Is it my imagination or is the NYT increasingly becoming a media navel gazer by focusing more and more of its reporting on pop culture and other media? Anyhow, there was a nice little gem of an article as a result of this kind of coverage with a recent piece on the trend of artists licensing their music to advertising (see snip below). I saw this coming a while back when The Beatle’s “Revolution” aired as the soundtrack to a Nike commercial (see above), no thanks to Michael Jackson who at the time had bought the publishing rights to the Beetles catalog and started selling them mercilessly. In a strange way the commercial was a watershed for a new kind of revolution, not one intended by John Lennon.
One of the best polemics against this kind of practice comes from The Door’s drummer John Densmore in a piece he penned for The Nation a few years ago, “Riders on the Storm.” In it he tells the following story:
It all started in 1967, when Buick proffered $75,000 to use “Light My Fire” to hawk its new hot little offering–the Opel. As the story goes–which everyone knows who’s read my autobiography or seen Oliver Stone’s movie–Ray, Robby and John (that’s me) OK’d it, while Jim was out of town. He came back and went nuts. And it wasn’t even his song (Robby primarily having penned “LMF”)! In retrospect, his calling up Buick and saying that if they aired the ad, he’d smash an Opel on television with a sledgehammer was fantastic! I guess that’s one of the reasons I miss the guy.
This is why Cadillac uses Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” and not The Doors’ “Break on Through.”
The best argument comes from Tom Waits who successfully sued Taco Bell to stop imitating his sound for commercial exploitation. It’s quite simple: when you hear the song, which association do you want to have? As an artist is it acceptable that your music has been cheapened as a shilling jingle for some useless product, or rather that it enhance an emotional experience and be part of someone’s life soundtrack?
People should take seriously the Buddhist idea of right livelihood, which means that you do not contribute to other’s suffering by selling or promoting toxins or arms. Now that global warming is the primary health threat to life on this planet, any product that contributes or exacerbates climate change, such as cars or Las vegas– or marketing in general for that matter–, should be added to the list of no-nos.
The NYT article follows with a pretty good discussion of why the trend persists. One other tidbit before I go. I’m always on the lookout for good ad sources for my classes and workshops. The article mentions a Web service that helps you track down an artist that may have been heard on a commercial. The site is called FindThatSong. You may find the site useful for your own work.
Music – The New Pop Music Revolution – Pitching Products – NYTimes.com:
Apparently there’s no going back, structurally, to paying musicians to record music for its own sake. Labels that used to make profits primarily from selling albums have been struggling since the Internet caused them to lose their chokehold on distribution and exposure. Now, in return for investing in recording and promotion, and for supplying their career-building expertise (such as it was), they want a piece of musicians’ whole careers.
