shame in that. Honestly, the Scion 7-inch series has produced some killer shit and has proven itself to have a tasteful penchant for the split 45. American Express, props on the Duran Duran/David Lynch collab. Not bad, and now you’ve brought us something almost equally interesting.
Thank you for your time, and God bless.
This brings us to “Unstaged: An Original Series from American Express,” which involves the pairing of a reputable film director with an equally reputable musical act with a huge corporate entity. Director Todd Haynes will be shooting a live performance of My Morning Jacket at Louisville’s Palace Theater. This performance will stream live via YouTube at 9 PM on Tuesday, May 31. Yeah, you remember that scene in I’m Not There where Jim James sings with the dudes from Calexico backing him up… go figure. Hopefully this performance will end like most of Haynes’ films, with the character(s) broken and utterly betrayed by human nature and alienated by the world that surrounds them.
• My Morning Jacket: http://www.mymorningjacket.com
