Latest / Presented by Speaking Human / #206: Uncool Bands & Uncool Brands

Transcript

#206: Uncool Bands & Uncool Brands · Presented by Speaking Human

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Speaking Human.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Today, on Speaking Human, we crank up the amps to
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: analyze how bands like Nickelback, Creed, and Bush, as well
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  Speaker 2: as a couple of once hot brands went from cultural
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  Speaker 2: domination to punchline status.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking Human.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
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  Speaker 3: marketing for humans. I'm Shad Conley and with me is
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  Speaker 3: my co host Patrick Jebber. Say Hi to the people, Pat.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Hi to the people.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Pat.
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  Speaker 3: There you go. In honor of today's show, Patrick, I
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  Speaker 3: have some pretty good trivia. I think you're gonna do
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  Speaker 3: pretty well on this. Let's see, I've got a few
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  Speaker 3: questions related to late nineties early two thousands music. How
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  Speaker 3: do you feel about your knowledge in that area.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm pretty good at it. But again,
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  Speaker 2: when you don't know the answers ahead of time, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm like, oh God, I know this song. And
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  Speaker 2: I even have to remind myself when I'm listening to
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  Speaker 2: something on a playlist that just is running all the time,
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, who is this? I can't remember who this
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  Speaker 2: is and I have to tap the screen to look
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  Speaker 2: at it, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And that might be a lot of this. You're like,
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  Speaker 3: I know this but do I actually know the specifics
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  Speaker 3: of this? You know those kind of things, and we're
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  Speaker 3: talking twenty six years ago now, So anyway, let's see
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  Speaker 3: how you fare. Okay, three questions, No multiple here, We'll
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  Speaker 3: just see if you know these or you don't. All right, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: First question, what band scored hits in two thousand and
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  Speaker 3: one with the songs Blurry and she Hates Me.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a puddle of mud? Yes, yeah, puddle of mud.
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  Speaker 2: That's mud with two d's, with two d's, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of mud.
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  Speaker 2: She hates me? Is how I knew that one? Because
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  Speaker 2: I know the other song? But I know that one better.
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  Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, Bori was actually their bigger hit. But
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  Speaker 3: I would not have recognized that song by the title.
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  Speaker 3: You'd know it to hear it, m M. But I
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  Speaker 3: don't know if I would have known either of those
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  Speaker 3: songs were puddle of MUDs. So kudos to you on
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  Speaker 3: that one.
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  Speaker 2: All right, I'm off to a good start.
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  Speaker 1: Then.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're gonna do well here. I think
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  Speaker 3: you're gonna get these other ones, all right. Question two?
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  Speaker 3: What band topped the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart
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  Speaker 3: for seven weeks? In two thousand with a song featuring
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  Speaker 3: the lyrics cut my Life into pieces. This is my
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  Speaker 3: last resort.
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  Speaker 2: Popa Roach, of course, that's.
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  Speaker 3: That is popa Roach.
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  Speaker 2: You're on a roll, all right?
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  Speaker 3: One more. What Band had a hit in nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 3: eight with their much heavier cover version of George Michael's Faith.
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  Speaker 2: Oh I can kind of hear this, so get what's
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  Speaker 2: the question again? How did you phrase it?
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  Speaker 3: What Band had a hit in nineteen ninety eight with
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  Speaker 3: their much heavier cover of George Michael's Faith.
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  Speaker 2: I Gotta Happy. Yeah, I'm trying to like it's on
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  Speaker 2: the tip of my tongue. Do I have any hints
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  Speaker 2: for this or no?
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: What kind of hint could I give you?
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  Speaker 2: If I had anything at all that I could reference mentally,
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  Speaker 2: I might be able to like pull it off the
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  Speaker 2: because it's like, great there on the tip of my tongue.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I could give you one hint that'll probably
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  Speaker 3: give it away. One of their other popular songs was
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  Speaker 3: break Stuff.
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking it's limp biscuit.
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  Speaker 3: It is limp biscuit. Okay, Yeah, I was gonna say
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  Speaker 3: I was like Fred Durst once I said that, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: get it right.
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  Speaker 2: Away, Fred Durst.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the next one was going to be Nookie.
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  Speaker 2: I did it all well, the nookie, so you can
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  Speaker 2: take that cookie shad.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, your knowledge of late nineties, early two thousands rock,
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  Speaker 3: new metal, whatever you want to call it, pretty pretty good.
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  Speaker 3: You could go to trivia night and I think you
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  Speaker 3: do all right. Yeah, so that trivia is sort of
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  Speaker 3: a lead in to the conversation we'll be having today
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  Speaker 3: around some some bands from I would say around that
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  Speaker 3: time period. Yeah, some bands that you know were pretty
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  Speaker 3: hot at one point and then got pretty cool. By cool,
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  Speaker 3: I mean not cool.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: As I alluded to in the intro for the podcast episode,
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  Speaker 2: you and I started talking about the bands like Creed
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  Speaker 2: Bush Nickelback, because you know, they all had this weird
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  Speaker 2: trajectory where they went from being everywhere and in a
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  Speaker 2: positive light for the most part to being treated like
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  Speaker 2: a joke. And as we were talking through this, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we found it sort of fascinating because it happens to
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  Speaker 2: brands too, and sometimes the culture changes, and when it does,
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  Speaker 2: things get too big and people, you know, decide it's
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  Speaker 2: just cooler to hate something than that they liked it
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  Speaker 2: all along, you know. Yeah, or ever liked it or
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  Speaker 2: ever liked it. Yeah, and so bands and brands have
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  Speaker 2: a lot in common sometimes with that you know, sort
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  Speaker 2: of trajectory that they're they're on through their life cycle,
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  Speaker 2: and sometimes if you give it enough time, they make
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  Speaker 2: their way back into the conversation again.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they can come back around. So we thought we'd
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  Speaker 3: talk about some brands. We kind of honed in on
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  Speaker 3: these three bands. I don't know, we kind of grouped
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  Speaker 3: them together. So we thought we'd go through talk about
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  Speaker 3: them a little bit, and then talk about share some
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  Speaker 3: brands that have also you know, been labeled uncool and
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: talk about kind of how that happened. But let's start
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  Speaker 3: with the bands. You know, music stylistically follows trends. You
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  Speaker 3: can be on top one day and then the next
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  Speaker 3: day you're out. You know, it's over for you. We've
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  Speaker 3: seen this, you know, throughout the decades, from like British
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  Speaker 3: Invasion to disco to you know, synth, the hair metal
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  Speaker 3: to grunge to hip hop to new metal. Like we
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  Speaker 3: just talked about boy bands on and on and on.
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  Speaker 3: You can pick the trend the wave that you know,
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  Speaker 3: a bunch of bands will come in and kind of
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  Speaker 3: ride that different genre styles kind of have a moment
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  Speaker 3: and then you know that moment passes. It's can be quick,
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  Speaker 3: it could be long, but at some point you know
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  Speaker 3: it's the tide is going to turn, and it's interesting
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  Speaker 3: what happens when it does. So let's go through these
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  Speaker 3: It's going super in depth, but talk about them a
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  Speaker 3: little bit, each of these bands and what happened to him,
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  Speaker 3: because I think it's they have a similar story but
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  Speaker 3: kind of a different story in some way. What's your
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  Speaker 3: relationship to Bush?
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  Speaker 2: I remember liking Bush. I was trying to think of
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  Speaker 2: what the I was sixteen Stone. They had that album,
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  Speaker 2: sixteen Stone, which was a really good album. There's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of great songs on that album, and I remember
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  Speaker 2: just liking Bush. I still like Bush to this day,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm not afraid to admit it.
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  Speaker 3: No embarrassment. I sixteen Stone was the one, you know,
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  Speaker 3: when I was like fifteen or sixteen. It was one
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  Speaker 3: of those albums where I like, I was like, oh man,
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  Speaker 3: every track on this is good. M I remember like
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  Speaker 3: breaking up with a girlfriend at the time and just
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  Speaker 3: listening to Come Down over and over mm hmm. You know,
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  Speaker 3: I was like, I don't want to come back down
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  Speaker 3: from this cloud. There was like a good It was
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  Speaker 3: one of those ones that just had like multiple hits
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  Speaker 3: on it. You're like, oh, these guys got it. They're
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  Speaker 3: gonna be around forever.
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  Speaker 2: And they're a little different from you know, Creed and
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  Speaker 2: Nickel back in that they were the way that they
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  Speaker 2: their trajectory went, they were less publicly mocked. That wasn't
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  Speaker 2: really what happened to them. They were just uncool by fate.
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  Speaker 2: Like they gradually just downgraded from essential to generic, maybe
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  Speaker 2: because of some things that were happening with music. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, Like, you know, cause their their album went
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  Speaker 2: six times platinum, so it was all over the place
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  Speaker 2: and it and for good reason, like we said, it
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  Speaker 2: had tons of bangers on it, as the kids say today.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, they were just so big that I
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  Speaker 2: think they eventually it just became like people just was
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  Speaker 2: like mm yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean they were already a little late to the
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  Speaker 3: I think by time their album came out, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Kurk Cobain was already gone grungees kind of on the
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  Speaker 3: down swing a little bit, so things were already changing
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  Speaker 3: a little bit with music, So they were already on
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  Speaker 3: the kind of second half of that in the nineties. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: but they were, you know, they were obviously huge, and
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  Speaker 3: they didn't follow it up, like their next album had
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  Speaker 3: like a couple songs on it. But I, you know,
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  Speaker 3: as somebody who liked the first one, I don't even
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  Speaker 3: know if I like had it or was that into
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  Speaker 3: it at that point. I just felt like they were
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  Speaker 3: kind of over after that first album, and they stuck
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  Speaker 3: around until like the early two thousands, but then they
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  Speaker 3: basically broke up. So they had like five to seven
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  Speaker 3: good years, which is tends to be the lifespan of
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  Speaker 3: like your average popular band, you know, if you're not
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  Speaker 3: like a Rolling Stones or Pink Flood or something, you know,
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  Speaker 3: something like that who kind of like goes the longer distance.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's a good point. They were
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  Speaker 2: sort of on the tail end, which probably showed pretty quickly,
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  Speaker 2: and they broke up. Once you do that, it's kind
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  Speaker 2: of over anyway. But if they would have spanned those
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  Speaker 2: all those really great songs from one album over a
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  Speaker 2: few albums, they'm gonna lasted a little bit longer. Maybe.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's why everybody was like, oh, they're over
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  Speaker 2: after one album, because the album was so good. It's like,
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  Speaker 2: how do you put that many good songs on one
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  Speaker 2: album and then follow that up? You have to just
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  Speaker 2: keep up. That next album better be great.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they always say it's like a classic k You
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  Speaker 3: spend like years creating the songs that go on your
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  Speaker 3: first album, and then after it becomes popular, they're like,
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  Speaker 3: gotta put out a new album right away, and.
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  Speaker 2: You're like, oh, yeah, not as much in it. But then,
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  Speaker 2: you know, if we're talking about you follow up from
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Bush to Creed, what's your take on Creed Creed?
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  Speaker 3: For me? I can remember around nineteen ninety eight, probably
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  Speaker 3: hearing Creed for the first time and being like, okay,
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: they were getting back to like kind of the grunge alternative.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe that sound is making a you know, comeback, because
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  Speaker 3: at that point it had kind of died off. So
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I remember hearing them being like, all right, I think
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: we're maybe something is happening here, We're coming back. There
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: were like a few songs on there. I don't know
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  Speaker 3: if it was their first album, but they had like
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: my Own Prison one that I was like, oh, these
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  Speaker 3: are pretty catchy, pretty good. I also kind of had
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: the suspicion, you know, am I accidentally listening to Christian rock.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: They weren't really Christian rock, but they had like a
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  Speaker 3: kind of you know, spiritual I think bent to them
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  Speaker 3: little bit. Yeah, But then they got super big, real fast.
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  Speaker 3: You know, by like nineteen ninety nine, they had higher,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: arms wide open. These songs were like everywhere. At that point,
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  Speaker 3: I feel like they were already kind of a joke,
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  Speaker 3: like a parody of a rock band, and it was like,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: if you want to be cool in any way, you
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  Speaker 3: don't want anything to do with them. I don't know.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Does that sound similar to you or was your experience different.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: You were probably at the concert and you're like.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Can you take me?
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  Speaker 2: I remember really liking those songs at the time, Like
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  Speaker 2: I was like, these songs are great. You know, they
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: had all of the elements to be a great popular
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: song band, you know what I mean. But I do
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: agree that happened really quickly, that shift, and they were big.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like by two thousand, they were like pretty huge.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a lot of it did revolve around that, Like,
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  Speaker 2: once their songs started to have a very familiar or
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: similar theme and people started to associate the Christian rock
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: adjacent Yeah, it just tended to be now it's not cool,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: and you know whether or not that has any actual
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: bearing on the reality of it, and like the songs
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: and what I mean whatever about that, right, it's just
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: whether it was like rumors or hearsay or whatever, it
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: definitely played a part. And they're coming down from this clown.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I knew you were going to follow that
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: up with that. But very popular. I mean they were
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: just they were gigantic though before they sort of fell
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: from grace.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they were everywhere. And again this was you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: another time period where we had another stylistic shift in
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: music in the early two thousands, where we had the
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: garage rock revival as it was called, kind of that
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: wave started hitting it, you know, early two thousands. There
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: we got like the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Hives
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: making this kind of like scrappy, less polished music, which
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: to me that was kind of my shit at the time.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: You know, I was like, Okay, I love this. So
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: that sound I think made people like Creed, who were
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: doing this kind of old school, very like epic stadium
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: rock sound, suddenly they were like the Grandpa's you know
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: what I mean. This was like not young people's music. Anymore.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: So I think that kind of like pushed them back
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: a little bit too. Again, like Bush they were by
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: two thousand and four, they're they're broken up.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they were back in my own prison.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: And they were wondering, like what's this life?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: For?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: My own prison? Was actually a great song. I liked
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: that song a lot, like probably one of the songs
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: that I liked more than any of the other ones.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: It had a different sound to it, you know.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the early ones very much. I will say initially
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: when I heard them, I was like a little bit
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: of Eddie Vedder vibes, you know, doing the voice, the
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: like deep voice, which a lot of people in alter
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: of rock we're doing at that time.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: And yet that they have had the staying power so
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: not even Cloaks. So then, you know, taking us back
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: to you know, Nickelback as the third in our maybe
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: uncool bands.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah trilogy.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: But I think this is like the purest example of
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: too big to stay cool phenomenon that we had because
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: you know, how you remind me. Everybody to this day
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: probably knows the song photograph and how you remind me,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Like how you remind me hit number one on the
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Hot One hundred and Billboard.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, two thousand and two, right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, between that and then you know the
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: song Photograph much later, not much later. I don't know
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: if that was like a couple.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Of years, a few years. Yeah, rock Star, Yeah, rock Star.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: They were everywhere people were singing it. It's that over exposure,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: like the sameness jokes, the it's easy for people to
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: ridicule them because everywhere you went you were hearing their songs.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: We talk about this all the time. People love to
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: tear things down, you know, when they get big enough.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're ranking like the amounts of ridicule these each
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: of these bands took. You know, it's probably like Bush
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: took some, Creed took more. Nickelback is the grand champion
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: of just taking the most. The hate for Nickelback reached,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: you know, all time peak levels pretty quickly, and like
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: you said, they were overplayed, they were hammered on radio
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: and MTV. I remember when I first heard how You
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Remind Me, I was like, this is a great rock tune.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: This is a good song. I mean, I still think it.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: But I also remember later on hearing Photograph and being
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: like this is genuinely awful. Yeah, I mean if you
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: listened to lyrics of like that and Rockstar probably the same.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, this is terrible, this is like really
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: it sounds like a parody of a song, which I
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: think was a lot of the beef people had with it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Like popular, but it was like, who do you know
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: who likes this?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: The other thing was I think it coincided with the
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: rise of the internet. You know, Bush didn't really have
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: where it was like everybody's suddenly on the internet talking
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: about these conversations they're having with friends in the car
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: about oh god, this band again playing on the radio,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: or how dumb is this lyric? You know, these kind
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: of things. They were unfortunate enough to be in a
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: time where this this whole culture had risen up and
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: now we're all sharing this stuff with millions of people
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: instead of just three people.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: We know.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely a big part of it to that point.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: You know, like Nickelbeck and Creed had some of the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: same problems in that people started to see maybe some
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: of the simplicity or to some of the things that
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: they didn't like in the music. But you're right, like
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: by the time Nickelback, the culmination of so many things
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: going against them, including the inner and social media to
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: some extent the early stages of that. It's tough, but that,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: like the hate really has become part of the brand story.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: If Nickelback was a brand.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. It's a lot of what's attached to their
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: history now because in such a short time they went
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: from like top of the world to like, we're dumping
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: all our garbage on you.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: What's funny today? You know, now we're a little bit
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: further removed. Is that there's this like weird affection people
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: have for the band now, like to the point where
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: it's shifted from this universally mocked band to everybody culturally
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: I guess agrees that it's kind of a joke. We
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: all know the words to that song, right.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Look at this photograph.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the joke is the joke, and people get
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the joke and you're okay with the joke, and the
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: joke is part of the brand now of the band. Yeah,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: for good or for bad.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: The natural cycle has become for everything, let's build it up,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: let's tear it down. Time will pass. Then we'll be like,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: maybe that was the wrong opinion, Maybe we were a
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: little too harsh and then it kind of like, you know,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: lands somewhere where it probably should have been to begin with.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I agree with that, and.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: That's kind of where we're I now. You know, these
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: there's like the nostalgia factor. These bands are having a
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: little bit of a resurgence, creating Bush both playing at
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: the twenty twenty six third Annual Summer of ninety Nine Festival,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: which is hilarious. The third Annual Summer of ninety nine festival.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that in and of itself sounds like a joke.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Also as of this recording, Bush playing at the Stagecoach
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Festival this weekend with Counting Crows, So there's still you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: they're still working it. They've weathered the storm. These bands,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: they'll never be as popular again as they were, probably
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: we can say that probably, Yeah, But I don't think
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: they're uncool anymore.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: No, I mean I've been looking for the sixteen stone vinyl.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Oh there would be a good one.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: That would be a good one, Gliss of Rain.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: This is how we got on this whole subject.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: This is how you remind me of, well, how we
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: got on this topic. So, you know, going from uncool
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: bands to uncool brands, this is where we started to
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: think about the relationship that brands have. Just like bands,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: bands are a brand essentially. I kind of interchange those
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: words a little bit, but it's true. We talk about
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: a pearl jam you know, that is a brand, and
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: we don't even want to put them in the same
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: conversation as these bands. No, I would never I would
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: never do them dirty like that. You know, you just
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: did it, but I feel like I did it. But
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the uncool brands, we wanted to talk a little bit
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: about how, you know, there is some similarity into what
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: brands go through.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, now that's a really good point too, because bands,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: you think, I mean, they have a logo, they have
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: an image they're kind of presenting to the world. It's
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: the same thing you're building out with a brand, Like,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: here's how we want people to think about that us.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: You know, here's what we're putting out there for everybody.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: It's basically what a brand is.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just in musical form. You know, it's the same
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: concept that we have with movies and marketing, and we
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: talk about movies. Movies, that's a brand.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: So we each have an example of one brand that
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: was popular and then became uncool.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: That we're going to share here. Now we don't know
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: what the other person has in mind. So what did
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: you come up with? What's your uncool brand?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: The one that I would probably say is the closest
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: to something that I feel like I experienced in youth
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: through adulthood was Gap. Okay, Bush and Gap are very
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: similar to me because they felt very central at one
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: point time to our lives. Like Gap. You know, if
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: you remember when we were like teens, Gap was what
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: later on Abercrombie and Fitch was, and then later on
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Hollister is right, they're that brand.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Aeropostyle was another one.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Aeropostyle or like structure was a story like that
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: for a while, but it just became generic. At one
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: point it felt like mainstream culture, and for a very
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: long time, you know, they tried to hold onto that,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: but then look, our culture just kind of moves on,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and so it becomes generic and unpopular, and not for
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: any horrible reason. It's just whatever. It's a whatever type
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: of situation. They're just not driving the conversation of fashion
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: as it used to be.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one because if you remember what
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Gap was in the nineties, and they're like advertising and
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: you know how they presented themselves. They were kind of
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: top dogs of Mull retail, you know what I mean.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: They were like, this is where you go to get
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: like cool stuff for good stuff. This is like your
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: higher end. And they definitely don't have that reputation anymore,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: you know. Now it's like, yeah, a pair of khaki pants,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: go to the a T shirt something like that.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And even would you like, I remember people used to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: wear like stuff that had Gap the Gap logo on it.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I think you would be considered kind
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: of uncool if you wore a GAP shirt today, think
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: you might be. Yeah, it did kind of shift because
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I think Old Navy and Gap are the same conglomerate,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: and they shifted it and tried to like make Old
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Navy be the new version of Gap because it was
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: very similar in the way that they styled like Old
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Navy for a while. But yeah, one of those things
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: and very similar to Bush and that it didn't get
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of hate necessarily. It just kind of fell
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: by the wayside.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: I would say now they've kind of found their found
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: their place. They've fallen into their.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Place, if you will, into their gap.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like an old standard for like not cool
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: for young people. But it's like, you want to find
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: stuff that you can wear that's relatively affordable gap.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Do you want to find stuff that's affordable and that
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: maybe your parents would wear, your grandparents something sensible?
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I like that one. So I have another
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: one that's from the fashion world and from a similar
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: time period, a little bit of a different arc, though
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I could argue a higher high I don't know. It
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: might have been the same level because Gap was pretty
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: high in the nineties. It was, it was, yeah, and
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: the difference maybe is this brand has come back a
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: little bit after being down and they're low though might
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: have been lower than Gaps. I'll let me see what
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: you think. So the brand is Champion. So Champion in
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: like the eighties and early nineties were pretty hot. They
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: were up there with kind of like your Rebock, your Nike,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: your Adidas, as far as like sports apparel went, probably
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: for sweatshirts, maybe even like higher up. They were also
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: the official like outfitter for a lot of college teams
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: in the NBA, So it was it was a premium
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: brandy then you know, by like the end of the nineties,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the two thousands, Nike, Adidas kind of like took over.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: You know, they went hard into marketing, endorsements, going international
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: things like that. Champion lost its licensing deals, it became
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: associated with like your big box retailers. It became like
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: basically a Walmart brandy. Definitely at that point, if you
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: were wearing Champion, you were wearing like your dad's clothes.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: It was not cool at all. The thing that's a
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: little different. At some point in like the twenty tens,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: they became like kind of a vintage style. You know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: there was like a little bit of a retro renaissance there,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: and they also started partnering with some of these like
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: fashion brands like Supreme and Vetiments, and it kind of
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: became something hit a little bit so for a certain
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: you know consumer, like in like streetwear, younger people, so
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: they started to kind of embrace it a little bit.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: So now it's kind of got this not necessarily to
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: all audiences, but like certain audiences like this cool to
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: It has come back to some extent, so not only
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: no longer uncool, but kind of cool and a certainly
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: almost like Nietzsche way. So going from like you know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Walmart to that is a little bit of a comeback.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: So that's an interesting like kind of brand arc.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say I was going to make the comparison
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: maybe it might be a Creed because Creed had this
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: sort of resurgence. People were going on the cruises that
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Creed was doing, and then Creed came in was on
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: tour last summer, and I'm half sure that they sold
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: out like a stadium that I was like, there's gotta
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: be somebody else playing with them, and they sold out
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: of stadium, you know. And I noticed that young people
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: were getting into Creed. My daughter even said something like,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: oh I love this song. And I'm like, you have
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: heard Creed before, I know if I've ever played Creed
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: for you.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: She's like, oh no, you know what I call the
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Creed Cruise?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: What is it? My own prison, my ocean prison, my
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: ocean prison.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I'm just kidding Creed. I'm sure it's a lovely event.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but I think that that there are
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: some similarities there, because you know, they did kind of
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: find their footing again. I agree with you though Champion
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: had this weird moment. I have seen it around still.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I know you say in the twenty ten's right that
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: it started to kind of do that.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it started to like kind of creeping back up
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: a little bit.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which was you know, roughly the years later. I
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: guess ish because it was like eighties, it was pretty big,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: like in the.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Eighties, probably like early nineties, you know, somewhere in the
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: early nineties where it was like it's peak.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Then it became the like you said, Walmart, maybe a
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: gold circle, you know, the kmart brand.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or like something you find it like Sam's Club
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: something like that.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: And sadly, you know, if we're just talking about that
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: and being real, in any average person's life, if you
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: could sell your product in a Walmart or in a
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Target or in a Kmart, you'd be super happy. But
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the fact that the brand had such clout at one point.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like knock down a peg.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's hard. You know, we have a product
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: like that. But generally speaking, it would be great to
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: be in a you have a product that's in the Walmart.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: You've made it that success.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Millions of people are seeing you every day.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: I like the Create comparison though, I think that that
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: fits pretty well. Did you have any other brands? We
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: have to go in depth, but anyone's they like came
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: up in your mind as like I'm cool, because I
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: had a whole bunch. Once I started going, I was like,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: well what about this one? This one?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of them.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Are fashion or clothing, those kind of things, which I
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: do think kind of come in and out. But I
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: have a few others too that I mentioned.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would probably say Yahoo, Yeah, Yeaho's a good one.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: And that would probably be like maybe Bush, maybe a
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: little bit of Creek because it did have some hate,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: could even maybe tread into the nickelback territory.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, along those lines, I thought of aol yeah, you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: kind of like faded out if I wanted to do
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: more like a nickelback in the same online tech space Facebook.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Oh see, I would go further. I would say my space,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: my space became the joke Facebook. I don't know if
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: it's really the joke.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Necessarily, Like I don't know, Facebook was super high, and
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: then now it's like your mom's on Facebook.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and your mom puts her photographs on Facebook. Look
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: at this photograph. Yeah No, that's a good point. It
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: is a good point. That's a tough one. Man. You
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: just uh, you gave the Facebook the nickelback treatment. Well
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: they earned it, any other uh you felt?
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So here's a few of them, Heloton. That's a
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: good example, you know, real real, kind of like hi,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: and then they're they're still pretty Yeah.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Do you think that they've gotten backlash though? So is
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: it is it more of like a creed a nickelback
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: situation or is it more of like a bush.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: I think they got a little backlash. Remember they had
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: the commercial. Yeah, everybody was making fun of them for
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: a while, so kind of really they got just real
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: popular and overexposed for a while during COVID, and then
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: I think things turned on them.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: A little bit.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good example. And one that's not fashion related.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Another one that I was real close to. I was like, oh,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: this might be my one because it's so recent and
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: has like just really in the middle of its uncoolness
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: right now. Tesla, Oh it's happening now, ten years ago,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: probably one of my most beloved brands, and now nobody,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: you know, nobody wants to touch it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for a lot of reasons, For a lot of reasons. Yeah,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: sometimes you can be the catalyst for your own demise,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? You can, Yeah, as opposed
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: to shooting a photograph, you're shooting yourself, all right, this.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: One, I don't know if you'll agree with it or not,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: but I feel like it's a little bushish Marvel, specifically
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Marvel films. What's kind of happened there? Now they had
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: their peak, which was a long, a long ride. Yeah,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: but now I don't know if they're uncool though, they're
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: just not super cool anymore.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they still got their fans and the love right
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: that the diehards are never going to go away, I
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: feel like from that, but they you know, there's a
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: saturation point. We've talked about this for years. Eventually, the
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: overconsumption of any one thing can kind of burn you out.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, overexposed h too much, too long.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: That's a good one.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's about it. Those are the main ones,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: you know. The other ones are mostly like some of
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: the ones you mentioned. My takeaway, the takeaway here today.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: M hmm.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing you can't really control cool, you know,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: you're just at the whims of the winds of culture.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: As Creed sings in the hit song My Sacrifice, we've
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: seen our share of ups and downs. Oh how quickly
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: life could turn around? You're in ansterned And as we
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: all know from our youth, the more you try to
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: make yourself cool, the less cool you'll probably be. So
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: what should you do if you find your brand subtly
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: on the uncool side of things? You gotta weather it,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: you gotta embrace it. Don't try to keep doing the
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: same things and expect to return to the previous peak.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Gott to forge a new path forward and just wait
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: come out the other side. Just like cool, uncool doesn't
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: last forever.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Mmm, I love that the wise right. I feel like
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: if it wasn't so long, you could put it on
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: the inside of a fortune cookie.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: I'd probably do that on that that could that could
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: do that could be in a fortune cookie.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It'd be like one of those really long string fortune cookies,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: you know the paper. If I was gonna tag anything,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: it's you know that. I agree? Like culture just has
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: such a short memory. If you give anything enough time,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: yesterday's punchline can become tomorrow's nostalgia play. Like, if you're
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: a brand, you know all you have to do is
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: just you gotta wait out the storm. You gotta keep
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: going and roll with the punches, so to speak.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: And Yeah, just keep doing your thing.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that's it for today's episode. You can find
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: current and past episodes of this podcast, Speaking Human on
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Speakinghuman dot com.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Speaking Human. Cat You then nickelback
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Speaking Human