1930

$38 is approx $2000 today.

1939

Cough Cough.

1948

I don't think you can buy smaller than 14" nowadays.

1950

Thanks, Motorola! No conflict of interest whatsoever!

1954

Rotomatic! Impress your friends with wonderful retro terminology next time you see a circular knob with discrete stops.

1956

If remotes still had that f*cking brilliant gun shape, there would be 59% less violence in modern society.

1962

The Japanese show up and deliver more style and lust in a single ad than anything Americans could muster in the previous 30 years.

Welcome to the Sharp Knife* series.  This will be a set of randomly recurring posts highlighting lesser-known people with interesting achievements and/or ideas.

Although sometimes, as with this post, there will be no practical benefit beyond sensory stimulation, at other times the featured concepts will provide tangible rewards for anyone smart enough to understand their value.

*For non-native English speakers: the term Sharp Knife refers to the colloquialism Not the Sharpest Knife in the Drawer, a humorous way of saying that someone is dull, slow, or dim.  This series will collect an opposite set, i.e. people and concepts indispensable to one's intellectual and stylistic arsenal.

As a follow up to the Mad Men post, I recently came across an article on the Design Observer site on the topic of advertising in the early 60s.

The focus of the article is on legendary designer George Lois, and I'd recommend checking it out if you're interested in getting some context for the TV series (or are into 60s graphic design).

Both the article as well as Lois' own site have links to his more notable campaigns and covers, so you can judge for yourself whether his reputation and inclusion in this series is justified.

The article's writer, Adam Levy, also makes a thought-provoking comparison between the style of magazines from that era versus the celebrity-obsessed rags that plaster modern supermarket checkout stands.

His conclusion that modern magazine design is purely sales-driven is a rather depressing statement, so let's hope that at least some modern designers are being given the artistic freedom that Lois enjoyed while creating his mini-masterpieces.

Either way, if you come to the conclusion that Lois was a genius, you'll need to check out the design pioneer who influenced him the most: Helmut Krone.

Born in Queens of German parents, Krone is often recognized as the father of modern advertising and branding. The impact of his revolutionary thinking looms large both implicitly and explicitly throughout Mad Men series.

He was a master at turning weaknesses into strengths in the context of minimalist layouts.  1959's Think Small for Volkswagen is considered by many to be the greatest advertising campaign of all time (but see this Adrants article for some dispute over his authorship).  1963's We Try Harder for Avis was so powerful and timeless that its slogan is still in use today.

So the next time some company shamelessly tries to sell you a product by appealing to your emotions or hormones, just say no.  Dismiss those condescending tactics by remembering the sophisticated legacy of Krone and Lois.  Those two giants are proof that you don't need to treat people like cavemen in order to sell products.

This article continues the series from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

4. Pepper

My only run-in with the Butthole Surfers was at a concert in Hamburg, in a small club which had been massively oversold. Inevitably, it ended in an all-out riot featuring ambulances and police arrests.

To be frank (and not necessarily because of that experience), I've never been too keen on the Surfers' unique blend of musical styles and their less-than-subtle sense of humour.  Nevertheless, 1996's Pepper, their most successful attempt at going mainstream, pushes many of my favorite musical buttons.  It's a captivating mixture of trip-hop and psychedelia with a plenty of backwards effects including the chorus.

5. Let Forever Be

In the context of this series, there are certainly plenty of tracks to choose from within the Chemical Brothers' repertoire.  I very much admire the way Mr. Tom and Mr. Ed constructed a groundbreaking synthesis of past and present pop idioms.

Their first explicit nod to Tomorrow Never Knows was Setting Sun, a 1996 collaboration with Noel Gallagher.  It was close enough to Lennon's masterpiece in both spirit and execution to provoke accusations of illegal sampling from overzealous Apple lawyers.

Along the same stylistic lines, The Private Psychedelic Reel and Surrender could also have been titled Mark 3 or mistaken for remixed Revolver outtakes.  But I'm going to instead cast my vote for Let Forever Be, another Gallagher co-creation from 1999.  Why?  Because:

1. It's strongly reminiscent of Tomorrow Never Knows, not just in style but also in the feel of its lyrics.
2. It has a captivating video featuring Michel Gondry's pseudo-kaleidoscopic effects.
3. It's permanently burned into my brain due to several years of usage as the opening theme to Estudio Fútbol (the only football punditry show I watch regularly, if only for the occasional appearance by the deliciously knowledgeable Luciana Rubinska).

Check out the Chemical Brothers and Noel Gallagher reminiscing about the genesis of Let Forever Be.

Here's a quickie review in lieu of a longer essay while I recover from an unexpectedly strong antibiotic.  Tip: there are 100 trillion microorganisms living in your body.  Don't kill them all because most perform very useful functions.

Mr. Postman dropped off yesterday, among the usual pile of bills and junk, three* rented DVDs from Netflix.  Among them was Too Much Too Young, a new DVD compilation about The Specials from Image Entertainment.

The DVD gathers all their promo videos plus some live footage shot during their 1980 US tour.

The Good

It's hard to believe that all sorts of throwaway bands have gotten lavish DVD compilations and retrospectives, whereas the Specials have been completely neglected up to this point.  This DVD somewhat rectifies that sad state of affairs, but not in a completely satisfactory way (see below).

The new 1980 live footage is nice to have, but unfortunately there are no complete tracks, with mostly very short segments and constant gaps and jumps.  Too bad, because the performances themselves seem killer.

The Bad

The compilation feels very low-budget and opportunistic.  The audio was not remastered and seems to be untouched from the original VHS release.  There is a very noticeable skip in Enjoy Yourself (29:47, not present in the VHS version), as well as occasional video dropouts.

In fact, since the video is not a significant improvement over the VHS version, all evidence points to a VHS source.  The sloppiness extends to the physical disc itself—the title is not part of the printed label and is instead a sticker on the inner rim.  It almost feels like a bootleg that found some copyright loophole in the USA in order to get to market as a commercial product.

In terms of added material, the release is very US-centric and aimed at a casual buyer, so 99% of people reading this will find the pseudo-documentary and narration rather superfluous (thankfully, he keeps quiet during the music videos).  If you're expecting a thorough and professional compilation like the outstanding Complete Jam, you will be hugely disappointed.

Perhaps a future official release specifically directed at the UK market will address some of these issues.

The Bottom Line

Buyer beware.

If you live in the USA and don't already own any Specials video material, this DVD is a reasonable start in terms of coverage.

If you live outside the USA, or already own a bootleg VHS rip, stay away.  If you're a completist and need to satisfy your curiosity, rent it.  The origin is dubious and the technical quality is not significantly better than what was previously available.  Keep your bootleg and wait for an official UK product.

Either way, although the Specials' promo videos are historically important, my opinion is that the 1979 Colchester concert and their Saturday Night Live appearance do a better job of conveying the talent and raw energy of the band at their peak.  Let's hope that some of that live footage gets an official release at some point.

*The other two discs were 1998's Detention/Learning Curve and 2002's Lost in La Mancha.  Both films were above average and I can recommend renting them.

This article continues the series from Part 1 and Part 2.

3. Waterfall/Don't Stop

Balls, balls, balls.  You've got to admit, the Stone Roses had balls!

Your debut album—a situation that can make or break you.  What do you do?  Play it safe?  Of course not!  You leave yourself open to a beating from both your fans and the press by doing something unthinkable and unexpected.

Like, for example, taking the backing track for the third song on your album, reversing it, and plonking down the five-minute result as your fourth track!

Art?  Garbage?  Probably both, in the grand tradition of Revolution 9 and Metal Machine Music.  But, due to the level of risk involved, Don't Stop seems more meritorious and meaningful than those two precedents.  Granted, the Roses already had a solid name and reputation before the release of their first album, but nevertheless it took courage to stand by an uncommercial artistic experiment without the cushion of an established career.

Either way, the combo was very carefully thought out, given that Don't Stop had some extremely clever additions beyond simply using Waterfall in reverse.  Forward drums were added, as well as nonsensical new lyrics which, when played backwards, phonetically sound like Waterfall's lyrics.  In effect, the two songs are as close to being mirror images as possible, with the reversed version sounding as normal as is feasible given the constraints.

Tongue-in-cheek or not, Ian Brown has said that, of all the songs the Roses did, Don't Stop is one of his favourites, and one of the few things he was satisfied with on their debut album.  And the Chemical Brothers have named Don't Stop as one of their top ten songs of all time.

Unfortunately, the impact of Waterfall/Don't Stop as an artistic statement was somewhat diminished by repeating the same trick with Guernica in reverse, but with forward lyrics) and Simone reversed).  Less is more—except, perhaps, when a full five years elapse between your first and second albums!