Financial Value: Branded Gratification.

Every object has two ways of measuring its value. One is financially the other is emotionally, the latter will be discussed as part of the double-bill finale, the former will be discussed now.

If I was to show up to a business meeting driving a BMW, wearing a Prada skirt and jacket, Monolo Blanihk shoes, and brandishing a leather bag with the word Dior engraved subtly on the metal catch, I would be emitting sings of financial success and therefore, professionalism, ability and confidence. Whether this was my intention or not, it will happen. This is because there are certain brands that everyone knows, and understands the financial cost of, whether it’s cheap or expensive.

I drive a Ford Ka, it’s small, impractical for large loads of people or luggage, but it does the job, it’s served me well during the four years that I’ve owned it. But I am aware that I will have to upgrade one day, as I earn more money and I can afford more, the social implications of the consumer world will encourage me to change my car, to upgrade it to one that reflects how I feel I have progressed in life. This is a form of self-gratification.

According to the social implications of branding I have not ‘made it’ in life until I own a car, or a house, or any other branded object that holds such successful symbolism. The brands that cost the most, that have the best advertising and that apparently produce the best quality objects are the ones that reward the consumer by physically emanating success.

Without a healthy advertising campaign and brand presence the object’s social value will be worth nothing. It is through preconceptions of a brand and the stereotypical opinions of those owning it and not owning it that its financial value exists.

However, unless there are cars like mine on the road, with dents, and rust, then the new BMW or Porsche would be worth nothing. Our gratification and personal financial success might be emanated to the external environment by our brand purchasing decisions, but the true value only exists when it is compared to another object, when we know we are better off than our neighbours and our friends because of the kind of car we drive, the brand of jeans we wear, the supermarket we use.

This results in psychological damage, when we end up over-worked, seeing our friends and families less and less, and becoming too stressed about the things in life that are less-important. Success is measured from the inside, but it is so easy to be caught up in the social hype that demands us to buy out of our means in order to feel like we are achieving, and to feel like we are meeting the goals, demands and expectations of our neighbours, peers, and colleagues.

It’s hard to break such expectations; it takes a lot of inner self-confidence and the knowledge to exist in the consumer world by standing out and going against the grain; by questioning the social expectations and blatantly challenging them.

The Three Rs: Radiohead, Ramones, Right Said Fred.

I came to discover and hear Radiohead the same way Jonathan Ross did. I was around the age of 14 when I bought the Clueless Soundtrack in Dublin. I’ve always claimed that they ‘saved’ me - but what post-teenager doesn’t claim that a musical genre or band ‘saved’ them. The movie clueless had reaffirmed my naive ambitions to live the ‘American Dream’ (something that was later quashed by Michael Moore’s realism), so the soundtrack appeared to be a logical audio choice.

The varying tracks were definitely different to the classically composed music of Gershwin that I would usually be found listening to. I didn’t have a vast musical knowledge of anything other than Classical and perhaps some of the popular bands of the time like Right Said Fred. This was a time when the Spice Girls had hit the UK with a zig-a-zig-a, Boyzone were established and the eye-candy of every other girl my age and Take That were still being mourned after. I was, as you can imagine, not the most popular person in school. So it was only natural that I was to slip in to the pre-defined shoes of a Radiohead fan.

Their musical composition, their lyrics and their sound, was truly amazing. It was like nothing I had heard. It was like a phenomenal discovery. Oddly enough, there was an OK Computer album to hand (belonging to my cousin), and without further ado I was hooked.

Naturally my thirst for rock music was not quenched. With the introduction of Napster at the age of 15 I was able to explore and experience a lot of music. I was at the brink of musical knowledge. As well as using the internet for musical gain,
I was using it to communicate and ‘chat’ to people across the globe, usually Americans, who would fill my head with bands that were new there, which meant they were never heard of in the UK. I had a general thirst to be unique, so to have music that no one else had in the UK was one of the best feelings I have ever had. As my musical tastes began to settle and develop I started to make new friends, ones who shared the same passion for music as I did, before long I was dressing in baggy clothing wearing band T-shirts and, for a good couple of years, I sported chains attached to my belt hoops, my bracelet collection began and all my consumer choices were based upon the foundations of my musical choices.

A few years, many eyeliner pencils, experiments with hair and a change of shoes led me to the punk era of my life. Changing from DC Skate shoes to Converse’s Chuck Taylor’s opened up realms I never knew before.

My wardrobe started to change again to accommodate the ‘chucks’ – mainly my jeans became skinner, the studded belt stayed and so did the eyeliner - my music tastes even incurred a paradigm shift, as I started to explore older punk genres like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Regardless of what I was exactly listening to, I had always made a conscious effort to always appear that I was listening to music within the punk/rock genre. I would judge people solely on their appearance and decide within a split-second what kind of person they were, how dedicated to the music they were and what music they preferred
by something as menial as a shoe or the colour of their hair.



Every musical genre has values and beliefs stereotyped and attached to it: like listening to Radiohead means you must be miserable, or listening to hardcore dance music means you are violent, irresponsible and a drug user. Why can it no longer just be music, a form of entertainment? Back in my days of listening to Gershwin and Right Said Fred, there was no way of knowing that was what I liked unless I had been asked. There was no set attire, or rule of advertising my own musical taste to the rest of society. I had no desire to do it either. What has driven us to the point that we feel we must wear our personalities? There is a need to broadcast our lives and tell people who we are and what we think and what we like, it is almost like we are all competing for the most attention, and the most recognition of being part of something. Are we that lost amongst the objects that we must use them to be noticed?

The point is, that in the consumer world there is nothing untouched. Everything is an object. Music is an object. The like and dislike of music is an object that can now be bought and I’m not just referring to the hoards of merchandising that occurs, my reference is to the manner by which an individual displays their likes or dislikes, their passions and preferences. I elected to join a genre of music and with it came a natural consumer map for me, it was easier that way, to know that because I liked Radiohead I was supposed to buy clothes that suited the ambient emotions their music emitted; that because I liked Rage Against the Machine I was supposed to wear chains and have spiked, leather bracelets; that because I liked the Ramones, I was supposed to (and have), at least once in my life visit CBGB’s; that because once upon a time when I liked Right Said Fred
and George Gershwin I was able to pass under the radar of society, unnoticed, because there was no pressure to uphold the preset archetype of a particular musical genre. Although, to have such passion for a belief and or preference is quite a good quality, times were just simpler when it was just me, George and Fred: There was just life and just music.