Chris Farren is a songwriter from Florida living in Los Angeles, CA. In addition to performing and releasing music under his own name, he also fronts the band Antarctigo Vespucci. He is very cool and nice and wrote this about himself. You can follow him on Twitter at @ChrisFarren.
The following is a leaked internal memo from an unnamed marketing and content strategy firm, tasked with making Jeff Rosenstock’s NO DREAM more commercially viable.
Hi Team! Hope everyone had a nice long weekend, and is staying safe and vigilant in these strange, trying times! My new assistant Pebson recommended this album to me after I screamed at him for messing up my iced coffee order (too cold!). We all know I’m not really the company’s go-to “hard rock” guy (more of an Apple Music guy), but I decided to give it a shot.
After a bit of outreach, I’m happy to report that this record is very serviceable to our clients! The songs have a great energy and feel very youthful. I’ve already gotten some positive feedback from our friends in the automotive, clothing, insurance, and cruise ship divisions. There is a great deal of potential here to make everyone a lot of money! However, it’s not without multiple areas of concern. If we can get the artist to play ball and clean it up a little bit, I think we’ve got a real cash cow on our hands. Jeff is notoriously difficult when it comes to collab-ing with big companies (eye roll!) so we’re going to need to proceed delicately if we want him on our side.
I’ve highlighted the songs with the most potential in the market and the proposed changes we’d like to see. Feel free to chime in!
“Nikes (Alt)”
OK, obviously everyone knows that Nike marketing VP Bred Crummings and I were fraternity brothers, and continue to have a great working relationship. We came up with these changes over our Zoom happy hour last night!
Our main hurdle is the lyric “So I scour the internet for a new pair of Nikes, status symbol shit that I say I’m above, oh no, I’m fucking full of shit.” Bred LOVES the mention of Nike, but we both agreed it would be better if there was a more positive spin. Could we change this line to “So I am on Nike.com shopping for a new pair of Nikes, status symbol product that I am in love with, oh yes, I’m really feeling good”?
The next problem area in this song is, “Stinkin’ rich hypocrite, no it’s not gonna bring no happiness.” We love that kind of subversive jargon of course, but we might have more success pitching if we changed the line to: “Stinkin’ rich deservin’ it, yes it actually is the key to happiness!”
“The Beauty Of Breathing”
This song has been gaining a lot of interest from our close friends over in the Nissan Versa camp. Jeff and Nissan last teamed up for a campaign with his 2018 song “Beating My Head Against The Wall,” changing the lyrics just slightly to “Beeping My Horn I’m a Car.”
Since then however, they’ve had a bit of an unlucky streak with PR; their 2019 model had a defect where, if the airbag deployed, a tiny little gun would extend towards the driver and fire eight rounds. 🙁 Major buzzkill for the shareholders, obvs. With all of that settled (legally) behind them, they’re anxious to get back into the public’s good graces.
They LOVE “The BoB” for their upcoming “Driving Car Make Me Skinny” summer campaign. Of course, there are just a few minor alterations needed for them to sign off. The lyrics are, again, so good! But it would be great to change them a lot. The first line, as of now, reads “Sometimes I wanna take the car out on the road, flip it into park and smash myself into a million little pieces.” So funny! But could we switch that to “Every day I wanna take my car out on the road, listen to SIRIUS XM PANDORA and smile about my nice life”?
“Monday At The Beach”
Carnival Cruise is gearing up their fleet to set sail again very soon, and would love to have this song soundtrack their first round of TV spots for the summer. They love the fast punky Beach Boys vibe and think that might be exactly what is needed to target a whole new younger demographic. The feedback I’m getting from their new head of marketing (Garfield A. Cat) is a push to not involve Monday at all. They’re cool with any other day of the week, but Monday just has kind of a negative connotation for them. They would also like to see the song be a lot slower and less punky, and also maybe not so Beach Boys-y. Is there an acoustic version we can use with a female vocal?
So team, what do you think? The record is full of explosive musical moments and a new kind of frenetic anxiety that we can certainly use to push fingers towards the “Add To Cart” button. Can we swing this? What are some other changes you’d like to see to make this the perfect record for our little community of clients? Send me your notes and I’ll run them up the flagpole!
Stay safe and circle back soon,
Pink Lipman, VP of Marketing Development
