Reykjavík Grapevine - 27.07.2007, Page 3

04_RVK_GV_ISSUE 11_007_LETTERS
Re: On Advertisement
When I was 18, I was a communist. I’m not really sure
why, the whole thing just kind of resounded with my
upbringing in Sweden, and I thought Che Guevara T-
shirts were really cool.
After a long argument with my friend Sindri, who was
very right wing at the time, we both took monumental
political shifts; he swung to the left and I to the right.
At the time I was editing an alternative school paper,
and I was very fond of bringing together all kinds of
mean and nasty things and contrasting and comparing
them with people, institutions and ideas that I wasn’t
very fond of.
This is the feeling I’m getting from your opinion
piece “On Advertisement”. I can’t really say that the guy
is lying, as he isn’t really saying much, he’s just talking
about advertising, Nazis, climate change, brain washing,
anti-Semitism and stuff.
The author of the piece, young Magnús Björn, asks,
“what is to be done”, then states that capitalism is so-
mething or other, throws in a quote from Jack Kerouac,
mentions an Apple ad, and then... nothing. Because
the piece doesn’t really seem to be about anything. The
only real opinion I can grasp from it is that advertising is
bad, and the implication that all advertisements contain
lies.
The thing is, I really like your magazine. I just don’t
understand why you need to print opinion pieces from
eighteen year olds. Most of the stuff In the Grapevine is
wonderful, but then you regularly taint your reputation
with juvenile political drivel.
You really should get some more grownups to do
your Opinion pieces, and maybe get them to write about
grown up issues.
Regards,
Sveinbjörn
(Works in the advertising business)
Dear Sveinbjörn,
As a free magazine who’s sole source of income is selling
ads, we might agree that likening the advertising industry
to brain-enslaving, climate-changing Nazis is somewhat
counterintuitive. Then again, insinuating that the act of
questioning the ad-industry’s actions, methods and ethics
is somehow juvenile is, at best, equally absurd.
It may sound a bit boring when we say, “the opi-
nions of the columnists don’t reflect the opinions of
The Reykjavik Grapevine” (as if a magazine could hold
an opinion), but nevertheless, it’s very true. We try and
solicit a wide range of opinions in our Opinion pieces,
and these voices all need to be heard. Besides, it’s always
fun to nibble at the hand that feeds.
HM
Hello The Reykjavík Grapevine
I am interested in visiting the Sigur Rós studio in Reykjavik.
Where can I find it?
Andi
Dear Andi,
I am interested in visting your house and/or place of
work. Would you at all mind if I showed up at a ran-
dom time?
HM
Leave aside the fact that acts like Sigur Ros weren’t so
much bringing up an “original sound” as finely carrying
on-slash-pushing forward a firm tradition of Western
alternative music (Slowdive? Cocteau Twins? Anyone?).
They’re certainly innovators in many respects, as is Bjork
(of course), but let’s not lose perspective here. Music
existed before them, and will continue to do so for as
long as people have ears and brains.
What I WOULD like to know is exactly how your
columnist, Helga Torey Jonsdottir, got the impression that
the music industry of the nineties, eighties, seventies,
sixties, etc., was some sort of benevolent, originality-ce-
lebrating, hippie-dippy lovefest. Oh, back in the eighties,
when music executives and industry folk alike celebrated
the original sounds of… Madonna? Roxette? U2? The
fabulous nineties, when Creed and Stone Temple Pilots
reigned supreme? Let’s not forget that from what I read
in your paper, Bubbi Morthens has been the biggest
selling artist in Iceland for three decades in a row.
The music industry is fucking evil, always was, always
will be.
This of course has nothing to do with the shape of
music, or its originality. Fortunately, music and the music
industry are two wholly separate things that are for the
most part irrelevant to one another.
That aside, the conditions for making truly original
music – with a modicum of success, even – are bet-
ter than ever. What with cheap home recording gear,
MySpace, Youtube, the whole fucking internet for that
matter, creating some tunes and getting them out is
certainly easier than understanding the whole point of
Jonsdottir’s article. If there even was any.
Sincerely
Will Johnston
Dear Will,
It may sound a bit boring when we say, “the opinions of
the columnists don’t reflect the opinions of The Reykjavík
Grapevine” (as if a magazine could hold an opinion), but
nevertheless, it’s very true (that was easy enough!).
Also, while the music industry may have been evil
since the beginning, this very decade has seen a lot of
established labels go bankrupt or merge with larger
conglomerates to the extent that music publishing and
distribution now rests in the hands of a couple of cor-
porations. And that’s just plain unhealthy. But I digress.
A healthy exchange of opinion is what these crazy “ma-
gazines” are all about, and it seems to me that we’ve
just had one. Mission: Accomplished!
HM
Sour Grapes
Say your piece, voice your opinion, send your letters to letters@grapevine.is.
“The thing is, I really like your
magazine. I just don’t under-
stand why you need to print
opinion pieces from eighteen
year olds. Most of the stuff In
the Grapevine is wonderful, but
then you regularly taint your
reputation with juvenile politi-
cal drivel.”
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