Father John Misty has one again showcased his cynical and self deprecating sense of humour in a series of ‘rejected promos’ for streaming service Pandora. Sounding like demented segues from an unhinged radio station, Misty roundly mocks himself, fandom and most of all the idea of self promotion in the hilarious voice overs posted to his Soundcloud.
“It gets lonely out on the road, my Pandora mixtape helps me retain some semblance of an emotional existence as I sell myself piece by wretched piece, one t-shirt at a time,” quips Misty, better known to friends and family as Josh Tillman.
“This is Father John Misty, and Pandora wants to promote my tour, and are offering eleven million impressions across their platform in return for not much. It’s a win, both because it’s free tour advertising and marketing, and because my music has yet to catch on on the platform. This is common for bands who are not quite mainstream. Our hope is that it will help me sell tickets and kick-start my music on Pandoraaaa,” another one goes.
With a bit of a history of public hi-jinx, his interviews and work full of humourous self loathing, these faux vox pops follow his recently release Taylor Swift covers and story about Lou Reed coming to him in a dream. All of this done apparently to troll the media.
“I did kind of know what I was doing,” he said. “I did know that it would resonate. But I didn’t expect it to be as resonant as it was… which I found to be kind of disgusting.”
“Here’s the deal,” he continued. “The entertainment landscape, in order for it to be the kind of entertainment that people want, it can’t be timeless. The fact that that [Ryan Adams cover of Taylor Swift] thing came out that day, and turned the thing into an event, that’s what made it take off.”
“The MIDI version of the album, that’s a far more timeless idea – and maybe it’s timely in that it’s addressing this far more drawn out conversation, but the Ryan Adams/Taylor Swift thing was timely in that ‘this is the white-hot’ moment, and that’s what gets people off these days. It’s the same mentality as a tabloid.”
Anyway you can listen to the promos via Soundcloud here below.
