mongoloids - from dove to devo

Oct. 19/2007 – It’s hard not to be wary of product ads that hail the alienated consumer. They can be really effective, like the Volkswagen campaigns of the 60s and the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, but at the end of the day they’re still ads and they’re still carefully crafted to lighten your wallet. I could go on, and have, for hours about why Dove’s campaign is socially irresponsible, and why anyone who buys Dove’s cellulite creams because ‘their ads are nicer than others’ deserves to go bankrupt. So I’ll save that argument.

As a side note, I saw an ad on television a few days ago that really bothered me. It’s 30 second spot for Dell that uses slick futuristic imagery to suggest that HP products represent the cutting edge of technological progress, et cetera, et cetera, a standard computer hardware ad by all accounts, except for one: the music. The melody is very catchy and accessible, with familiar timbral elements that feel comfortable to me.

The vocals kicked in, and if I hadn’t been lounging on the sofa I probably would have fallen over. The voice was that of Mark Mothersbaugh, lead singer of one of my favourite bands, Devo. Turns out Devo is back together, they’ve recorded a new album and are licensing their music for commercials. Not uncommon for a popular rock band, but altogether inexcusable for Devo. Why?

Devo, getting their name from ‘Devo-lution’, was started by university students as an art-based critique of consumer society and the general decline of human civilization. Their music used themes of unchecked technology and future dystopias to ridicule commercial and state-run culture, arguing that what we are calling progress actually represents regress. So Devo, the once-great cultural critics, have done a complete 180. Yeah, maybe their biggest song, ‘Whip It’, wasn’t the most intellectually deep recording of the 80s, but the band was what it was, and now it’s something completely different. What’s more, that song is now a fu- ...a damned Taco Bell ad:

...and Devo’s now teaming up with fucking DISNEY to create the barrel-scraping abomination called Devo 2.0 which is nothing but rerecordings of OLD Devo songs, sung by KIDS! Whoops, I let one slip out there. But really, if Devo’s doing computer and fast-food ads while whoring themselves out to Disney, what is sacred? Maybe these companies are trying to reach out to old Devo fans who have sold out, or bought in, themselves. Though I don’t buy it, it’s the only imaginable conclusion I can arrive upon: that these are thoughtfully hatched campaigns to attract thinking, socially conscious consumers by reminding everyone how awesome Devo was. Ads BY cultural critics, FOR consumer goods. Talk about hailing the alienated consumer.