Selling Out – What is it, Exactly?
I was on the Fence Records Beefboard the other day and someone mentioned that he had heard The Aliens’ Happy Song on telly being used to advertise the Disney Channel, and said that “a little part of my soul died.” Now, to be clear, he wasn’t criticising The Aliens for the fact that their song had been attached to something so depressingly saccharine, crassly vapid and utterly banal as the Disney Channel. He was just lamenting this being the way of the world at the moment.
Now, this conjured a couple of thoughts in my mind. Firstly, people are slowly developing a marked immunity to a lot of advertising (article, article). And secondly, despite its importance, no-one has quite figured out how to advertise properly on the internet yet either, as evidenced by the slightly comical attempts of spammers, flashing banner merchants and employers of those idiotic pop-up windows. Basically, this sort of idiotic flailing about just alienates people, so what else can they do?
Well, one of the most popular methods at the moment is the removal of the barriers between content and advertising: basically turning all content into a kind of ungodly co-branding exercise whereby the more prominent the usage and the more key the moment, the better. For a band, this means placing a song in that climactic final five minutes where we all realise that if everyone is just ‘there for you’ (whatever the fuck that imbecilic phrase means) then life will be all beer & skittles.
So far so obvious. I think most of us knew that already. So what does this do for bands and the concept of selling out? Well TV and movies are already balls-deep in this particular fatted calf, as anyone who saw the downright embarrassing come-shots of that Audi in I, Robot can testify. Both these media are completely compromised now, and frequently one big advertorial, so in all honesty, fuck ‘em.
Music, on the other hand, will find it very difficult to shoehorn a line about, say, Sony laptops into a song, but plenty of people sing about their favourite shoes and spaff all over iPods and god knows what else which, whether or not they receive any actual cash for doing so, is essentially the same thing – co-branding, brand network curation, whatever punchable buzzword you happen to prefer. The hardest aspect of this kind of thing is the impossible blurring of the lines between someone who is simply being honest, and someone who is being a corporate shill.
Several bloggers, for example, advertise eMusic on their sites with various levels of evangelism. They get money for doing so, assuming people take them up on it, but they are almost all completely up-front about their reasons and almost all being completely sincere – eMusic really is the best music download service out there, and just about the only thing keeping me honest in this digital age.
As a band, money is always involved. If you want to make a living as a band you have to sell your music to people. So it’s all very well for legends like Tom Waits with a cast-iron back catalogue to refuse all commercial use of his music, because he can afford to. But I have seen too many of my friends play shitty gigs in grotty venues where the few people there spend the entire evening talking over the music to begrudge anyone saying ‘oh, sod it, alright’ if a company wants to use their song in a trailer, even for something as meretricious as the Disney Channel.
But as to marketing by association, it is almost certainly something we are going to have to get used to, and I don’t think it will be easy to do so. I detest, absolutely detest, the sort of American TV show that is becoming one of the best sources of exposure for emerging bands. Teeth-grindingly awful programs like The OC, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost and, going a little further back in time, Dawson’s fucking Creek. I don’t know what’s worse, their toe-curling desperation to be so cool they could sprain something at any minute or the need for society to have the empty, passive act of watching the same pointless television programs in common to act as some sort of social glue.
Consequently, if the scabrous marketing departments for these entities alight upon the same things as myself in the search for the new and the interesting then I genuinely feel tainted by association. You may think this is shallow, but I make no apology. It feels a bit less special if it has been fondled by the slippery fingers of the bleeding edge marketeers of this world, and I feel a bit less happy to like it.
That said, one of the best sources of exposure for our favourite bands is increasingly going to be this sort of circle-jerk festival of mutual ego massage which reeks of selling out – it just smells as fishy as hell to me – but I don’t think it really is. I may be aggravated if I were to hear, say, Honeytrap on The OC, because it is a program made about cunts, by cunts for cunts, but it would certainly not be Honeytrap’s fault. Those producers are basically fans, the same as we are. They’re only possibly compromising themselves in doing so, if they are claiming to like bands they don’t just because they thing The Kids will be impressed. But in this case, again, it is not the band, it is them.
So Madonna writing songs to peddle Gap clothes which she may like, but I would put money on her not loving, is selling out. This imbecilic stunt is certainly selling out. But music is still a commercial industry, and selling your music to people is an unavoidable part of the business. So fuck, if someone, even in The OC, mentioned reading Song, by Toad I’d fall off my chair in delighted surprise.
But as soon as money is involved, we need to be very suspicious. Bands may well be honest in their support of products, but it is sincerity that seems to me to be the core of the sell-out. Sincerity is notoriously hard to detect though, especially as we have a nasty habit of conflating a band’s opinions and motives with our own. But I do believe that in the end a consistent lack of sincerity is very hard to keep hidden, so don’t worry about what your band chooses to associate themselves with, worry about how much they seem to mean it. Even Chris Martin, for all his crimes against music, seems sincere.
Honeytrap – Death Before the Silver Screen My favourite song of the year? Quite possibly.
The Clash – Complete Control
Barry Adamson – You Sold Your Dreams
And, for the kings and queens of advertising, I actually really like these two songs. Yes, Moby. Ah fuck off, so crucify me. I like it, alright?
Moby – Run On
Goldfrapp – Paper Bag
why is Lost teeth grindingly awful? I happen to hink its one of the most satisfying and innovative programs on the air. more like a novel fir tv than anything before. oh well, to each his own
Despite recent actions to the contrary (obligatory reunion…etc.), I think I read somewhere Iggy Pop saying (paraphrased to the extreme here) “They can use my songs for selling sausages, because I didn’t write them to sell sausages”, or something to that effect. Which makes sense to me, and sums up my view.
For instance, it doesn’t make me start to not like The Passenger because it was used in a car advert, but to rerelease a single because of an advert or such thing, I could probably count that in the ranks of ‘evil doings’…
No, Allen, you’re right, my brother assures me it’s excellent and he’s a pretty good arbiter of such things, by and large. My problem is that I am such a reactionary stick-in-the-mud that as soon as people start chattering about TV programs as if they were of earth-shattering cultural importance then I start to hate them out of sheer contrariness.
What’s the widget you’re using to put those songs up? It’s a nice little thing!
do the musicians really have a say on what their music sells? Doesn’t the record company have the biggest say? I know that I wouldn’t compromise my truth for anything – but thats the paradox, those that refuse to compromise their truth will probably never be heard of since their music will take longer to reach the masses.
In saying that tho, I do think johnny depp is one of those that doesn’t sell out.
Startling – it’s easy. Just enter: [audio URLofsongfile] and Wordpress should do the rest for you.
oldskychaos – You’re absolutely right – that’s one of the sentences I deleted to try and trim the post a little: I don’t think for a second that Gordon and the lads actively decided to advertise the Disney Channel. That said, why shouldn’t they. I wouldn’t like it, exactly, but I think that’s just a knee-jerk reaction, not a reasonable one.
do you think i sold out with my dario post?
I think you will find more bands “selling out” because they need to make a buck. With digital music you have album leaks and a lot of artists are just not realizing much profit from selling CD’s (traditional or not). In China, the bootleg market is so huge that artists have to find other ways to make money on their music. Hence, songs on adverts, concerts, and associated material (tshirts etc. etc.). The overall music scene is going to mimic what is already happening in China and quite frankly it already is. There will have to be other ways for artists to generate a revenue stream. So, I say more power to them, it gets the music out there and they can survive.
You’re right merz, being someone who has been regularly in bands and with bands who have gotten record deals – I know the harshness of the record industry. Going to a different country and finding merchandise you never knew existed nor saw a penny from is very disheartening. The very reason why many choose not to sell out, because they enjoy the music rather than the rest of it, for everyone famous you’ll probably find 100’s who were misused by the industry. Someone close to me got to number 1 and toured and never saw a penny – so he sticks to doing what he loves instead, which is gigging.
But I don’t dis those that need to make money, thats unfortunately what its all about – I say unfortunately because truly it is the record company that makes, not always the artist – and frankly the record company very often ‘chooses’ who will ‘make it’ and who won’t. If I could give the money direct to the artist then I definitely would which is why if I go to a gig (unsigned) I like, I’ll buy a CD direct from the band.
I agree with both of you guys actually – it was you wasn’t it Merz who linked to that Chinese article on the Elbows forums – and it’s sort of the point I was trying to make. A lot of the things which may look a little like selling out are often just us having a knee-jerk reaction to having things we care about associated too deeply with things towards which we are a bit ambivalent. I was just saying that it is only going to become more prevalent and that we should accept it – to an extent. Madonna and Whatstheirnames in the MTV thingy really have gone too far though.
Oh, and Marcy, yes that’s exactly what it means. For shame, woman!
How about this one: “Multichannel retailing powerhouse HSN [That's the Home Shopping Network] today announced that it is teaming with Hear Music to produce a Paul McCartney Listening Party television special to celebrate the upcoming release of Paul McCartney’s latest album, “Memory Almost”…the special 30-minute program will feature cuts from the new CD, lively discussions with McCartney fans and video segments from Paul McCartney as he shares the inspiration behind his latest work.”
Peddling your wares on the Home Shopping Network is pretty low. I know he’s facing a thorough fleecing from Hopalong, but surely this can’t be necessary.
re: mccartney–the only way he could redeem himself for this stunt would be to give all the proceeds to some terribly needy charity. i mean, how much more money does one person need?
re: tv shows like grey’s anatomy–in g.a.’s defense, it was after hearing tegan and sara’s song “where does the good go” that i became obsessed with new music again. one thing led to another and now look at me! : ) my point being that in the case of that show (which i’m not ashamed to say i enjoy), the featuring of music not typically heard on regular radio is a great service to the artists, much to merz’s and oldsky’s points above.
Right, exactly. But the depth of the associations is changing, and becoming much deeper. It’s often no longer a case of letting someone buy your song and plop it on over a naff advert or montage scene in a movie or something like that, which is harmless enough, albeit annoying when it’s a shit product that’s being advertised.
But modern advertising is becoming much more ‘embedded’ if you like, which I think is going to lead to an awful lot of grey areas – look how compromised so many films are by this sort of advertising. At what point will the band have to step in and start to seriously critically evaluate the stuff they get involved with, instead of just leaving it to a marketing exec at their label?
And, btw, I don’t hate Grey’s Anatomy, Six Feet Under, or even Desperate Housewives (I do loathe The OC, though). What I get twitchy about is the worship of false idols that can happen when these sorts of programs attain cult status. It’s an anti-popular reflex I’ve always had and find difficult to control sometimes.
‘anti-popular reflex’ I love that! I remember when x-files first came out. I liked it – got called ‘weird’ and then boom EVERYONE likes it. Then I run away as fast as I can. LOL
i so know what you mean about the embedded ads–all that product placement is so disgustingly obvious. remember back in the day when they took such pains NOT to show a product’s name? all those generic bottles of cola and beer?
i suppose the deeper issue is that the artist cedes control over some/most/all of these decisions almost out of necessity. i mean, how involved can they be with the “business” end of their careers and still be creative artistes, performing their guts out every night? i would imagine once you get so wrapped up in the money aspect that it would lead you down the road to making all kinds of suspect choices (a la the dr. pepper bubble). so they have to leave some of these decisions to their managers, record labels, what have you. and we all know what matters most to them is the bottom line. it’s such a conundrum!
and i know exactly what you mean about the anti-popular reflex. it’s as though something gets lost when a band crosses a certain threshold of popularity, although i’m not sure if it’s something they lose or something i lose, if that makes sense.
Well exactly – most tend not to involve themselves in these sorts of decisions. But given advertisers want to burrow deeper and deeper into the actual artistic content, I think groups may have to start taking a more active role.
Some of them (hip-hop artists in the main, I think) are already name-dropping brands on a particularly regular basis and if groups I like start doing that I am going to get very sulky very quickly.
Ok….so I’m late to the debate cos of holidays.
There’s a really dreadful commercial on US telly at the moment for M&Ms. But it uses one of my favourite songs of all time – ‘This Is The Day’ by The The.
It didn’t make me want to buy any more sweets. Nor did it make me love the song any less.
In fact, I hope that Matt Johnston made a killing out of it, and if the outcome is also that few more hundred folk go out and buy some old The The CDs (in shops or on the net), its a double result.
Let’s not be snooty about it. Most ads use songs which are not well known and they do often result in some half decent stuff getting to a much wider audience. The increased exposure means increased sales which means more financial security for the musicians.
Nowt wrong with that in my book.
Oh, nor is there nowt wrong with Moby’s LP ‘Play’.