The week before his band Guns ‘N Roses is to be inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Axl Rose has released a letter written to the hall rejecting his nomination into the shrine and telling them that he won’t be attending. He has even asked that the hall specifically not include him in name or image when they induct the band.

Some people are saying that Axl Rose is an immature idiot. Others are giving him credit for standing by his personal ethics.  No matter what your opinion is, you can learn from Axl Rose.

GENERATING BRAND BUZZ

Everyone is talking about Axl Rose today. That hasn’t happened in a long, long time. He has gotten his name in the press in a major way. But… consider the massive buzz a one time Guns ‘N Roses reunion would have created had Axl showed up, accepted the honor, and joined his estranged former bandmates for a jam session. The Police did it in 2003, playing together for the first time in two decades. It was magical.

REINFORCING YOUR BRAND IMAGE

Snubbing an organization like the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame is, well, pretty damn rock ‘n’ roll of him. By doing this, Axl builds up his anti-establishment image. Not that it needed building up, considering his past behavior.  But… there’s bad-boy behavior and then there is just being an a**hole. Plenty of people would suggest this borders on the latter. Notoroious bad boys like Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, AC/DC, The Ramones, and many others are in and they all accepted their awards with class and grace.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

Is Axl Rose a genius for standing pat on his beliefs? Or is Axl Rose a petulant punk for blowing off the rock hall?

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That was brilliant advice from Jackson Browne, and the very bright Seth Godin wrote a piece about it on his blog here.

Jackson Browne and Seth Godin advocate exploring, jamming, and experimenting so that you can continue to surprise your customers with the unpredictable.

Bands that over-rehearse become predictable and boring.  When every song by a band sounds the same, you stop anticipating their new releases.  When you see a band several times and hear the same songs, in the same order, sounding the same way night after night, you stop being interested in seeing them live.  There’s a fine line between being consistent and being boring.

Bands that surprise us get noticed.  I remember the first time I saw Bob Dylan.  There were songs that I didn’t even recognize until Bob got to the chorus because Dylan doesn’t play them the same way every time.  If Dylan feels like doing “Like A Rolling Stone” as an acoustic number, he does it that way.  If he wants to rock out, he does that.  You just never know.

Bruce Springsteen is an artist who surprises every night. The last time I saw Bruce live he surprised the audience at the Boston Garden with a version of ZZ Top’s “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” and Bruce’s own “I’m Goin’ Down”, a song he doesn’t play live often.  My friends who saw him the next night were treated to “I Wanna Be Sedated”, a Ramones song, along with a guest appearance from local legends The Dropkick Murphys.

And I don’t even have to mention the unrehearsed exploring that The Grateful Dead did every night.

Do you rehearse too much? 

Are you regularly surprising your customers with fresh ideas, products, and perspectives?

Instead of practicing to be perfect over and over again, spend some time exploring.  Think.  Change.  Try.  After all, perfection is boring.

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John Hughes knew it. The director of “Sixteen Candles” and “Breakfast Club” died last week, but he left my generation a wealth of movies that defined growing up in the 80′s.

“Holiday Road” by Lindsay Buckingham and “Blitzkrieg Bop” by Ramones gave “National Lampoon’s Vacation” a new dimension.

“Sixteen Candles” would not have been “Sixteen Candles” without songs from The Thompson Twins, Billy Idol, Spandau Ballet, and the classic “Young Americans” by David Bowie.

Spending a weekend in detention with “The Breakfast Club” gave us an original movie soundtrack hit that has endured nearly 30 years. “(Don’t You) Forget About Me” by Simple Minds stands up as the most mass-appeal hit of their lengthy career. By the way, Billy Idol and Bryan Ferry both turned down offers to record the song before Simple Minds wisely picked it up. Billy eventually did his own little-known version, which you can hear if you’d like.

“Wierd Science” wasn’t my favorite Hughes movie, but how can you go wrong with “Oh Pretty Woman” by Van Halen, “Wierd Science” by Oingo Boingo, and General Public’s “Tenderness”.

Things really got cooking with “Pretty In Pink”. The movie’s title song by Psychedelic Furs is the band’s signature song in the US. And OMD raised their career through “If You Leave”, a song that went on to be their signature song as well.

There never was a soundtrack album to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, but the scene with Matthew Broderick performing “Twist and Shout” is a classic moment in 80′s moviemaking.

Some of the British neo-romantic acts like Thompson Twins, Psychedelic Furs, OMD, General Public, Spandau Ballet, and Simple Minds owe a great deal of debt to John Hughes. Without inclusion in his movies, those bands may well have been just a footnote in US music history despite their success in the UK.

Hughes intrinsically seemed to understand the need for every strong visual to have stunning audio to accompany it.

That’s a lesson lost today on many brands, who insist on filling their print and outdoor ads with “white space” and ignoring the power of radio and TV audio.

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