Bi-Weekly-ish Newsletter #57 w/ 🎬 Wes Anderson and 🏔 Mont Blanc, 🤖 AI-Video, 🎧 A Music Mogul Podcast, 🎵 How-to-Udio, and 🎨 Brandalism.
Hallelujah, the ascension has arrived! Bless this fresh bi-weekly-ish dispatch from yours truly on this holiest of days.
This edition features items ranging from the latest Wes Anderson haute couture-ish promo to the bleeding edge of AI-powered music videos and AI-audio wizardry. Plus, a podcast with an industry mogul who scorns "f*cking business plans" and a look at the radical "Brandalists" rebranding...well, branding itself.
Enjoy!
1. Wes Anderson x Montblanc
The Crossover You Didn't Know We Needed
Wes Anderson is the filmmaker people either ride-or-die obsess over or actively avoid like the proverbial plague due to the director's highly distinctive visual aesthetic of symmetrical framing, vintage production design and color palettes so pastel your teeth may fall out.
I fall into the "dude puts me in a coma" camp regarding Anderson's oeuvre. As much as I would like to be a person who enjoys a healthy dose of elitest melancholy, my soul drifts off to dreamland whenever I sit down for one of his meticulously art-directed, never-ending stories.
That said, even a hater like myself can't deny the guy's whimsical talent is ideally suited for commercials, like those for upscale pens. To mark 100 years of their iconic Meisterstück line, the luxe stationery brand Montblanc has tapped Anderson to create a campaign that combines his vision into their brand world.
The piece-de-resistance (I, too, can be pretentious) is a 3-minute micro-film starring the director's longtime muse, Jason Schwartzman (who, I'm told, is my supposed doppelgänger). It packs all the quirky show-tune choreography and elaborate production design you'd expect from an Anderson feature, just constrained to a consumable tight run time where the magic never wears thin, and that had me stay awake for the whole thing this time. Win-Win!
2. The Chillwave Singularity Arrived
Watch Washed Out's Pioneering AI Video
A little over a year ago, on April 23rd, I covered a fake beer commercial that AI entirely generated. The video started as a mundane American beer ad before descending into chaos - accurately described by a friend as "A Hieronymus Bosch painting celebrating hellfire in a beer vortex, since we're about to be nuked by North Korea anyway!" and setting the S/S 2023 seasonal benchmark for AI video.
Fast-forward to last week, and we've reached a new milestone with monumental differences. Chillwave group Washed Out released a new single, "The Hardest Part," and for the first time, with a music video created using OpenAI's Sora text-to-video model.
The results are stunning and open up incredible new creative opportunities. In an interview, director Paul Trillo revealed he'd been sitting on the concept for an "infinite zoom" for decades, thinking it was too complex to execute with traditional video software and that Sora's generative AI finally enabled him to manifest that long-percolating vision.
Washed Out's "The Hardest Part" video is quite an achievement, fusing human artistry and machine intelligence. It's the kind of boundry-pushing creative application that gets me jazzed up (or Chillwaved down) about the emerging AI toolbox, especially if creators leverage it to unlock new artistic visions rather than defaulting to gimmickry. It sets the new standard for the S/S 2024 AI season.
Check out "The Hardest Part" below!
This is an ad. Why are you seeing this ad?
Well, because I'm the co-founder of Ringo, and since other people are doing all the real work like programming and operations, I figured I'd do my part by referring people to our website so they can apply for early access to our upcoming public beta.
Why apply, you wonder?
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3. Riding the Wave with Scott Cohen
The Music Mogul Who Urges You to "F*ck Business Plans"
If you operate in the wild wild west of music entrepreneurship like yours truly, you've gotta love a candid maverick like Scott Cohen. The founder of digital distribution pioneers The Orchard and modern royalty investment platform JKBX recently appeared on The Sound Connections podcast - and wow, did he bring the real talk.
The episode starts with Cohen dropping a quotable gem that had me nodding in agreement:
"The worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is write a f*cking business plan."
Why? It just boxes you in before you even start, and any proper financial model would reveal your idea is doomed from the jump. A man after my heart, cussing out orthodox wisdom right from the opening bell.
Cohen recounts the countless obstacles and inevitable setbacks he faced after founding The Orchard in the '90s on the then-ludicrous premise that music consumption would shift to computers and phones.
His sole driving force through the turmoil? An unwavering 1000% belief in his vision of the future while scoffing at traditional business plans and financial projections. Because, as every mogul eventually learns, the only plan is to adapt and pivot at every turn.
Cohen's honest storytelling takes us through The Orchard's ultimate acquisition by Sony Music, an exit he gleefully admits paid off "especially the IRS." These days, he's blazing a new trail by making music royalties accessible to the masses via JKBX's unique investment model.
Cohen's inspiring energy is a no-nonsense jolt for start-up dreamers and seasoned veterans alike. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone enamored with those rags-to-riches tales of entrepreneurs boldly persisting through all the "are you f*cking kidding me" moments and that the only real plan is to take one more blind leap of faith that your unconventional idea will reshape the world.
Worked for Cohen, at least.
4. How-to-Udio
Mastering the Melody Machine and Hacking Harmonies
As AI music generators like Udio go mainstream, some are skipping the philosophical debates and legal hand-wringing to get straight into mastering these powerful new tools. Case in point - the growing number of YouTube tutorials teaching the ins-and-outs of apps like Udio, which can generate songs from text prompts in minutes. While magical on the surface, Udio has many limitations that become evident with use.
That's where heroes like the creator of "The Full Udio Guide" come in handy. Their crash course is packed with tips, tricks, and prompt hacks to level up your Udio wizardry—from repeating melodies and controlling sections to ensuring consistency and adding effects.
For those looking to get ahead of the generative melody- and learning curve, guides like this are a must-watch.
5. Anti-Advertising and Brandalism
Challenging the Marketing Monolith
This Substack caters to an equal mix of music fans, tech heads, and advertising professionals. As someone who has been drinking the marketing Kool-Aid for over 15 years, I’d like to be the first one to admit we creative hustlers can be appallingly blind to the cultural impacts of our crafty mind-nudging.
That's why the Dutch documentary (with English subtitles) about Brandalism (branding + vandalism) is such a bracing wake-up call. It follows the growing anti-ad activist movement, questioning whether our hyper-advertised world is as empowering for consumers as brands claim. We're hit with staggering numbers—600 billion euros were spent globally on ads in 2020 alone, with the average city resident exposed to 4,000-10,000 marketing messages a day.
The "Brandalists" clearly have an anti-capitalist axe to grind. Still, they also surface fascinating ideas around funding a future with little-to-no advertising by reallocating those marketing billions into public services and art. Whether you're a card-carrying brand evangelist or eager to radically "rebrand" our branded world, "Brandalism" is a highly recommended thought-provoking counterweight.
*Yes, I'm aware of the irony that this head Brandalist is wearing the Adidas brand on his forehead.
Leaving you with the words of Bad Religion
Remain ungovernable in the ascended world to come and enjoy the long weekend!
Cheerio, Marcel
Tribute bands jaren 60 heel populair aan het worden.
Succes