We'd Like To Thank Our Assistants

"When we started audiomachine back in the summer of 2005, we never considered having a commercial release of our music. We anticipated that we would, hopefully, be used and appreciated by 'industry insiders' - and we set out, with every new CD, to improve upon our prior industry release. To always be bigger ... better. Well - never say never - because nearly seven years after our initial launch, with hundreds of feature film trailers and TV spots now under our belts, we find ourselves happily announcing our first commercial audiomachine release.

CHRONICLES is a sort of audiomachine "greatest hits" compilation. We've tried to include our most identifiable tracks from some of the wonderful theatrical advertising campaigns we've been fortunate enough to have been involved in, including, Avatar, The Fighter, Pirates of the Caribbean, The King's Speech, Hugo, Harry Potter, and many more. We are grateful to our loyal fans for their continued support as well as the support of the "industry insiders" that make audiomachine a reality. We also thank our friends and family who inspire us everyday and our wonderful extended family of composers and personnel who make the machine run."
-The owners of audiomachine, a position-music brand, speaking on behalf of their 2012 release "Chronicles."

Multi-Level Arting

Since long before the princes of the Renaissance paid off the sellout painters to have their students render tributes to the Bible and the Greco-Roman empires under the artists' names ("brands"), confidence men ("security professionals" or "intelligence agents") have been the neural networks transmitting deadening soullessness into "art." For a brief introduction, take a peek at a polite, detached, formal acknowledgement of Leonardo's farming out under-labor for Machiavelli's godchildren, or CIA agents and Hollywood doing the same for Cheney's.

Under avarice, many professions follow this pyramid/MLM model, structuring into hierarchies where those who do the work receive a low wage and no recognition, while the owners of brands gather treasure and awards, and shuffle replaceable cogs in and out of the lower seats as necessary. A billion underpainters, understudies and nobodies are lost to history, vanishing into the offscreen void as the master CEO smiles at the camera from the book's dust jacket, or prances about the stage with the gadget, paints the finishing touches on the famous dress before signing the corner, appears right after the THX blowout on the DVD's main menu, and wears sunglasses to the premiere.

Rebranding Lords and Serfs

Western post-industrialism has seen the "titling" of those doing the work change around. Very few people ever had the full attentions of fine, professional, creative healers, tutors, counselors, accountants, or bards, just as very few people had formal social distinctions, such as titles of nobility. To market the increasing technology of the post-industrial, total-warfare, standing-army-possessing security state, elites made a show of broadening access to these things by eliminating most noble titles, directing the building of universities, and handing out vast quantities of professional licenses.

Once there were a lot of Bachelor's degrees, physicians, lawyers, accountants, professors, and clergy out there, everyone was supposed to feel better about themselves, and many people, clinging to the earlier notions of "value" associated with those licenses, were tricked. Simultaneously, "education" and "profession" ceased to have much meaning. In practical effect, college graduates stopped getting good jobs; professors stopped teaching classes; doctors stopped meeting with patients; accountants/lawyers stopped spending time with clients; musicians stopped performing for audiences; writers stopped speaking to readers.

Consider anew the opening quote above from the owners of the audiomachine brand, where the owners are kind enough to, after describing the success of their investment, actually thank the people who composed their music. The noble patrons of old do not now confine themselves to owning artists, choosing subjects of acceptable work, financing the process, and owning the end-results and the history of the brand--now, they take such an active role in the "creation" of the art that they themselves are considered, socially, the "artists." That is why audiomachine, like all the other constructed modern music acts, is careful to thank "composers" separately: because the creators of the music--the literal, actual artists and channelers--are an incidental part of the process. They are respected for their "contributions" to the brand. John D. Rockefeller is kind enough to thank his surveyors, miners, engineers, technicians and roughnecks for helping out a little in bringing all that oil up.

Succeeding in spirit Part 3, the introduction, and And Then Came...

Continued in The Sad State of Art, Part 5.