Notes from Underground

Projects elsewhere have meant I’ve had less time to do the blog than I thought. Anyway, here’s something from last year occasioned by hearing a Buzzcocks’ song in a Nissan ad.

The Commodification of Everyday Life

It could have been so many other bands, but it was the Buzzcocks. As the announcer extolled the virtues of the new Nissan, there, unmistakably, was the Buzzcocks’ song “So Why Can’t I Touch It?” (I bought in 1979 as the B-side to the band’s eighth   single “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” so it should be worth a few bob now) Neither song is, in my opinion, one of their greatest moments, so it seemed a little strange that this song by a band that never really made any impact in North America should be leased by Nissan and used in the North American market.

Was Pete Shelley, a sell-out for leasing his son to Nissan? If so, he’d certainly taken his time since the song was over a quarter of a century old. It all depends upon what you mean by sell out. Pete Shelley was one of the original punks in Manchesterin 1976. Along with Howard Devoto, he helped to organize the first Sex Pistols show in the city, and later, also with Devoto formed the Buzzcocks. The band’s first record, the EP Spiral Scratch, was self-released on the band’s New Hormones label, and helped pioneer the D.I.Y. ethos of punk: Year Zero! No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977! Yet, in 1977, they signed to big capitalist record company: Apropos Mark P, did punk die the day the Buzzcocks signed to United Artists?   Is leasing a song for use by a car company a violation of art? Can music ever be pure?

The list of musicians who have sold their songs to corporations to promote worthless product is endless.  Should we then agree with 10CC when they sang, “Art for art’s sake; money for God’s sake”? Or Krusty the Clown who, when asked about his endorsements for crappy products cried, “They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house. I’m not made of stone!” It’s not called the music business for nothing, I suppose.  

But there’s more to it than the lure of cash. The pressure to sell out, or simply sell is enormous. It’s one of the many things which make capitalism such an insidious, but such a resilient and durable system. The market existed long before capitalism, but only under capitalism did the market, and the commodity form reach such a degree of refinement (if indeed, that’s the right world). 

A commodity, simply put, is product which is created for external sale. If I buy mushrooms, cheese and eggs and make an omelette for my kids, that labour is unalienated. However, if I make the same meal in a restaurant, the product is a commodity (something created for sale not for consumption by the maker). Hell, under capitalism, I don’t even own the omelette – that belongs to the owner of the restaurant who pays me for my labour power; itself a commodity: Small wonder that Marx’s began his Capital with the observation that capitalism presents itself as a vast accumulation of commodities.

But capitalism is more than just a society which produces commodities. A unique feature of the system, unlike say feudalism, is that capitalism is an aggressively expansive system – it seeks to recreate itself in other societies, and deepen its reach in this one. Thus, it continually seeks to expand into new markets and into new areas of life once untouched by the market. Where once untouched social spaces existed, now capital expands. Everything becomes a commodity, again and again. Nothing is sacred.

While other societies sought to suppress radical art and ideas (think of the absolutism societies throughout history), capitalism, is perfectly content with youthful rebellion. Capitalism is supremely confident of its ability to recuperate that rebellion; turn it into a product, into a commodity (A few years ago, a friend sent me a bottle of soda pop produced in B.C called Revolution cola, adorned with Che’s face).    

Capital will continue to sell and convert the radical into the safe consumable item. While no one has used the Sex Pistols in commercials yet, Nirvana is on the verge of being sanitized. It’s only a matter of time. Within capital, lies commodification. Only from without can the system be overthrown and the possibility of art for art’s sake appear.

May 17, 2007