Friday, August 13, 2010

Convene Spins: Joanna Newsom

I'm hijacking Convene Executive Editor Chris Durso's Convene Spins meme this Friday. Why?

Well, this morning, during my daily first-cup-of-coffee web browse, I went to an independent music review and news site that I frequent called Pitchfork, and saw a story about how one of my favorite artists, the harpist and songwriter Joanna Newsom, recently played Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Pitchfork had videos of both songs that Newsom played on the show: "You and Me, Bess" and "'81." The video for "You and Me, Bess" was even in black and white — a fitting style for the somewhat out-of-time Newsom.

So I clicked through and began to watch the first video, which was (like the song) transfixing and beautiful — but I then I was sort of jarred by something I saw in the background of the stage: sponsorship ads for Bud Light — which, in case you aren't familiar with Joanna Newsom, really doesn't fit her target demographic. Maybe if the ads had been for, I dunno, absinthe.

Have you ever had a situation at a meeting or event where the juxtaposition of an education session or speaker with a particular sponsor just doesn't feel right? Or have you ever had to reject a sponsor in order to head off that disconnect at the pass? If so, we'd love to hear about it in the comments section (we might even publish your response in a forthcoming issue of Convene!).

In the meantime, music-lovers (or, I suppose, Bud Light lovers): Please click "play" on the video below to hear an enchanting song, despite the weird sponsorship curveball. (If you like the song so much that you want to hear the other that she played on Kimmel, click here.) Happy Friday!



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