The damage wrought by La La Land

I'm not sure if you've seen the new Apple AirPods ad, which I've screen captured to the right. (Actually, I just Google Image'd someone else's screen cap.)

It features a guy listening to music on his AirPods (wireless ear buds) and bouncing along on the sidewalk, ultimately ascending aloft into the position you see in this picture. The song is, appropriately, "Bounce" by Tessellated.

It's the lyrics of the song that interest me, combined with the music itself.

"I just heard some jazz today (yes it's true)
I just learnt some jazz today."

I'm not really sure the placement of the various "heard"s and "learnt"s. What I am sure of is that every time I hear this song, I think it must suck.

Not that it does suck, but that it must suck, because La La Land told me that it sucks.

You may remember that one of the more unfortunate elements of La La Land is that singer John Legend plays the closest thing the film has to an antagonist. See, he's the guy who wants Seb (Ryan Gosling) to sell out his pure version of jazz for this poppy, compromised version that he's managed to popularize. It only adds to the film's already problematic racial politics.

The music Legend's character plays sounds exactly like "Bounce" by Tessellated, and the unfortunate lyric "I just heard/learnt some jazz today" only underscores that fact.

If I had heard this song in a vacuum, I probably wouldn't have gravitated toward it, but I would have found it harmless enough. In fact, I find it harmless enough now.

But the harm is in the fact that every time I see this ad, I think "Seb from La La Land told me that this type of music is bullshit, and therefore, anyone who enjoys listening to it while bouncing along the sidewalk has got to be bullshit too."

Apple should not have to change the song it wants to use on this ad just because a very popular movie undercutted its essential value. But I'd argue that by not considering the potential influence of that movie, they haven't considered the damage that movie did, and how it might damage their own product sales.