Apex Hides the Hurt: Branding Advertising, Culture and Folkmusic - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... This "Apex Hides the Hurt: Branding Advertising, Culture and Folkmusic" outlines this book and similarities between creation a folk music and branding. Musician Bob Dylan in his work Chronicles discusses the idea of telescoping which involves taking a large problem or situation and creating a paragraph or verse of a song in which the problem is expressed.
Branding is a similar activity in that the point of creating a brand is to find a way to express a point of view in relationship to a product in a memorable way that creates a high impact. Branding and creating folk music are activities that require the same type of skills, but are done for a variety of meanings with differing values within a cultural construction. The novel Apex Hides the Hurt explores meaning and value as it examines the experiences of a man who consults in creating brands. When explored through the idea of folksongs, the character is using similar skills of the folksong writer in order to create meaning and both create and reflect society through condensed ideas. One of the newest skills of the late 20th and 21st centuries has been to be able to take complex ideas and boil them down into a word or phrase that will express the important points of an object, ideology, or individual. Using phrases in this manner provides for short, impressive moments where something of value is communicated. The ‘elevator pitch’ is one of the more important ideas in entrepreneurial development in that it is a short presentation, in which an entire idea must be communicated.
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This idea might be well translated into the purpose of a folksong, the lyrics communicating cultural ideas through verses that break social situations into easily accessible ideas that communicate something about a culture or to a culture about itself. The relationship of the idea to the condensation of that idea is the responsibility of the writer in providing enough information to paint a picture, but without so many details that the main ideas are clouded. A writer who has been charged with communicating something in as few words as possible will want to make every one of them count. Once again using the idea of the ‘elevator pitch’, the purpose in using this type of immediate and swift communication is to get others to ask questions (Deckers and Lacy 126). The pitch should evoke a framework of questions about the topic of the writing so that the direction of thought is purposed towards the topic. Condensing Ideas in Folk Songs In examining the folk songs of the 1960s, this was precisely the point of many of the works of the period. Bob Dylan was a prolific and powerful writer of protest folk songs in the 1960s. He wrote about social injustice, creating social change through creating awareness and inspiring others to question the world around them. In a piece of work called Oxford Town he writes “He went down to Oxford Town/Guns and clubs followed him down/All because his face was brown/Better get away from Oxford Town” (Bobdylan.com). In four phrases Dylan expresses the idea that violence follows a man simply because his face is brown. This message leads listeners, ones hopes, to examine prejudice and to create a dialogue with one another on the topic. The purpose of the protest form of folk music is ...Download file to see next pagesRead More