Corporate Music - How to Compose with no Soul
Tantacrul1 HN recommender · recommended in 1 month, 2019–2023
commentary · general · evergreen · 2019–2023 on HN
Composer Tantacrul explores how corporatism produces soulless background music, and how some companies use such music in propaganda-style campaigns. He composes several corporate styles to show their tropes, with some music theory along the way.
HN uses it as a go-to critique of bland corporate music and as a punchline whenever a slick corporate video appears.
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6 comments from Hacker News
I wish someone would explain how this actually happens. I've had many takes at this exact topic and always ended up feeling most provided reasons are just speculation. One of the better takes: ▶ this video Still, no info from actual producer as to why he made the music as it is.
Commercial background music is already sterile, even if it is written and performed by humans. Here is a video from four years ago complaining about this sort of commercial music - ▶ this video .
I never heard about the KPMG theme song before. Now it feels like a parody of "Corporate Music - How to Compose with no Soul" ▶ this video
A bit off-topic, but I couldn't help thinking about Tantacrul's video, Corporate Music - How to Compose with no Soul [1] when watching the video on this post. [1] ▶ this video
Fashion is a key word here. Most customers - especially commercial developers - have a shockingly neutral sense of taste. Here is the budget, build the most fashionable thing you can. I think loads of modern buildings are essentially the same type of creative product as corporate video music. ▶ this video
Watching this video about composing corporate music made watching the intro video extra fun: ▶ this video I also like the old telephone, which I believe is a reference to one of the old introductory videos to Erlang.