Quotes About Commercialism

Television is not the truth. Television is a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats, storytellers dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business.

Only sick music makes money today.

Nobody wants to pay to see a real chick fight because it's ugly and it doesn't sell.

What editors are obliged to appear to say that men want from women is actually what their advertisers want from women.

There is music out there that is commercially driven, whether you like it or not. That's a peculiarly American innovation. We innovated the commercial music business.

I think the music business is as crass and as unrewarding as it has ever been.

Not to name names, but a lot of pop female artists you see, they don't write their own songs. Lot of top male artists and boy band artists, they don't write their own songs. They're just a product. They sell, they sell, they sell. They don't care about musical integrity, any of that kind of stuff.

We're not just going to take some songs from a focus group in Nashville where people are sitting around in a circle having appointments trying to write catchy songs so they can sell them to a band like us.

A lot of people in Nashville think that the best song is the catchiest or the one that sells the most copies. They're editing songs in a way that make them seem more consumable, I guess. I'm trying to edit them in a way that makes them more honest.

They saw themselves as rear-guard individualists, making a last-ditch stand against the twentieth century. They gave thanks loudly from morn till eve that they had escaped the soul destroying commercialism of the city. They were tacky and cheerful and defiantly bohemian, tirelessly inquisitive about each other's doings, and boundlessly tolerant. When they fought, at least it was with fists and bottles and furniture, not lawyers.

Dove ci sono buone notizie non c'è letteratura - chi lo ha detto? La letteratura esiste solo per indagare le meccaniche dell'infelicità; se no è spazzatura, è robaccia commerciale, a prescindere. In ogni caso per evitare equivoci, tu sei sempre stato d'accordo con questa idea di letteratura. Il che è normale, se sei un intellettuale fallito.

How could one engage the world and yet not be cheapened by the aggressive dumbing-down that was the lifeblood of the commercial culture, the festering underbelly of the polity he sought to lead?

But for women especially, bras, panties, bathing suits, and other stereotypical gear are visual reminders of a commercial, idealized feminine image that our real and diverse female bodies can't possibly fit. Without those visual references, however, each individual woman's body can be accepted on its own terms. We stop being comparatives. We begin to be unique.

Consumerism has a religious day called Black Friday.

It thus became almost impossible to have one's music heard without first being profitable, in other words, without writing commercial works known to the bourgeoisie. To be successful, a musician first had to attract an audience as an interpreter: representation takes precedence over composition and conditions it. The only authorized composers were successful interpreters of the works of others.

I have been offered obscene amounts to do commercials and stage shows abroad, but as a matter of principle, I am against them.

I've always said it's easier for bands to make a hard stance - like, we don't do commercials or whatever, blah blah blah - when you've sold billions of records. It's super-easy to be righteous when you're rich.

If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.

However, I suppose VH1 *is* selling me something; they're selling nostalgia, which means they're selling my own memories back to me, which means they're selling me to me.

The nineties were (and shall always remain) the absolute zenith for bands whose goal was selling records.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When they had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving them an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When they had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving them an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy.

Charging commercial institutions with failure to educate public taste is an indulgence from which intellectuals will only be deterred when they grasp that a non-existant contract can be neither breached nor enforced. If commerce is to be indicted for anything, it can only be for commercialism, and whether that is a crime or not is a political question.

What's wrong with Disneyland? It brings joy to millions and tutors children about the corporate, overbranded world they've been born into.