Mary Kay Cosmetics - Gentle On My Mind

This is the stuff this blog exists for! I found this incredible CD in Exiled Records in Portland the other day and knew I'd struck gold as soon as I started reading the liner notes. Product Music Vol 1 (the first and seemingly last volume in the 'series') is a compilation of songs from 'industrial musicals', the stage productions put on by corporations to boost morale and sense of team spirit among employees. Limited to a run of only 1000 copies, what the listener of this CD is privileged to is an experience of creepy, capitalism-at-play. Each song is an ode to a company or brand, a hymn of consumption, a song for corporate worship. The whole record is mind-boggling: Who wrote and sang these songs? How did employees react? Were the songs effective? The song featured above is one of the less sinister offerings on the album, a nonetheless eerie piece of showtune muzak, to be looped over a store's PA system until time's end.

Label: Honest-Abe Disc!
Year: 1996
Genre: Consumer Crooner, Easy-Listening, Showtunes, Muzak