Open Thread: ATL Theme Song
The theme song for the Brand Atlanta campaign, composed by the ironically named Dallas Austin, debuts tonight. A sample clip was distributed through the AJC website.
So an open question for an open thread: what do you think of Atlanta’s new theme song?
October 25th, 2005 at 8:39 am
The first thing that comes to mind… American Idol.
October 25th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
I don’t have anything helpful to say about this. But, Dallas Austin? Come on. If you’re going to use a fake name, at least think up a better one than that!
October 25th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
When I raise a son, I think I’ll name him Savannah Athens, just to make sure he becomes a really good boxer by the time he grows up.
October 25th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
What were they thinking? Or better yet maybe we should ask,”what were they smoking?”
October 26th, 2005 at 7:34 am
That music says that if you aren’t part of the hip-hop culture, then you don’t belong in Atlanta. I’ve heard several people say that it doesn’t compare to songs like “New York, New York” or “Chicago”, but those songs came from musicals and were adopted by those cities as their themes. I think Atlanta could/should come up with something better that represents Atlantans and that will not drive the wrong message to non-Atlantans.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:26 am
Quite forgettable. There is no real melody (or remotely melodic, IMO) for people to remember. What good is a theme song if you can’t remember it?
October 26th, 2005 at 8:30 am
It’s shite! I don’t have a problem with a hip-hop/R&B theme; the young professionals are a very important demographic for the city proper, and hip-hop is the most popular of all music types to this set. The song, however, really says nothing about Atlanta’s culture besides, “Get your hands up!” (Who hasn’t heard that while walking around at night?). Aside from that, the only other connection to Atlanta the song demonstrates is Atlanta’s love of the generic. When I heard this song I immediately thought of Atlanta’s last horribly ill conceived marketing gag: Whatizit. Five minutes later I had come up with a fitting mascot via Photoshop: Whatizzyfashizzymanizzy, the generically thuggish ambassador of all things the city hopes to show the world.
October 26th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
is that “ironic” in the alanis morissette sense?
October 27th, 2005 at 9:18 am
I agree with the commenter who stated that the song says, if you’re not part of the hip-hop culture, you’re not part of Atlanta.
What the heck makes the city think that a craptastic theme song like that will bring people to our city?
There is a really scary comparison to be made in Michael Moore’s “Roger & Me”, which is about the decline of Flint, Michigan. They too tried new tourist attractions ala the new aquarium and marketing schemes ala the theme song and logo.
Both failed, because in the end the people of Flint HAD NOTHING. So when after summer was over no one could afford to go to the tourist traps.
In a city where one of the largest, if NOT the largest, employer has filed for bankruptcy it’s stupid to think that branding the city is going to save it.
The city should try to explain to the Delta employee who has no pension, no job, and no money to put food on the table how EXACTLY this is going to help HIM.
Cities are nothing more than large communities of people. Help the people and you help the city, but the reverse is not true.
Peace.
October 27th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Someone took my word, “craptastic.”
Says nothing about Atlanta,
has no redeeming musical value,
conveys absolutely no message.
And I hate the slogan and the logo as well.
Atlanta can’t create a unqiue marketable identity with empty solgans, we need to sell our assets. Atlanta has fantastic intown neighborhoods, but marketing them to tourism isn’t easy. I don’t have the answers, but the garbage the city has signed onto will not help.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
In other words, Atlanta is America’s biggest small town. That’s how I see it, at least.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Wow, we have a theme song! Maybe, next year, we’ll get a _variety_show_! Imagine the possibilities!
October 28th, 2005 at 10:16 am
Okay, I don’t like the song or the logo either, but give me a break… Atlanta is not Flint, Michigan. Now turn that frown upside down!
October 28th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
The saddest part is that anyone thinks it is not garbage.
November 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Ay man yall need 2 chill out wit all a that, yall stank behinds can’t even come up wit a real song.First of all his name is real so u need 2 stop hatin!Also if u aint from atlanta you is GAY! I appreciate the song and love it so get off his F***in case!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 25th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
The song is almost as embarrassing as the Atlanta Public School grammar used in some of these posts (i.e. “stank”, “u”, “hatin”, “you is”, “ay”, “wit”). If the song doesn’t scare people away from moving to Atlanta, some of these posts might.
January 4th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Its true.. I just moved here and I’m not only pissed, i’m embarrassed….. When is the next election so we can boot Shirley out of office for this stupid 8 million dollar blunder?
Fools.
January 4th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Tom,
Point taken. I’m not sure where you get the $8 million figure from. Atlanta’s spending on its branding campaign is, amazingly, one-third that compared to its peer cities. As far as the election goes, you just missed it. She just started her second of two terms with more than 90 percent of the vote.
February 8th, 2006 at 12:22 am
Who cares what genre of music the song is. The point is not that the song is rock, r&b, rap or whatever. The point is what the song represents; specifically what the mayor has decided what should represent our city.
This is a great city. The Fox, Atlanta Symphony, the High and the Arts Center, Major and minor league sports teams, a budding rap scene, a new aquarium, a storied history, great parks, georgia tech, georgia state, emory, morehouse, and other schools, great research hospitals, (the olympics were here!), and the list goes on and on
The song the mayor chose to portray our city represents none of these things. The way I see it the mayor is chosing to portray Atlanta a city that has nothing more to offer than a young hip hop culture. “There’s no place I’d rather be” the song says. Well shouldn’t you tell them why Sherly?
-Jon, a student at Georgia Tech
February 26th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
This song wouldn’t seem so bad to all of you people if the outlook on Atlanta wasn’t already as horrible as it is. Being that I live here it is bad enough to say bad things about the place I live but Atlanta is going downhill quickly under Shirley Franklin’s control. Look for Atl to become the future New Orleans. By no means in any way do I think that this city needs to be more diverse toward blacks. Atlanta is most likely the most black oriented city I have ever seen and I’ve visited alot of places. Our anthem song or whatever they call it doesn’t need to signify that we are trashy people that call up our homie friends from the hood to create some shity song that costs the taxpayers alot of money. Don’t you think that that money should go toward something more needing, like, say EDUCATION in public schools? Georgia overall is the worst state in education and I’m not proud to say that as I was born, raised, and went to school here.
Atlanta, however, shouldn’t be diversified more. That has already happened. I mean look at our city, we have an area of it preserved just for MLK, which don’t get me wrong he was a great man and his accomplishments were great. We have a black mayor, which I’m sure her”accomplishments” are really helping out the whole black president thing. If Shirley Franklin can do this horseshit to Atl imagine what could happen with a black president to control the whole country. The U.S. would turn into a big shitwhole if it’s not already. But back to how diverse Atlanta is. Look at our football team, almost all of the starters are black, we are one of the few teams with a black starting QB by the way.
On the subject of sports, it is embarresing to say to someone from another state that my hometown is Atlanta. Atl is one of the worst cities for sports. Everything is bad. The bulldogs are really the only sport team that we are known for. The falcons, 37 seasons in the NFL; 11 winning seasons. None back to back. I really feel sorry for the diehard Falcon fans that have loved them for years if there are any.
Back to this song though. I haven’t done my research to see how much it cost taxpayers but I’ve heard from 200,000 to 8 million. I don’t know but I think that Ray Charles had it right on his first try and the taxpayers didn’t have to pay him. To go with that around the U.S. we are known for the Ludacris song “Welcome to Atlanta” which was also a great song which signified the “new” culture that’s in Atlanta. People liked that song. But this one comes around and I have heard all of two comments form people that liked it and they sounded black.
I have come face to face with Shirley Franklin once and ironically it was in a Krispy Kreme in Buckhead. Of course already disliking her as our mayor, the last thing I needed to see is her stuffing her face with a doughnut. So my first words to our mayor were, “Hey, you’ve got some jelly on your shirt.” Not what you expect to say to your mayor huh?