The album starts with a soda can being opened: the click of aluminum as the tab is pressed down, the tsssh sound of carbonation being released into the air, the hissing fizz of cola. It ends with the sound of the can being crushed and thrown to the ground with a rattle and clunk. In this caffeine-fueled, densely layered and politically charged audio collage, we are taken on a ride through the billion-dollar advertising campaigns for Pepsi and Coke, the vagaries of the cola wars, celebrity endorsements, and torture. While Negativland are not generally known for their catchy hooks, upbeat rhythms, and memorable lyrics, Dispepsi remains a great "pop" album.
Negativland are known best for their visceral reinterpretations of the media sphere. Their sample-based masterpieces, heavy on the spoken word, are gathered from every conceivable source: broadcast radio, television, movies, commercial and promotional recordings, homemade family tapes and other even more obscure sources. These are handled with the same meticulous precision as a surgeon or forensic pathologist. The metaphor of pathology is an apt one as much of their creative energy has been used to dissect the psychotic and antisocial tendencies of gun toting capitalists, corporations, and media conglomerates. When Dispepsi came out in 1997 it was a focused critique against the advertising campaigns and policies of soda giants Pepsico and the Coca-Cola Company.
On the cover and spine of the album the title "Dispepsi" is not displayed coherently. The letters making it up were discombobulated into anagrams including "Pedissip" and "Ideppiss." A 1-800 phone number was given in the liner notes that had a recording where the proper name of the album could be heard. All this was a safeguard, albeit a thin one, against trademark infrigement and the possible law suits that might ensue had they shown the actual title. Amazingly enough this is one album the copyright critics didn’t get sued for.
While there are plenty of moments of noise, weird sounds, and chaotic collusions on the record, the majority of songs are marked by strong hooks and catchy melodies that get stuck in my head as easily as the advertising jingles they mimic and mock. I am glad Negativland are engaged in subverting corporate messages. They have spent so much time denouncing the culture of advertising that they have a thorough grasp of its mentality. This psychological knowledge could have been more profitably channeled towards selling useless products, instead they spent two and a half years crafting an album that has given me countless hours of pleasure. I listened to it repeatedly just after it came out, and I still put it on a few times a year even now. When initiating new listeners to the vast territory that Negativland has explored this is an album I always start with.
"Drink It Up" paints in the greater landscape of pre-packaged beverages with lines like "when Diet Rite to me is wrong, my Country Time’s expired, my Minute Maid is an hour long, my Maxwell House won’t get my wired, when my pet milk turns on me, and my Five Alive is dead…" on through numerous other permutations. Then the triumphant chorus rings in, "and my mind just turns to Pepsi, and I think of it a lot, my Swiss Miss wasn’t pure, and Kool Aid isn’t hot, when a wall of smoothies rough me up, I’ll turn to a bigger cup of Pepsi, drink it up." One of the main themes on the album is the use of celebrities in advertising to sell products. This starts on "Why Is this Commercial?" with the voice of Michael J. Fox saying, "Hi I’m me, I’m using this to sell you this." It loops and repeats, lodging deep in my mind. The song continues to describe the corporate policies that determine how advertisements tend to use African-Americans in only traditionally perceived roles that are by extension racist—hence Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima—that white people can remain comfortable with, but not in those that expand the parameters. It continues with a sample of athlete Herschel Walker and ends with a quote that Michael Jackson was paid five million dollars to star in two 90 second ads.
The cult of celebrity is explored in even more depth on "Happy Hero," a song that was remixed and included on the thematically related Happy Heroes EP. Thanks to Mark Hosler this tune has an almost country-western vibe that casual listeners would find appealing. The lyrics, however, reveal a deep concern with how superstars and other famous people can be convicted of atrocious crimes—both public and private—while still retaining the naïve loyalty of a fan base who are always willing to overlook the fact that these people beat their wives, have sex with underage children, or commit murders. "The Greatest Taste Around" has a wonderful children’s rompous room beat as the voice of Dick Lyons, reads out fun lines like, "I got fired by my boss" and then a loudly sampled "Pepsi" interspersed, before saying "I nailed Jesus to the cross" all in a happy tone that makes me thirsty for soda. Another highlight of the album is "Aluminum or Glass: The Memo," where the Weatherman poses as an ad exec coaching his underlings on how to shoot the perfect commercial, or what he calls "a heightened reality vignette." The videos made for some of these songs on the DVD Our Favorite Things are likewise continuously entertaining.
At times the music of Negativland can feel suffocating as it is so saturated with media samples. I can only imagine how painstaking the process assembling it all together was for the band, but it was certainly worth the effort. Other ambitious concept albums have floundered, this one remains strong, and its artistic statement ever more pertinent in a world flooded competing commercial messages. Dispepsi has a smooth and satisfying finish that has yet to go flat truly making it "the choice of the Negative generation."
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