Lately, I've been trying hard to omit brands from my posts on this blog—referring to mp3 players, when everyone knows which ubiquitous device I'm talking about, for instance. But then David Foster Wallace died, and in reading about him in the days following, I saw something about his relationship to brand entities in his writing. For him, these brands were just part of a realistic modern landscape—to omit them would be deceitful. He argued, not unconvincingly, that people today were somewhat inoculated or at least desensitized to the omnipresence of advertising.

So what to do when a band releases an mp3 via a sugar water corporation's website? Ignore the release until it comes through less compromised channels? Post it while shit-talking the corporate entity and/or bands involved ? Just post it as is and let the ad-savvy reader take what they can from the corporation while ignoring what they don't want? (These are not rhetorical questions.)

Obviously, this isn't black and white. Music writing is, by its very nature, about certain products—albums and concerts, mostly—and of course there are corporations involved on some levels. I just hate to see unrelated prodcuts piggybacking their way into our otherwise rarified critical discourse; no doubt I'd be just as pissed if I subscribed to a blog about soda pop and found myself reading about Matt & Kim there.

Frankly, I appreciated Megan mentioning the brand without resorting to snark.

(PS After about 10 seconds of additional thought, I guess the shit-talk is really more of a Slog thing than a Line Out thing. But still...)

The post is about the song, the focus is on the song. Not the corporation who offered up the song. I could've pointed fingers at Mountain Dew and called them evil sugar water suppliers and said some smart ass comment about them piggybacking the DIY music scene, but I didn't want to. I wanted to post about the song.