Of Montreal, of Princess D and some thoughts on aesthetics for your Monday morning.

So. Yesterday Princess D made apple pies and I love apple pies and I ate a lot at her place and she gave me one to take home and I had trouble waking up today because of all the sugar. So I ate more apple pie this morning thinking it would help, like "hair of the dog" but with pie, but it didn't help and now I feel worse!

But Princess D never closes a door without opening a window and the window she gave me was turning me on to the band "Of Montreal" and the track "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse." It's really helping to even out the brain chemistry this morning... "come on chemicals"!



There were a lot of criticisms of user-generated media for lacking in quality, slickness and professionalism back in 2006 as the rise of things like YouTube was taking place. Far from being a negative that had to be overcome it often appears to me that an "amature" aesthetic has been embraced for its resonance.

I had a very interesting talk with Don M last week about "contrived communications" and "manufactured contexts". TV show and advertising are the big examples of both. The more traditional in format and aesthetic, the more contrived they tend to appear.

I wasn't sure if the video above was the "official" band video for the track at first. It's got a very Sparkle Motion meets Napoleon Dynamite thing going on that makes it feel very natural to the "theater" of YouTube. It lends it an air of authenticity despite how very pop the track is. It's similar to the way that Tom Petty's goony looks make him seem more "real". If he had been a pretty boy his music would have been taken far less seriously.

In a very similar way, the street-art look of the Converse outdoor seems very at home in NY's subways. The Converse brand fits this "theater" much better than Nike ads would. I think these sort of sensitivities to resonance and contexts are becoming more important factors for producers of "contrived communications.