I was sitting in a fine establishment waiting for a fine friend of mine. Arriving first, I took a seat at a table and absently watched the nearby television. There was a sporting event on it that I took little notice of and at the finishing of the match, a usual generic series of advertisements began playing. At some point during these advertisements, the sound to the television was remotely turned off and music began playing instead. I did not even notice this change until into the second advertisement. The music so perfectly fit the visuals that the change was negligible until overt.
My initial thought was that the song was just one of those pieces of music that you would expect to hear during an advertisement. It was light, had some inoffensive lyrics and was of a tempo that either matched up well with an advertisement, or served as a suitable contrast to the action of an advertisement. I just assumed that this song was an ideal candidate as an accompaniment to advertisements.
This is probably a harsh judgement on the musician. The more I heard the song the more forgiving I was. In the end, I have to conclude that this little instances makes more of a statement in relation to the advertisements rather than the song. These broadcasts were so generic, so utterly forgettable that I was not even able to discern a difference between them when the same sound was played throughout. I title this piece "Vanilla Advertising" not just because of the implication that all of the broadcasts were essentially the same. I like the taste of vanilla and the effect that this music had on my viewing was also relatively pleasurable. I was able to view them as a whole piece, not containing a contrived agenda and overall, not having any real effect on me.
It is remarkable how small events like this can truly threaten the pull of the advertising world.
-The English Student
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