Cat Power & David Bowie will sell you a Lincoln
WNYC’s Soundcheck Blog has a post entitled The Year in Music and Branding which comprises of a list from Josh Rabinowitz, senior vice president and director of music at Grey Group, of the best in music and branding in 2008. No irony here - just a list. No irony unless you’re not affected by the fact that all kinds of musicians are now shilling for brands and products.
As Jon Pareles writes in an article entitled Songs From The Heart of a Marketing Plan
In “Creator,†the rawest track on Santogold’s debut and self-titled album, the singer Santi White boasts, “Me I’m a creator/Thrill is to make it up/The rules I break got me a place up on the radar.†It’s a bohemian manifesto in a sound bite, brash and endearing, or at least it was for me until it showed up in a beer commercial. And a hair-gel commercial too.
It turns out that the insurgent, quirky rule breaker is just another shill. Billboard reported that three-quarters of Santogold’s excellent album has already been licensed for commercials, video games and soundtracks, and Ms. White herself appears in advertisements, singing for sneakers. She has clearly decided that linking her music to other, mostly mercenary agendas is her most direct avenue to that “place up on the radar.â€
Meanwhile two musicians who I have the utmost respect for let me down by hitching themselves to the failing American auto industry in an ad for a Lincoln…a Lincoln! The licensing fee replaces the royalty trickle, fair enough I suppose, but please don’t expect me to keep supporting artists who just want to help sell me products. The kids who never buy music may respect Cat Power and David Bowie for this:
[...] let me start by saying that the impetus for writing this post was initiated by Dave Allen who I greatly enjoyed (well still enjoy actually) as a musician (Gang of Four) and still find [...]
December 28th, 2008 at 8:32 pmBill Hicks said it best back in 1994:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YE8tkpxjg&feature=related
December 29th, 2008 at 8:55 amIt’s easy to see how this happens, if you ask me. The artists must shill themselves first–after you’ve hawked your own wares for long enough, when someone comes along and offers a nice fat paycheck minus the tour and press work, seems pretty attractive, no?
It’s a short step from plugging your own work to plugging something else. Really, for a lot of these bands, it’s part of the career arc. Either do this or fade away back to the small clubs and the “whatever happened to”? questions.
OR you do what Albini did–nuke the group before it becomes irrelevant and move into producing other people.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:57 amApologies for the long post, but I think it’s a little more complicated than established artists shilling for products.
What about bands that are still well under the radar getting their music into commercials? Is it still selling out if a decent check — since they’re less well known it will hardly be ‘fat’ — allows the artist to then record their first album, say, or tour outside their home state? As a journalist with a pro audio equipment trade mag (and, as an aside, playing in a punk-funk band contemporaneous with Go4) I speak with commercial music houses all the time, and a good number are finding innovative ways to also get into licensing. One goes looking for unsigned talent and works with them to produce music specifically for a campaign (Gram Rabbit is an example). Another works in a similar way, taking almost an A&R role (which the labels have long since abdicated), bringing in lesser known acts (e.g. Tigercity, Walter Meego, Spain Colored Orange) to work on commercials and films. Yet others work with musicians from signed, often major, bands to produce music for commercials and films that would not otherwise see the light of day within the confines of the band. That list includes Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Rich Robinson (Black Crowes), Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto), Roger Manning, Jr. (Jellyfish, Imperial Drag), Dashboard Confessional — and on and on.
As is frequently noted in articles and blogs on this topic, where else are some of these less well known artists going to get the money to fund their endeavors? There are plenty of negative comments directed at high-end artists (and their publishers) licensing songs for commercial use at hundreds of thousands of dollars per song, but we should perhaps spare a thought for those at the opposite end of the scale who don’t earn much — if anything — from touring or record sales and can truly benefit artistically from picking up a few thousand dollars on such a project.
Plus, with the present state of US commercial radio, these artists have a better chance of being heard by a wider audience via TV spots. They’re not great examples, but Mitsubishi helped break Dirty Vegas through a commercial and VW brought Nick Drake to a wider audience than would otherwise have been possible. Maybe one day we’ll look back and remember when Zales gave Robert Francis his first national exposure, in a commercial. They used to call it patronage, but producing commercial work for hire seemed to work out okay for the likes of Beethoven, Mozart and a host of others!
One other thing that never gets mentioned in these discussions, in particular for established bands of advancing years, is that you would surely prefer to benefit from both sides of the licensing arrangement, the recorded performance and the publishing. If an artist doesn’t grant permission for someone to use their original recording in a commercial, and if the client wants it badly enough, the ad agency could simply have the song re-recorded. I don’t know if that’s the case with the current Hershey spot, as Modern English have certainly licensed the song before, but that is one unpleasant cover version of “I Melt With You,†in my opinion!
All that said, there are plenty of songs I never need to hear again thanks to their appearance in TV commercials…
December 29th, 2008 at 12:35 pmWhat I thought was most interesting about Pareles piece was the idea that licensing, like that of Bowie and Chan, may, eventually, transform the way music sounds, stripping it of specificity and personality, in favor of universal themes and sounds that will not interrupt consumers with any pesky cultural dissonance.
I’ve always argued that music in advertising will eventually taint the music fan, connecting products to the emotional cues of a great song. I hadn’t thought that the practice might end in making all songs and penetrating as elevator music.
George Orwell once said that “All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.” I am afraid that music licensing is subverting art and turning music into something that simply propagates capitalism.
As far as the argument that artists can use this system to gain independence, well, that’s just absurd. Once you have suckled at the corporate tit, you will keep coming back for that monetary fix.
December 29th, 2008 at 1:11 pmI just read the Pareles article in the NYT and thought he made some valid points. It is indeed a very short leap from “this song would be an unobtrusive backing for this advert” to “how can I make this track more commercial-friendly?”
As someone who has had various existing tracks licensed for films, TV, and adverts, I deal with this constantly. I live in a dual-world of creating stuff for release /my own amusement and composing things to “spec.”
When something from the former category works as-is, great….the licensing money finances the niche projects that really interest me. Given my prodigious output there is always a ton of material that may not constitute a release-worthy song but would make for a perfectly fine 30 seconds of interstitial music behind a scene or a product. Between having the track rot on a hard drive and financing my creative endeavours (in lieu of a day job), it is a no-brainer.
Another perspective on this recently in the Washington City Paper.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=36597
December 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm[...] Music, Brands and Marketing Plans Redux December 29th, 2008 by Dave Allen [...]
December 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pm