Continuing today’s “classic rock will not be dethroned until the final Boomer drops” theme, Pepsi has debuted a new TV spot that remixes the Who’s “My Generation” for, um, different Pepsi generations, from the flapper years to the fall of the Berlin Wall to a throbbing mosh pit that I guess is supposed to symbolize the late ’90s. What is missing from the ad, however, is a passing of the sugar-water torch to the current generation, and that’s something that has Songs For Soap’s Charlie Moran a bit worried:
It’s a cute, mostly non-cheesy way to draw some sort of line back to Pepsi’s beginnings, although it left us wondering why the generations ended by crowd-surfing through early ’90s grunge. We’re not sure if this was an oversight or they, like us, need a bit of hindsight to see what kind of popular music the ’00s will be remembered for — and maybe they haven’t really been that memorable in the first place. We’re genuinely stumped, but please god, do not let it become the decade of the Jonas Brothers.
Or it could just be “the decade of ‘we can’t figure out what the monoculture is right now but Kanye West and Justin Timberlake are pretty OK, even if they both make us miss non-crazy Michael Jackson something fierce’”?
Either way, I’m not surprised that an ad campaign centered around “My Generation” would allow people to also believe that any piece of music popular right now would be “unmemorable.” Think about the rhetoric surrounding classic rock, not to mention the current music inspired by it; there’s a “let’s go back to when the music meant it, mannnn” ideal percolating underneath, even though the buying and selling of popular culture and its underlying meanings was pretty much perfected to a T by the same generation that’s forever bitching about What’s The Matter With Kids Today. (It’s probably worth mentioning, also, that this twitching conservatism can sometimes result in completely irritating phenomena like Fleet Foxes getting instant canonization for basically performing school-recital takes on Crosby, Stills & Nash.)
It’s not like bringing carbonated sugar water into the new pop-music millennium is an impossible task—hey, Coca-Cola’s going to put out a song that features Janelle Monae and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump* as part of an upcoming ad campaign—and surely even the most diehard “end of history” types would say that they had at least one memory, good or bad, of pop music from the present day. Maybe the execs at Pepsi figured that any sort of Last Night’s Party tableau where Pepsi was swapped in for Sparks would just be too dishonest?
Is This Pepsi Generation Musically Void? [Songs For Soap]
Michael Jackson Pepsi Commercial [YouTube]
* !!!!
@Christopher R. Weingarten: I was pretty sure that was Angelo Moore from Fishbone as well. Good call.
I had some of the same thoughts as this article after seeing the ad a couple times on tv. Your use of the word “monoculture” brings up some interesting new thoughts…
What if this decade is the beginning of the end for such dominant monocultural themes? The breadth of content and easy accessibility of information and culture on the internet means that people can pick and choose what they like much more easily than previous generations. Kids born today grow up in a world where NOT having whatever cultural fluff they want instantly accessible is inconceivable (heck, I can’t even imagine living without it). Combined with the increasing tendency to split music into smaller and more esoteric subgenres and the seemingly imminent death of the “Rock Star”…
Well, the future might look quite a bit different indeed.
@Defenestrated: Kids born today grow up in a world where NOT having whatever cultural fluff they want instantly accessible is inconceivable (heck, I can’t even imagine living without it)
Yup yup and yup again. But of course there’s a key thing to remember still — it’s a transitional moment and those ‘kids’ aren’t all able to be in that mode right now. (A common thing I’ve noted in random stories about foreclosures or families adjusting to lesser income is how one of the first things to do is Internet access, for instance. Now, given the adminstration’s interest in making that more of a standard utility than a luxury, this may change, but there’s always got to be some sort of awareness of falling into the ‘the Internet’s in everything because we’re all talking about it on the Internet’ trap — even as I think this overall change you mention is ultimately unstoppable.)
@Ned Raggett: Very good point, as I can’t really speak for anyone else beyond my own strangely geeky subculture (internet is about as vital as electricity for me, certainly more than tv or landline phone service). This is really just my random musings on where culture might be 10-20 years from now.
Ha, I said ‘first things to do’ — ‘first things to GO.’ Sorry about that!
Has no one seen One, Two, Three? The first soft drink to break through the Berlin Wall was Coca Cola, and it was done 25 years earlier. Of course, Jimmy Cagney didn’t start crowd surfing immediately after crossing the wall.
They couldn’t show a bunch of neon dressed hippies listening to i-pods and voting for Obama while swaying arond some guy with a laptop? And why do all those old Coke bottles say “Pepsi”?
The most annoying thing about this commercial to me was that as it goes along through its timeline, the instrumentation and arrangement of “My Generation” has old-timey sonic signifiers appended to it - ragtime-y piano, hot jazz, early rock ‘n’ roll, etc., etc., but as soon as the Sixties are reached, the song blossoms into its full “classic” form and never changes again. We go through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, and “My Generation” sounds exactly the same, even though it was warped in the early versions. Way to hammer home the message that Boomer music will be inescapable forever, Pepsi.
Listen again, there’s a discoy beat for the 70s and some scratching for the 80s
It’s probably just the phenomenon that when you’re actually in the decade you’re surrounded by all the different musical movements going on. It takes a few years for people to toss out the stuff that wasn’t that good and “define” the decade.
The boomers just won’t admit that there was just as much crap in the 60’s as any other time.
Could also be that Pepsi expands the ad during the Super Bowl to integrate the “current” generation into the fold.
Unfortunately, it still didn’t stop me from thinking: “Where are all the Coca-Cola cans in this fantasy universe?”
And I wouldn’t exactly call things like hip-hop in the 80s or disco in the 70s the “monoculture”, more like a hindsight view of what was ONE defining subcultural movmement that advertisers use because they’re have outdated fashions that work as easy signifiers
People don’t look at disco and say “this is the defining moment of the 70s” they say “here is something that happened that had a lot of regrettable fashion and some ok music.” Same with grunge in the 90s. If they wanted to do the 00s hey should have done the neon hipster american apparanl vice magazine spank rock abe vigoda lollertronix etc, which kids are going to look a back on in 20 years and go “you dressed like THAT”
Also I think Fishbone is in that commercial
@unperson: Way to hammer home the message that Boomer music will be inescapable forever, Pepsi.
What would be interesting/telling is the exact age of the people who came up with the campaign and approved it. And I’d be willing to bet it’s younger than we’re all thinking — which is more depressing.
I thought the reason there weren’t any current-day historical signifiers is because hipsters brought about the end of western civilization.
@Christopher R. Weingarten: well, they were a more defined subculture than those available now. i mean, what genre of music today would inspire a ‘[this genre] sucks’ night at a baseball stadium?
@Ned Raggett: See also: the primary demographic for the classic-rock-obsessed Guitar Hero games.
(Says the guy with the Phil Lynott avatar)
@Maura Johnston: Emo!
um emo?
@natepatrin: hahaha. well, that’s true. (and i’d argue that one could draw a very heteronormative line between those two genres and the hatred for them!)
i was just gonna say, yeah, emo.
If you want the real depressing version of that story, look how past generations win wars, protest governments and tear down walls while the 90s kids slam like doofs.
I mean, I couldn’t imagine it being better with a crappy Mad Season version of “my Generation” playing while some dude invents FaceBook
This post is awesome and the comments are great so far. Thanks.
There is nothing “cool” anymore. The advertising people sense that, and are running with the idea.
!!!! is right re: Monae and Stump. HOLY CRAPOLA.
As for the Pepsi ad, it’s like they’d like us all to forget 2001-2008. Which may not be a bad idea, really. I’m working on it.
I third the !!! for Patrick/Janelle. I was so thrilled for him when I first read about the collaboration. Even if the result sucks, I’ll still be thrilled for him.
The Pepsi campaign smacks of laziness- all recycled imagery.
But hee! on the line about Fleet Foxes sounding like CSNY being performed at the HS talent show.
Is that a KFC Colonel on the wall at 0:40?