Season 6
More on the Herb Campaign.
The Burger King Herb promotion met with some positive reviews. Time called it "clever", and a columnist for the Chicago Tribune stated that Herb was "one of the most famous men in America". However, the Herb promotion was a flop. The advertising campaign lasted three months before it was discontinued. One Burger King franchise owner stated that the problem was that "there was absolutely no relevant message". The mystique was lost after Herb's appearance was revealed during the Super Bowl. Burger King's profits fell 40% in 1986. As a result of the poorly received campaign, Burger King dropped J. Walter Thompson from their future advertising.Season
06
10.23
—
00.24
"I originally tried to make a playlist that was entirely Happy Mondays; I got up to 90% before it morphed into a collection of songs I had, at one point or another, listened to 10 times in a row. Then I arranged them in a roughly palatable way.” - Sami Reiss"I originally tried to make a playlist that was entirely Happy Mondays; I got up to 90% before it morphed into a collection of songs I had, at one point or another, listened to 10 times in a row. Then I arranged them in a roughly palatable way.” - SR
Alt. 1
“I’ve talked a fair bit about taste leadership in these pages, from music (Derrick Gee) to clothes (Blackbird Spyplane) and how it is one of the hot topics for art and culture in general, plus how it is changing the canon. The work Reiss does falls into this lane as it serves as a rare bit of sanity in a world gone mad as well as teaching us How To See for ourselves. In an ocean of things, there is beauty to be had, if only you can step through the door.” - SV4
S.06 E.94
Nelson George
The Brooklyn-born author, culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker with a mix of reflection and love.
"The themes here are reflection and love, and how satisfying it can be to find harmony amid the chaos of life through an embrace of romance and introspection. - Nelson George
S.06 E.95Amedeo Pace, Blonde Redhead
The album soundtracked the dissolution of an on-again/off-again relationship for me, traced intermittently from high school to college and then beyond, trying to keep up when they were in New York but, never ever catching up. On one such trip, I took to the city to visit. I arrived at her apartment while she was out with friends, and I dropped my bag. I remember sitting in her apartment in a jealous haze, listening to this (on Discman I’m sure), when my eyes seized on a paperback of Sartre’s Nausea on the shelf, the black and white cover, which I quickly fell into. As cliché as it was, it felt like a wholly complete sadness in my mind. A melodramatic but hugely formative chapter in one's aesthetic sharpening. Such is the music of Blonde Redhead, harder than your heart can stand.- SV4
Olof Dreijer is a Swedish DJ and producer, and one half of the defunct electronic music duo The Knife, formed with his sibling Karin Dreijer (Fever Ray).
“It’s easy to forget that The Knife almost always had a techno heart. For those who weren't fully sentient when they emerged, it was a big damn deal when they arrived stateside. I heard “Heartbeats” for the first time in the apartment as mentioned earlier in Herb 95. It’s one of those tunes where you remember where you were.”- SV4
S.06 E.96Olof Dreijer
Wild Nothing (Jack Tatum) shares his "coffee shop" sophisti-pop selection mixed with new discoveries. Plus some thoughts on the '80s and indie music reaching middle age. - SV4
S.06 E.97Wild Nothing, Jack Tatum
"As a teenager in the early/mid 2000s I had an affinity for a lot of this kind of "jazz-lite" downtempo and electronic music. I started building this playlist based loosely around those memories but it ended up morphing quite a bit to incorporate some more recent discoveries and other tangents. It's coffee shop music basically, but cuts that I think are really timeless and memorable. I love being able to make deep dives and big name pop tracks sit together in the same room in such a way where you don't really question it." -WN
“I'm so old and I've been listening to music my whole life. I started my playlist years ago and whenever I hear a song that I like I just add it. I think it's over 6 hours now. It's kind of perfect for a photoshoot. I usually listen when shooting. And sometimes when I'm editing, that way I won't get sick of it. I do not listen to it unless I'm working." - MM
S.06 E.98Marilyn Minter
S.06 E.99Anthony NaplesIt’s unsurprising that Naples has a basic understanding of this stuff. When tagging his music, the words don’t mean anything to us, but they are all we have to go on. Songs are merely signposts, their complete value isn’t inside of them at the time of their making. Great songs are experiences with the listener, invisible markers of time swirling in the whirlpool. - SV4
S.06 E.100Jam City
"A collection of tracks to listen to on a rainy Sunday. I tried to pick stuff that fits the mood of a peaceful Sunday morning, but also the looming storm clouds of dread that Monday is just around the corner. I've spent a lot of recent Sunday's travelling back from shows so this mix definitely works well for staring out of plane or train windows, feeling wistful and defiant (Eagles - Find A Love Again), reflective (Randy Crawford - Rainy Night In Georgia, Genesis - In Too Deep) or just pleasantly tired and vibed out (Cruza - Hypnotherapy). Had a hard time making the case that any of these were guilty pleasures, but settled on closing out with The Stones, because this song just makes me well up inside." - JC
Notes on 100Sam Valenti IV
Herb Sundays is 100 playlists deep. “100” is arbitrary but it signals some degree of commitment. A lot of people with regular practices do more, never miss a week, and produce multiple times a week, this is great for them. For me, I just wanted to see that I could do something apart from email with some consistency.
It started about 10 years ago when I was with friends and the conversation turned to goals and resolutions for the new year. I have always been hopeless with this stuff. It doesn’t match my motivation style and usually leads to self-loathing. My friend told me he wanted to run a marathon (he’s done a few now I think), and I said I wanted to write more. A pause hung over the room. “What would you write about?” they asked. I had sort of a half-formed answer.: “My experiences so far, or like advice for up-and-comers.” That sort of worked to shift the mood. I shut back up.
I see success in doing something consistently because presumes there is no arrival, that everything is just a form of practice and discovery with occasional moments of brilliance or acceptance. When I found the weird Rollins quote above, it helped because it reminded me that in a stats-driven landscape, to maintain any degree of commitment, I shouldn’t worry about followers and likes for a long while, if ever.-SV4
S.01 E.001Sam Valenti IV
Herb 001 is sort of a petri dish of music I found comforting at the time, some obvious, and some less so. It never made it to Substack, as it was just an IG thing for the moment. I was tempted to augment/edit it but thought better of it, so it remains unchanged. Some songs hit hard still, and some have faded from view. It’s funny how music works. 001 a thought bubble of songs, some obvious and some less so, each with at least a morsel of truth.