Red Hector - Divergent Connections: Sara Bareilles

"Only one good thing worth trying to be and it’s love, love, love.."

Sara Bareilles has come full circle around, to draw me in at last, with a "love song" she has written for her own self.. my image of her as an artist has been moderately transformed.

If this were the first I saw of her, I would have seen in this video a young indie artist with pop breakout potential. Positive and affirming, catchy, and unabashedly invoking the word love, love, love.. A self-referential and knowing lyric that starts with the assertion that females will knowingly connect to the sentiments expressed. A video that sees her in spirit visiting a multitude of locations at pianos, to find the places where many unknown everyday people do music for themselves as a pure expression. Such a simple grounded solidarity is a departure from the glamour hungry and fame obsessed images that have choked the screens of this decade so far.

But as it is, I am already well aware that she is a top successful recording artist that has had a #1 hit. Not too many months ago her "I'm not going to write you a" Love Song was playing everywhere. Unfortunately I dismissed her initially as being too derivative of female artists I already loved. Plus, I unfairly associated the song with a perceived growing trend of unnecessarily negative themed songs or videos from female artists.

The reason I was not in the mood to open up further to her music was the shock of seeing her for the first time on a Rhapsody commercial, played in heavy rotation for months this year. The shock was that there was such a seemingly good female artist I have never heard of before, which had already appeared to have "sold out" in such a crass way. I have already seen these type of commercials before where a famous act ("you can control the Black Eyed Peas at Best Buy..") is absurdly seen to be playing in your home as if they were your sound system.. However she was a much lesser known artist, and for some reason the ad had this scrawny hipster dude getting out of the shower, pretending to be jamming along to this track that is obviously not appealing to the typical young male demographic..

He then interrupts "Love Song" to play.. "Bottle it Up" which fittingly brings me full circle to this Sara Bareilles song I have now discovered in a different way. My perception of her as an artist is only changing now, having seen past all the commercial marketing aspects that made her music known and a hit in the first place. Is there a better marketing strategy for products out there that can utilize music and provide a good exposure for artists, but still preserve their dignity?

(PS, I now see that a re cut version of the commercial that shows him switching from Sara Bareilles to the more recently hip The Cool Kids. It is more realistic behavior for the guy character in the ad, but in my opinion it is a bit of an insult to her music.)

"I’m trying to let you hear me as I am.."

Find or rediscover the real Sara Bareilles for yourselves: