Trying to Forget the Crushing Defeats since 2009

So what is marketing, you ask? Well, it’s like advertising but with more numbers and less Photoshop. In other words: it’s like advertising, only worse.

As you could probably infer from the fact that marketing people adore saying things like “strategic implementation” and “unique availability niche market share”, they’re kind of boring. But, nevertheless, they’re responsible for most of the products we buy, so we have to stick by them.

So imagine yourself, for a minute, as a marketer, and then ask yourself this: what happens when either a) someone else comes up with a good idea or b) you don’t have any good ideas? It’s simple: you copy. The more copies (or “unique niche market competitors”) that are made, the bigger “market” there is.

So how does this apply to music? Ask yourself that marketing man question again, but now apply it to music. What happens when you don’t have fresh ideas? Well, you copy.

Sometimes, it works: Miley Cyrus stole the “market share” of cute tween singers who wanted television shows, but then Disney added new “market players” in Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and the Jonas Brothers. Aside from the fact that most of the music these people makes is physically hurtful, Disney makes a lot of money off of them.

But what does it look like when it doesn’t work so well? Well, my friends, you get Owl City.

Owl City, for starters, is actually a guy who made some music in his parent’s basement and stuck it on MySpace. His music is so computerized it would make T-Pain blush, but it’s so warm and fuzzy it makes cold-hearted people stop for a minute and smile. His debut album “Ocean Eyes” is a hit: even I covered it, calling it “expansive” and “beautiful.”

Almost immediately, the haters come out of the woodwork, and point to Owl City as “a copy of Postal Service.” Naturally, I take it as just another snarky comment from indie hipsters who can only hate pop music because it’s “the establishment”. Check out The Postal Service for yourself on iTunes.

But then the lead singer of Owl City fields a question during an interview with Entertainment Weekly about how his music sounds like TPS, and he says this:

I think [Give Up, TPS' last album] left everyone asking, “What are they going to do next?” Since no one has done anything quite like it, it’s almost like everyone is naturally saying [Owl City's 'Ocean Eyes'] is the next step — maybe that’s me, maybe that’s this record.

So what does it all mean?

It means this: Owl City is filling an “empty niche market.” Hollywood thought the world needed some cute, sappy/emotional electro-alt-pop, The Postal Service was busy, so Owl City stepped in and stole the market. If this is all starting to sound less like a CD and more like a business meeting, that’s because it is.

Owl City’s music is alright, but it begins to sour once the honeymoon period of catchy hooks and “expansive sound” is gone, and it gets worse when you compare it to the original. But the biggest letdown is this: music has been a part of big business for as long as any of us can remember, but we tolerate it because, for the most part, we don’t have to think of it that way—because board meetings and “strategic planning committees” have nothing on the thrill and excitement of good music.

When the music starts to sour, though, we return to lamenting big business. And Owl City, unfortunately, soured a bit too soon.

This week Ben is listening to Joshua Radin’s “Simple Times” album, which he bought because it was on sale on iTunes, and because he knows deep down that it was green-lighted because he was pitched to the label as “a folkier Jack Johnson”. But none of that business-sense matters for the simple reason that the album is actually good.