Skip to main content

Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy

I can't think of a better name for a compilation album than Meaty, beaty, Big and Bouncy. Neither could Decca when they launched The Who's Greatest Hits in 1971. As far as compilations go it's hard to fault.

If you are wondering about the origin of the album title?: Roger Daltry was a fitness nut - Meaty; Keith Moon was the irrepressible force behind the drums Beaty; John Entwhistle was a man mountain - his nickname was Ox - Big; and Pete Townsend's habit of cavorting about the stage made him a sitter for the appellation Bouncy.

The name also suggests The Who's emergence as a force when advertising was also become a curiously powerful force in post-austerity, post-war Britain. Meaty, beaty, big and Bouncy sounds like a proto slogan for a readymade dinner or a pie. They also released an album that paid ironic homage to brands of the day - The Who Sell Out (1967) - ironic because The Who's music was featured in ads for brands including this jingle for Coca-Cola (which was features as a bonus track on the Sell Out album)



Advertising and pop culture have gone hand in glove since the 60's. The apparently anti establishment The Who obviously weren't averse to a little extra coin or more exposure to sell albums. Their management team of lambert and Stamp were as entrepreneurial as the Beatle's manager Brian Epstein or Led Zeppelin's Peter Grant, but aren't talked about much (documentary out soon).

To get a feeling for the times what could be better than a French documentary from the era? …

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Addict-o-matic

A cool resource for you to try. Aggregates search topics from a number of sources. Thanks to Brand DNA (again) for the heads-up.

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer