{"id":420,"date":"2015-11-17T21:04:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T02:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bowdoinglobalist.com\/?p=420"},"modified":"2015-11-17T21:04:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T02:04:04","slug":"drakes-subliminal-marketing-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/music\/drakes-subliminal-marketing-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake\u2019s Subliminal Marketing Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBack in the day my father would play all of our music on cassette tapes, vinyl, discs, and the occasional \u201cfloppy disk.\u201d When visiting our apartment one would be more than likely to trip over a stray Paul McCartney B-side or a badly scratched Carlos Santana album (that multi-Grammy winning one with the summer hit \u00a0\u201cSmooth\u201d featuring Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty). And for a while, \u201cthe future of music,\u201d meant finding out how to import these relics onto our shiny desktop computer. But these days all I do is<\/span> listen to music on online streaming services \u2013 Spotify, Pandora, and now \u2013 relatively new to the fray \u2013 Apple Music. <\/span><\/p>\n

In an effort to distinguish themselves from their competition, and perhaps bring back the iTunes\/iPod glory days, they\u2019ve enlisted the help of the world\u2019s favorite Canadian rapper, the @ChampagnePapi<\/a><\/span> himself, Drake. Their most recent music-video success \u201cHotline-Bling\u201d brings Drake\u2019s listeners back to those fond simple memories of when your lover would \u201ccall [you] on [your] cell phone.\u201d This video was both an opportunity for Drake and Apple music to flaunt their product and get listeners to buy into Apple music before the initial three-month free trial deadline ends.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been following Drake\u2019s career, you might have noticed something of a trend in his latest releases. \u201cCharged Up\u201d and \u201cBack to Back\u201d refer to his Twitter argument with former friend and collaborator Meek Mill over the authenticity of Drake\u2019s lyricism. Using the Apple Music platform to his advantage, Drake masterfully released these songs \u2013 <\/span>back to back<\/span><\/i>. The track \u201cBack to Back\u201d was released on the same day that the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Philadelphia Phillies \u2013 underscoring this witty Toronto native\u2019s victory over Philly\u2019s Meek Mill. Not only was this a clever diss, but also was one that was only made possible because of the nature of Apple\u2019s instant music streaming. \u201cCharged Up,\u201d is somehow even more heavy-handed in its Apple inspired imagery, using a charged iPhone battery icon as its album art \u2013 indicating Drake\u2019s readiness to crush his competition. \u201cHotline Bling\u201d is no exception to this motif that Drake has found himself entrenched in, as both the song and music video were made initially available and immediately popular as a result of Apple\u2019s gargantuan marketing scheme.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s by no accident that your Facebook feed has been flooded with pictures, videos and .gifs of Drake dancing in a tight grey turtleneck. The share-ability of the Hotline-Bling music video is both a result of its sheer ridiculousness and <\/span>actually<\/span><\/i> en-point dancing. The video was choreographed by Trisha Scott<\/a><\/span>, fellow Torontonian and mastermind behind the successful music videos of artists like Beyonc\u00e9 and Rihanna. The sign of any good dance music video \u2013 in my eyes \u2013 is its ability to be played to any song, which Hotline Bling succeeds at doing. Take a moment to appreciate this prime example in which Scott incorporates familiar dance moves to a modern catchy beat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hotline Bling.<\/a>WHO DID THIS ???.<\/p>\n

Posted by Complex<\/a> on Monday, October 19, 2015<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But perhaps the thing that is so fascinating about the Hotline-Bling music video isn\u2019t Drake\u2019s meme-worthy dancing, but instead: the sheer volume of nostalgia packed into it. Again, the video is reminiscent of an era where dance videos were more prevalent and times more simple. The colorful backlit stage that a silhouetted Drake prances around catches the eye and is a clear reference to the early iPod advertisements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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The song itself, by referring to Drizzy\u2019s old flame, the use of antiquated \u201ccell phones,\u201d and sampling<\/a><\/span> of a sample originally taken from Koji Kondo\u2019s \u201cStar Theme\u201d for Nintendo\u2019s 1990 Super Mario World<\/a>.<\/span> Admittedly, there is not a lot to unpack from the lyrics themselves \u2013 \u201cI know when that hotline bling \/ That can only mean one thing.\u201d<\/a><\/span> Drake exudes his usual confidence and bravado that his fans can\u2019t get enough of, boldly sampling another rapper\u2019s song to launch his own hit. The original sample was taken from DRAM\u2019s \u201cCha Cha,\u201d a song that expresses the rapper\u2019s fervent desire to \u201cCha Cha in a Latin bar with a Dominican.\u201d Champaign Papi, paying homage to DRAM, employs the Cha Cha as one of his featured dance moves in the Hotline Bling music video. In addition, the backup dancers are initially answering calls at what appears to be a foot fetish hotline, completing the circle of Drake\u2019s and Apple Music\u2019s imagery. <\/span><\/p>\n

Given all this, what\u2019s left to say? It isn\u2019t uncommon for artists and record labels to carefully craft an image to help promote the sales of a project. What\u2019s unique about this example is the way in which Apple has seamlessly introduced a new way to experience media. Drake\u2019s team produces a track and accompanying video, Apple distributes it and at the same time advertises a product that everyone is already using. Although Drake was denied his #1 Billboard hit<\/a><\/span>,<\/a> it was a result of an antiquated system not yet ready to count the number of plays Apple received on the first week of the video\u2019s release. The song is playing back to back on a good deal of people\u2019s iPhones, iPods, Macbooks, iTouches, iPads, iWatches, etc. Will Apple Music successfully overcome its competitors, or has the game already been decided? <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drake and Apple Music teamed up to sell you a product. Thankfully, they had fun with it – using nostalgia, infectious dancing, and the power of memes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[43],"class_list":{"0":"post-420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-apple-music","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}