"You were talking to dead people, basically."
October 4, 2023 6:40 AM Subscribe
You may have seen this 84 Duster ad that, in 90 second form, premiered during the first MTV music awards but did you ever wonder how a brand associated at the time with stodgy old white people came to have such an ad on MTV? The Autopian tracked down early 80s Chrysler-Plymouth Car Advertising Manager Glenn Northrupp to get the story behind the ad.
It is precisely this kind of commercial that made the concept of "selling out" anathema to musicians.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:12 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:12 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Now do that 1994 "This car is like punk rock" Subaru commercial
There was a whole book about that.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:14 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
There was a whole book about that.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:14 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is great. Sometimes -- pretty frequently, I guess --I think or say to myself "In my Duster, my Duster," and this is the source, it turns out.
The whole article reads like a parody of automobile advertising, but especially the Dog Henning section.
posted by Francolin at 7:18 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
The whole article reads like a parody of automobile advertising, but especially the Dog Henning section.
posted by Francolin at 7:18 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’m surprised that when they mentioned that The Cars won for best video, they didn’t mention that the song came from an album whose cover featured a Plymouth (a 1971 Duster 340 to be exact). An interesting bit of synchronicity.
And the Time magazine Lee Iacocca cover may be “iconic” to some, but it just seems weird and kind of creepy in an uncanny valley way to me.
posted by TedW at 7:49 AM on October 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
And the Time magazine Lee Iacocca cover may be “iconic” to some, but it just seems weird and kind of creepy in an uncanny valley way to me.
posted by TedW at 7:49 AM on October 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
There was a whole book about that.
....I....I am legitimately gobsmacked.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:09 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
....I....I am legitimately gobsmacked.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:09 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
When I was a kid my father drove a used Dodge Demon, which I always though of as a downmarket version of the Plymouth Duster (it's effectively a knock-off of the Duster). 3-speed manual transmission. It was . . . not a good car.
posted by slkinsey at 8:21 AM on October 4, 2023
posted by slkinsey at 8:21 AM on October 4, 2023
My wife had an 85 Tourismo. She covered it in Grateful Dead stickers. ("Tour-is-mo FUN!")
posted by mikelieman at 8:31 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mikelieman at 8:31 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Man, they owe Russell Mulcahy royalties for this ad. I mean, he did a lot of iconic videos that dominated MTV at this exact moment in time, and maybe his stuff became cliche, but yeah this is such a clone.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:17 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:17 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
> It is precisely this kind of commercial that made the concept of "selling out" anathema to musicians.
"selling out" discourse w/r/t music made a lot of sense in the late 1960s, the period when the then-emergent boomer music seemed honesttogod linked to the strangled embryonic revolutions of 1968 and then to their long slow rollback. in the early 1980s this cultural sense that musicians were faced with the choice of selling out still existed in a way, still seemed real. one (and here i'm imagining that "one" as a distinctly white "one", because the context we're talking about is a very, very white context) could either get paid for helping capital vapidify whatever revolutionary or quasi-revolutionary potential still seemed present in music or else participate in the hard-edged and self-consciously hopeless punk continuations of the naïve and self-obliviously hopeful '68 music-as-counterculture ideology.
it's kind of hard in modern times to sense that "selling out" or "not selling out" was a dichotomy that ever made sense at all, since that boomer-era idea that music could somehow transcend the capitalist circuits of production that made it, could become in some sense the aural aufhebung of capitalism, is something left behind in the last millennium, something from three or four twists of the knife ago. modern music (and modern culture in general) is cyborg in the donna haraway sense. it's cobbled together out of the broken pieces of capitalist jetsam out of which we ourselves are cobbled. we are people for whom this image (swiped from the truly excellent article linked here) really is, despite/because of/through its ironic qualities, really is a vision of utopia. we all have childhoods made of corporate logos, so of course our post-capitalist cockaigne is going to be spattered with corporate logos. but the valences of the logos in their original intended context — where they were just cheap crap made for the short-term purpose of vacuuming 1980s money from 1980s parents' pockets — are gone, replaced with the (equally material and much longer-lasting) dreamworld valences experienced by the children playing with them.
it is possible that this aspect of the water in which we swim is easiest seen by olds, people now in their 30s and 40s, because those people grew up alongside cyborg culture instead of being born into a world where it was in full flower. and this culture is itself now somewhat senescent. if you look at something near-contemporary, something like montero, not only is there no dichotomy between "selling out" or "not selling out," the concept is so dead and in the ground that ironizing it or even dwelling on it at all feels like a twee historical affectation, something like the handlebar mustaches of the late 2000s.
anyway, the car ad is super fun. until after i read the article i couldn't really tell what was going on with the duster assembling in its wake a plymouth logo from pieces of glass — i didn't realize that the reason it looked so weird was because it was an actual physical effect.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:19 AM on October 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
"selling out" discourse w/r/t music made a lot of sense in the late 1960s, the period when the then-emergent boomer music seemed honesttogod linked to the strangled embryonic revolutions of 1968 and then to their long slow rollback. in the early 1980s this cultural sense that musicians were faced with the choice of selling out still existed in a way, still seemed real. one (and here i'm imagining that "one" as a distinctly white "one", because the context we're talking about is a very, very white context) could either get paid for helping capital vapidify whatever revolutionary or quasi-revolutionary potential still seemed present in music or else participate in the hard-edged and self-consciously hopeless punk continuations of the naïve and self-obliviously hopeful '68 music-as-counterculture ideology.
it's kind of hard in modern times to sense that "selling out" or "not selling out" was a dichotomy that ever made sense at all, since that boomer-era idea that music could somehow transcend the capitalist circuits of production that made it, could become in some sense the aural aufhebung of capitalism, is something left behind in the last millennium, something from three or four twists of the knife ago. modern music (and modern culture in general) is cyborg in the donna haraway sense. it's cobbled together out of the broken pieces of capitalist jetsam out of which we ourselves are cobbled. we are people for whom this image (swiped from the truly excellent article linked here) really is, despite/because of/through its ironic qualities, really is a vision of utopia. we all have childhoods made of corporate logos, so of course our post-capitalist cockaigne is going to be spattered with corporate logos. but the valences of the logos in their original intended context — where they were just cheap crap made for the short-term purpose of vacuuming 1980s money from 1980s parents' pockets — are gone, replaced with the (equally material and much longer-lasting) dreamworld valences experienced by the children playing with them.
it is possible that this aspect of the water in which we swim is easiest seen by olds, people now in their 30s and 40s, because those people grew up alongside cyborg culture instead of being born into a world where it was in full flower. and this culture is itself now somewhat senescent. if you look at something near-contemporary, something like montero, not only is there no dichotomy between "selling out" or "not selling out," the concept is so dead and in the ground that ironizing it or even dwelling on it at all feels like a twee historical affectation, something like the handlebar mustaches of the late 2000s.
anyway, the car ad is super fun. until after i read the article i couldn't really tell what was going on with the duster assembling in its wake a plymouth logo from pieces of glass — i didn't realize that the reason it looked so weird was because it was an actual physical effect.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:19 AM on October 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
Wow. It’s like the cast of 21 Jump Street doing a production of Cats to sell a terminally bland car they’re trying desperately to hide.
It’s a lot. The 80s were a lot.
I’m glad our cultural aesthetics didn’t continue in this vein. How could they?
How do you out-this THIS?
posted by chronkite at 9:29 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
It’s a lot. The 80s were a lot.
I’m glad our cultural aesthetics didn’t continue in this vein. How could they?
How do you out-this THIS?
posted by chronkite at 9:29 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
How do you out-this THIS?
Oh, that was NOTHING.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:32 AM on October 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
Oh, that was NOTHING.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:32 AM on October 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
I didn't read the post closely enough and honestly thought this was going to be about an ad for dusters.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:33 AM on October 4, 2023
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:33 AM on October 4, 2023
I have had this song in my head since 1984, and I occasionally watch that video to get a fresh dose. It’s a genuinely well written pop song!
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:49 AM on October 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:49 AM on October 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
"selling out" discourse w/r/t music made a lot of sense in the late 1960s, the period when the then-emergent boomer music seemed honesttogod linked to the strangled embryonic revolutions of 1968 and then to their long slow rollback.
On the other hand, I don't think it's as complicated as this.
"Selling out" often meant giving up massive amounts of creative control to studio execs and producers and how abusive the recording industry is/was and the whole concept of recording contracts advancing giant piles of money to newly signed artists and putting them into massive amounts of debt while skimming ad double-dipping off that advanced money and de-facto loans by stipulating which assets the artists could use from recording studios and engineers to graphic designers and photographers.
Because that pay to play system was the only way to have a record or artist sell millions of copies of records and approach making a living wage making music.
Yeah, this is somewhat less relevant today when a bedroom producer or artist can do it all on a single computer or even just a smart phone, drop it on TikTok or Spotify, but now they're "selling out" to the algorithm and audience response, which isn't necessarily better. Or worse.
This abusive history of the record industry is mostly lost on the post-social media generations, and when I point out or describe these practices and they finally get it they're often absolutely horrified it was ever even legal.
And then sometimes they start to get it why there's so many albums where the single or a couple of tracks or B-sides are good and the rest are forgettable dross as album fillers so the artist can fulfill the stipulations of their contracts, often measured not in a duration of time but a set number of albums for that contract.
posted by loquacious at 10:10 AM on October 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
On the other hand, I don't think it's as complicated as this.
"Selling out" often meant giving up massive amounts of creative control to studio execs and producers and how abusive the recording industry is/was and the whole concept of recording contracts advancing giant piles of money to newly signed artists and putting them into massive amounts of debt while skimming ad double-dipping off that advanced money and de-facto loans by stipulating which assets the artists could use from recording studios and engineers to graphic designers and photographers.
Because that pay to play system was the only way to have a record or artist sell millions of copies of records and approach making a living wage making music.
Yeah, this is somewhat less relevant today when a bedroom producer or artist can do it all on a single computer or even just a smart phone, drop it on TikTok or Spotify, but now they're "selling out" to the algorithm and audience response, which isn't necessarily better. Or worse.
This abusive history of the record industry is mostly lost on the post-social media generations, and when I point out or describe these practices and they finally get it they're often absolutely horrified it was ever even legal.
And then sometimes they start to get it why there's so many albums where the single or a couple of tracks or B-sides are good and the rest are forgettable dross as album fillers so the artist can fulfill the stipulations of their contracts, often measured not in a duration of time but a set number of albums for that contract.
posted by loquacious at 10:10 AM on October 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
mostly i just wanted to say aufhebung. mostly.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:15 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:15 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: mostly i just wanted to say aufhebung. mostly.
posted by loquacious at 10:35 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by loquacious at 10:35 AM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh, that was NOTHING.
In my headcanon Sigue Sigue Sputnik is either a cadre of Blue Blaze Irregulars from the Buckaroo Banzai universe or part of the World Crime League. Or sometimes both, depending on their mood that day or what kind of drugs they've done recently.
And I'm pretty sure SSP is the inspiration for Gibson's Panther Moderns datacrime gang from Neuromancer.
I really wish they made more music that was as good as Love Missile F-111, because the rest of it isn't as good, but if I want more of that kind of thing there's always Pop Will Eat Itself, the good bits of Information Society and maybe even some ABC.
posted by loquacious at 10:41 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
In my headcanon Sigue Sigue Sputnik is either a cadre of Blue Blaze Irregulars from the Buckaroo Banzai universe or part of the World Crime League. Or sometimes both, depending on their mood that day or what kind of drugs they've done recently.
And I'm pretty sure SSP is the inspiration for Gibson's Panther Moderns datacrime gang from Neuromancer.
I really wish they made more music that was as good as Love Missile F-111, because the rest of it isn't as good, but if I want more of that kind of thing there's always Pop Will Eat Itself, the good bits of Information Society and maybe even some ABC.
posted by loquacious at 10:41 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Sigue Sigue Sputnik famously sold advertisements on their album. The band was founded on the principle of selling out.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:48 AM on October 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:48 AM on October 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
no you know what i'm not just saying aufhebung, there's something real there and it's not arbitrary that i chose montero as the example for near-contemporary music/art. like, the song and video are both brilliant start to finish, but there's this really great line in the middle that i haven't been able to shake since the first time i heard it:
there is a qualitative difference between "i want to sell what you're buying" and anything related to "selling out." there is a qualitative difference between on the one hand desiring to maintain individual authenticity/purity by saying "fuck the system" instead of making cringe for companies and on the other hand establishing a sexy and entirely impure authenticity by aggressively power-bottoming satan.
and like as this video attests now that the brands that the cringe was made for have been unalived we can see that there's a lot of interesting camp/queer stuff going on in that cringe. like the duster music video is certainly no montero or whatever, don't get me wrong, but it's also maybe fascinating and kind of a bop?
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:10 AM on October 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
i want to sell what you're buyingthat line is so many reversals away from the mid-1900s concept of selling out that it's entirely detached from it. and it is, not to put too fine a point on it, so fucking hot, and equally importantly it is much more of an "authentic" or whatever expression slash construction of selfhood than anything from the authenticity discourse found in the 1960s-through-1980s straightworld.
there is a qualitative difference between "i want to sell what you're buying" and anything related to "selling out." there is a qualitative difference between on the one hand desiring to maintain individual authenticity/purity by saying "fuck the system" instead of making cringe for companies and on the other hand establishing a sexy and entirely impure authenticity by aggressively power-bottoming satan.
and like as this video attests now that the brands that the cringe was made for have been unalived we can see that there's a lot of interesting camp/queer stuff going on in that cringe. like the duster music video is certainly no montero or whatever, don't get me wrong, but it's also maybe fascinating and kind of a bop?
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:10 AM on October 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
I didn't read the post closely enough and honestly thought this was going to be about an ad for dusters.
Oh, a different duster.
posted by TedW at 1:12 PM on October 4, 2023
Oh, a different duster.
posted by TedW at 1:12 PM on October 4, 2023
I am a child of the 80s and watched way too much tv, but somehow this commercial passed me by, don't recall it at all.
posted by zardoz at 1:31 PM on October 4, 2023
posted by zardoz at 1:31 PM on October 4, 2023
Sigue Sigue Sputnik famously sold advertisements on their album. The band was founded on the principle of selling out.
Oh, sure. I mean, we can also look at the Sex Pistols because punk was never not dead.
posted by loquacious at 1:34 PM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh, sure. I mean, we can also look at the Sex Pistols because punk was never not dead.
posted by loquacious at 1:34 PM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh, a different duster.
Bringing it back to the FPP, I'm pretty sure there was some airduster being inhaled on that set because: yikes.
posted by loquacious at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2023
Bringing it back to the FPP, I'm pretty sure there was some airduster being inhaled on that set because: yikes.
posted by loquacious at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2023
Take a ride in the sky, on our ship, Fantasy
All your dreams will come true, right away
And we will live together, until the twelfth of never
-🌎,🌪️ and 🔥
posted by clavdivs at 10:25 PM on October 4, 2023
All your dreams will come true, right away
And we will live together, until the twelfth of never
-🌎,🌪️ and 🔥
posted by clavdivs at 10:25 PM on October 4, 2023
I had a 1984 Plymouth Turismo that I bought off one of my mom's coworkers for $200. It had a banging aftermarket stereo/speakers and a torque-y five speed manual that could chirp the tires in the low 3 gears. What more could you want as a senior in high school?
posted by xiix at 6:53 AM on October 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by xiix at 6:53 AM on October 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Funny, I recognized Finola Hughes immediately because in the early 1980s as a teen I watched a lot of soap operas. I think she was on One Life to Live, or General Hospital...
posted by sundrop at 10:51 AM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sundrop at 10:51 AM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was a little annoyed that the article didn't devote a little to Finola Hughes' credits.
Not only for my childhood crush on her from my Nana's 'stories' (General Hospital), but because skimming through her IMDB page I learned:
- she's played three different identical siblings on GH and on All My Children
- she played Emma Frost on Generation X - I have no idea how they wrote that character, but I have to assume she did better in the performance than January Jones got to do in X-Men: First Class.
- she was the sisters' mom in the original Charmed.
Okay, she didn't get the prime-time jobs that her GH castmate Emma Samms, and she didn't get the movie jobs that GH castmate Demi Moore did. But I still think they should have mentioned that after the Duster commercial, she did seem to get hired more by Hollywood.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 5:03 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not only for my childhood crush on her from my Nana's 'stories' (General Hospital), but because skimming through her IMDB page I learned:
- she's played three different identical siblings on GH and on All My Children
- she played Emma Frost on Generation X - I have no idea how they wrote that character, but I have to assume she did better in the performance than January Jones got to do in X-Men: First Class.
- she was the sisters' mom in the original Charmed.
Okay, she didn't get the prime-time jobs that her GH castmate Emma Samms, and she didn't get the movie jobs that GH castmate Demi Moore did. But I still think they should have mentioned that after the Duster commercial, she did seem to get hired more by Hollywood.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 5:03 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:52 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]