kidmercury

This past weekend I spent a lot of time listening to 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day. I'm starting to really like this album. One song I think is particularly memorable is "Last Night on Earth," it jumped out at me first time I heard it. It's the most Beatle-esque song I've heard in a while. Live acoustic version is better than album version though.


Here's part of the Wikipedia on the album:

21st Century Breakdown continues the rock opera style of its predecessor American Idiot.The album is divided into three acts: "Heroes and Cons", "Charlatans and Saints", and "Horseshoes and Handgrenades" and is set in Detroit, Michigan. Its loose narrative follows a young couple named Christian and Gloria through the challenges present in the U.S. following the presidency of George W. Bush. Bassist Mike Dirnt has suggested that the songs "speak to each other the way the songs on Born to Run speak to each other. I don't know if you'd call it a 'concept album', but there's a thread that connects everything". Many of the record's themes and lyrics are drawn from Armstrong's personal life and he sings in the first-person narrative style about abandonment and vengeance in "Before the Lobotomy", "Christian's Inferno", and "Peacemaker". Rolling Stone noted that the album is "the most personal, emotionally convulsive record Armstrong has ever written".

Personally I found the album to be quite hard to follow. But these days I find most stories hard to follow. I basically only watch documentaries about bad news and stupid comedies (i.e. Will Ferrell). LOL I love that crap.

But anyway, the point is that a story is being told, or that is the idea. And I think it will prove to be a valuable one. One of the themes of this blog is that as the Internet makes more and more media free, the monetization opportunity shifts towards creating a community of customers, and selling them your brand, Nike-style. To create a brand you need to tell a story, that's something Seth Godin talks about a lot. And so I think there is a real opportunity to turn concept albums into brands to sell a lifestyle.

At the heart of the brand will be the story, the myth, the brand sells, i.e. "use these products and you become XXXXX." Sexual imagery is the easy bait here; i.e. "use this product and you'll become a smokin' hot babe/dude." This is one of the reasons why I think hip-hop is the musical genre best positioned for much of the changes the Internet enables; it is a style of music most conducive to storytelling, and thus lends itself to brand building, social gaming, communities, etc. Indeed, perhaps the most lucrative bedroom rock stars are in fact bedroom rap stars.