I remember pretty much every episode from Channel 4’s legendary comedy series Father Ted. But one episode that I remember more than most is “Rock A Hula Ted”. In it, the main protagonist Father Ted Crilly is asked to be a judge for the Lovely Girls competition – anyone from Ireland will probably know this is a parody of the Rose of Tralee, another competition frequently accused of being outdated and sexist.
I’m guessing that one of the other judges, sadly never shown on camera, was Mike Weiss. He’s the man in charge of Nervous Records and recently, his label went back to the tacky, 1970s style advertising they flirted with heavily earlier this year. To the best of my knowledge, no other major dance music label advertised its products – be they music or merchandise – in this manner, and haven’t for many years. In dance music terms, he’s an outlier in this regard.
And we can now see with Nervous’s latest advertising campaign that these ghastly campaigns are well and truly back in vogue with the label’s management…
Classy indeed. Over the past few months, we’ve seen there are few depths Weiss and his label will not stoop to. Releases, T-shirts, face masks – anything they had to sell was advertised for months alongside a totally inappropriately dressed lady. And despite their own followers increasingly calling them out, Nervous flat out refuse to explain or defend themselves.
Curiously however, there are two parts of the label’s online presence where the scantily clad ladies do not appear. A quick search of the merchandise section of their Bandcamp page and the label’s own website confirm none of the dubious pictures from the models are present.
They only appear on the social media platforms – Nervous suddenly get all respectable when you click a link where a sale could actually take place.
One day, the penny – or should it be a dime in this case? – will drop at Nervous…
