Memo To Copy Writers Everywhere...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Okay, just so everyone, but specifically the editors of Keyboard magazine and the various companies that release loop CDs, knows, it’s no longer cool to substitute “ph” for “f.” It hasn’t been for some time now. It really wasn’t that cool when it was cool, which was a span of about two weeks in 1996. Surely there’s another superlative you can come up with that actually has, like, meaning and stuff?
Example 1. Seriously, guys. Just stop now. If someone held a gun to my head, I’d have a hard time coming up with a statement less burdened by meaning than the following: Phat to Phreaky is the ultimate collection of urban beats, breakdowns and fills, and comes straight from the beatboxes, drum machines and samples that you hear on today’s hottest songs.
Example 2. I’m sorry, Peter, but Phat 101? Come on. I know you work for Keyboard, but does that have to inform the curriculum that I actually read?
Example 3. Okay, guys. I’m a big fan of you and your products, but this is an intervention. It’s for your own good.
I could go on and on (and on) with this, but can’t we just stop the madness? From now on, every time it gets used and I see it, I’m calling a motherfucker out.
33 comments
Look through all my pieces I've written for Keyboard. Never have I used "phat", "phunkee", or any other white-i-fied street terminology.
That's all I'm sayin'.
mitchell
LOL.
-CR
phantastic.
whats next?
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(BTW if you think the whiteboy hip hop catch copy is bad, browse through the white boy reggae catch copy some time. its truely cringeworthy)
Other forbidden words/phrases:
"It's true!"
"The possibilities are virtually limitless!"
"radio-ready/radio-quality"
"mix-quality"
"audiophile-quality"
"ruler-flat response"
"killer"
"professional"
"fully-programmable"
"studio-standard"
"hit/hits" (as in instant hit song, just buy this)
"techno" (no one but marketing people use this word)
"The ultimate/the last/holy grail"
"songs just write themselves" (OK I made that last one up, but I might have to use it just for kicks sometime..)
That list sounded just like a sweetwater catalog.
haha that reminds me of a funny story from 10-12 years ago or so. I walked into a music store (probably a guitar center) and I was milling around the guitars (maybe it wasn't guitar center cos there were peavey guitars). Anyhow, this is about the time the van halen guitar came out, and one of the sales guys comes up to me and is doing the usual bullshit guitar sales guy routine.
Sales Guy: "Hey man, you seen that new Peavey Wolfgang?"
Me: "Yeah, well I read the review of it in guitar world"
Sales Guy: "Oh you should check it out man _It Smokes!_" (with a total straight face)
Right after the guy said that, he points to the instore display of the model. It has the whole cardboard cutout with eddie (with that butch haircut he was donning), the cheesy stand for the guitar and the words "IT SMOKES!" written under it. There were also flames if I recall
to this day, I don't know if the sales guy was being sarcastic, or he actually just happened to choose the same phrase that was emblazoned on the display, but I'm hoping the latter cos that was the epitamy of cheesy marketing shit.
Your topic just reminded me of the newish Moog.
Please Moog!!!!
Change the name of the "Lil' Phatty"!!!
Please.
Lil Phatty indeed. All due respect to the late Mr. Moog, but I will come right out and say it, the name is awful. Sure I look forward to playing one of these, but, really, who didn't wince when they first heard that one? Mostly, this particular - what is it, cliche, marketing speak? - doesn't really phase me. (Groan.) But that is so misguided it is kinda quaint.
There's a certain type of music person, we'll use the codeword "old", which is just a random word I've chosen... they tend to utilize this type of terminology. And you forgot "dope" and "def". It's important that your urban vernacular is at least seven years behind what an actual urban resident might use (I'd use "homeboy", but in a strange example of circular logic, that's about seven years out of date).
It's tough... I mean, ya can't call the new Moog the "bad motherfucker" or "the nuts". We might think that was cool, but y'know, then church musicians couldn't use them (and I'm ALL broken up about that).
I'd probably just give it a number, but marketing guys don't find that very catchy (of course, I think Front 242 is coolest band name ever).
And as far as the magazine stuff, well, that's hard too, because without actually hearing stuff, it IS really hard to describe things a lot of the time without getting redundant (and repetitive, and repeating yourself... etc...).
I was reading a Sweetwater catalog once, and it said you needed corner soundproofing foam product in order to make sure "your sound isn't plucked up and devowered as if by so many carrion birds". I guess the copywriter was a frusterated poet or something.
Indeed.
Now, that said, I'm sure that Front 242 is the best band name for a band that _exists_, but that'll only be true until I start my punk band, which I plan on naming "Chuck E. Jesus"
-CR
The Memorymoog was marketed to churches as the "Sanctuary".
Moog history is littered with godawful product names: prodigy, rogue, liberation, etc., but they've outdone themselves in recent years, I think, with Voyager, Moogerfooger, and now Lil' Phatty, GREAT as the former two lines may be.
The only time I can will condone the usage of the word phat is with usage of this spoof vst:
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2005/11/slapclap-totally-inappropriate.html
..and when referring to a phat ass, cause it's better than a fat ass, but thats anutha blog!
I have a list of non existant band names at home I plan to use for releasing stuff under. The only one I'll reveal right now is The Shaving Rasins. As far as dumb band names go, ya cant beat punk names like "John Couger Concentration Camp". Sometimes I buy those records just for the band name or the stupid cover picture. Oddly enough, all the best ones really are records, usually 7" eps.
I don't wanna offend anyone so I can't really write my favourite band name here, but it's number 5 from top on this list:
http://www.stereogum.com/archives/004035.html
"I don't wanna offend anyone so I can't really write my favourite band name here, but it's number 5 from top on this list:
www.stereogum.com"
I don't know how providing a link to some offensive words is better than typing the words "Anal Cunt" in your original post, but, hey, if it helps you sleep at night ...
* Chris, I also discourage the use of the word "phat." Hence, my headline was ironic. I am young enough and from New York enough that I qualify for the use of irony, generally failed irony that only serves to implicate me as it did here. (Quoth Charlie Brown, "don't you know sarcasm when you see it?") I was also probably drunk, or my sober state is now equally impaired.
* I submit to you that that's probably not even close to the dumbest thing I've written on CDM.
* I also don't recall using "phat", "funky", or any other terms when writing for Keyboard. I will not hesitate to blame my editors if such a term appears. At least a couple of them still have actual staff positions rather than freelancing like the rest of us, so they can stand up to being used as scapegoats. In fact, for all I know they've cracked into CDM's admin system and are putting words in my mouth.
The defense rests.
LOL! nelium; it's similar to people who think that saying "A"-hole is somehow more polite or acceptable than "asshole". They don't get the idea that if they really wanted to be more polite or acceptable they shouldn't use either word; instead substitute a word with a different, acceptable meaning rather than a synonymous term.
Mind you, in dan s' defense, at least he gave the readers a choice as to wether or not they wished to clickety click see the offensive term.
On a completely different note, I'll have to add the famous "run, don't walk to your local music store to pick up gizmo X" to the list
;-)
P.S. to my last post:
Even excellent, superb writers have been known to use the "run, don't walk" meme.
Yes, that's why I've begun the "drive, don't run" trend.
Personally, I'm a fan of "fall, don't stumble..." but that's neither here nor there.
Speaking of memes, my wife got me an 80 gig iPod to replace my long-suffering 10g model, and it occurs to me that this iPod has a hard drive big enough to clone all the data on my iMac and still leave room for my entire music collection.
Out of idle curiosity, wtf does someone do with all this room?
-CR
goose-step, don't walk...
Some of us have stupidly large music collections. I could get mine on an 80gig, but not the older 60gig. 'Course, I could convert everything to 128 kHz mp3s, but that would defeat the purpose of owning music I think sounds good.
man I crammed my 20 gig to the gills, and even that has shit on it I'd never listen to in a million years (it somehow ended up on there though).
Time to get hip to watching your favorite shows on a 2 inch screen!!
I have thousands of CDs; I only put what I regularly listen to in iTunes. (I tend to buy new music digitally, unless it's something special, like the new Tom Waits or something.) My listening habits tend to be the same record over and over again until I can't stand it any more, as a quick browse through my LastFM profile will attest:
http://www.last.fm/user/Crandall1
But even then, I only have a shade over 10 gigs of music in my iMac.
-CR
"Out of idle curiosity, wtf does someone do with all this room?"
it can go surprisingly quickly if you keep your music in lossless format or 320k aac or mp3s, and you're too lazy to be selective about what you put on the ipod. plus if you use it to back up tons of stuff between home and an office, etc. i have a 60 that's always near full.
Remember the ipods can play video now, so you can fill it up with your DVD collection and watch "Last Year At Marienbad" on the bus to work or something.
"Dream Theatre Live At Budokon" is all you need to know about that.
(Now, just so everyone is aware, the above sentence is sarcastic as hell.)
I don't think I'll be putting any video in my iPod. WTF for?
-CR
haha, those ohmforce videos are rad
That is why I bought the 8 gig nano. Well, that and the fact I can drop it as much as I want to (which really isn't all that much) and not have to worry about fucking up a hard drive (which has happened once).
Not meaning to hijack this thread back to its topic, but I agree re the new Moog. Its name might be the single biggest barrier to me buying one, although lack of a place to put it is more significant in practical terms.
--Adam
In my defense, when I first created pHATmatik back in 2001, 'phat' wasn't so nauseatingly overused (at the time, a CM writer complained that it was hard to type) and the plug-in only wound up being named so because of the list of possible names I had, it was the one that returned no hits on Google. (Angus suggested pHATpHUK, and I'm still crestfallen that I couldn't get the missus ^H^H^H^H^H marketing department to go along.)
But now that I've foisted it and its lame-ass name upon iZotope, I can act all superior and snobby and jump run in with the pHAT-bashing. Tired!
--Art
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