Plimsole company ups sell-out stakes

Advertising. It's tricky, isn't it? Do you accept cash from advertisers, or do you starve?

Still, at least it's possible to take the money and still retain some of your dignity. Sometimes. Though that's not what Santogold, Pharrell and Julian Casablancas have done, taking the cash and doing a wouldn't-have-happened-without-the-ad collaboration for Converse:

Geoff Cottrill, chief marketing officer for Converse, said "My Drive Thru" ties in comfortably with Converse's heritage of aligning with the independent minded. "We call them optimistic rebels," he said. "They're the core of what our brand stands for -- being an advocate and catalyst for creativity. ... We wanted these guys to come together, create a piece of music and share it with anyone who wanted it."

The independent minded who all wear the same shoes and the optimistic rebels who make a song because a multinational company pay them money. Yes, we've heard of them.

You can hear the song on stereogum but, really, we'd recommend you choose your own shoes and give it a miss.

Sorry, did you say 'tribute'? We heard 'nasty marketing campaign stunt'.

Converse - with the full blessing of Courtney Love - are to launch a Kurt Cobain plimsole. We say full blessing, clearly it could only have been given one-handed as the other would have been counting the money.

In a press release, Converse said: "To honour Cobain, in May, Converse will debut their Kurt Cobain collection of shoes featuring artwork and scribbles borrowed from Cobain's personal notebooks.

"It will mark a central part of the year-long 100th Anniversary 'Welcome to the Converse Century' celebration."

Aha. It's an honour for your corpse to dug up, and your personal diaries ransacked in order to help sell some overpriced training shoes. An honour right up there with 'having someone piss through your letterbox'.