music
Consistency be thy name!
In a radio interview with the legendary rock band AC/DC one listener called in just to say, “You guys have put out 12 albums and they all sound the same!”
The band’s lead guitarist, Angus Young, replied with, “Actually, we’ve put out 13.”
When you’ve sold over 200 million albums worldwide it’s easy to answer questions that way. The band doesn’t care if you think they’re a one-trick pony: they set out to write the music they wanted to, never changed their style, and it worked better than most bands could ever dream of.
Then again, AC/DC were far from being an overnight success anywhere outside of their home country, Australia. Their first international album flopped when it came out. So did their second album, which the label didn’t even bother releasing in the USA (until 1981 – five years later). With their third album they cracked the top-40 in a few European countries. When AC/DC released Highway to Hell they had their first hit album across Europe and in the USA.
International success came with their fifth album, 5 years after their first single in Australia which (I bet you can guess it…) failed to chart.Read more
Cross-promote like a fool and everyone will cross you off their want lists
I started reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five over the weekend, and the cover baffles me.
To be specific, it’s the tagline across the top. It reads, “Best selling author of Timequake” in white capital letters. I’m no Vonnegut buff, so I had to look up Timequake to see it was his last novel. At this point I flip open the cover of Slaughterhouse to see the list of other Vonnegut novels and realize there’s no Timequake. What? I then look at the title atop the page, which states it’s a list of Vonnegut books published by Dell. Timequake was not published by Dell.Read more
Genius > advertising
How many advertisements did you ignore today?
How many moments of genius did you witness today?
I have good news and more good news. The first bit of good news is this: there's no point in counting how many millions of dollars marketers wasted "targeting" you with advertisements, because they're not trying to speak with you. They're throwing things at you. Do you like having things thrown at you? I don't.Read more
