The Whole Town’s Getting Down… with Product Placement

Here is my second embarrassing confession since the birth of Getting It In:

I love country music.

I know, I’m ashamed too, but I’m from the South so it’s okay. Anyway, I was thinking about Grey Goose and rap, and somehow ended up thinking about country music, the genre associated with rednecks and hicks. Personally, I dig country music because it doesn't bombard me with sex, drugs, and alcohol. I mean, I love Top 40 radio and frat jamz that scream SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS! in my ear, too, but sometimes you need a break, and my break is country. Also, I tend to think of product placement in mainstream music as promoting products that fall into one of the three aforementioned categories. I guess because of this I figured I wouldn’t see as much product placement in country music. WRONG. And here’s one of my favorite examples, which may or may not accurately describe the town where I grew up.

In case you didn’t catch all of the products, they are Bronco Trucks, White Rain Hairspray, Pall Mall Cigarettes, Laura Ingalls/Little House, Amoco, and Kraco Speakers.

After going through my iTunes library and realizing many of my country faves include product placement, I was kind of amazed. Will we ever escape product placement in our music? Maybe. But we certainly won’t by changing the dial on the radio to another station in hopes that maybe the (insert genre here) station won’t throw a product at us.