What’s more valuable to a band these days — a record deal, or selling a song to a big ad campaign? This week for BuzzReads, Jessica Hopper discusses how the ad industry may be saving independent music. Read that and these other great stories from around BuzzFeed and the web.
How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock — BuzzReads
Not long ago, the idea of selling a song for a commercial would have been seen as career suicide. Now, thanks to the music industry’s implosion and the rise of a new generation of artist-friendly ad execs, bands (like Tegan and Sara) can barely survive without doing so. But has the bubble already burst? Read it at BuzzReads.
Chelsea Lauren / WireImage / Getty Images
Oops, You Hired the Wrong Hit Man — GQ
A riveting piece by Jeanne Marie Laskas about a hit man who's really working for the government. "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives employs an army of guys like him whom nobody's ever heard of and nobody is supposed to know about." Read it at GQ.
Jonathan Kambouris for GQ
Lead or Die — Fast Company
The story of one Marine Lieutenant Colonel who's taken a regiment of Afghani fighters under his wing in an unorthodox fashion. "Treglia's bold approach is now changing the course of events on the ground in Afghanistan. Indeed, it may be one of the best hopes we have for enabling the Afghan Army to protect its country effectively when U.S. troops withdraw in 2014." Read it at Fast Company.
Teru Kuwayama for Fast Company.
Should This Inmate Get a State-Financed Sex Change Operation? — The New Republic
An in-depth look at Michelle Kosilek, a gender-dysphoric convicted murderer who was allowed to undergo state-paid sex-change surgery — to much uproar. Nathaniel Penn argues that "much of the reaction seemed to question whether gender dysphoria is really a severe mental illness." Read it at The New Republic.
Courtesy of Michelle Kosilek / Via newrepublic.com
