| AD ROCK
Modern music is commerce but most of us think
of it as more, even aspiring to art, when music becomes commercial
many turn away, but what about when the music is in the commercial?
Breed is the first Nirvana track to be licensed
for commercial purposes, an Austrian phone company ad, a result
of Courtney selling of a chunk of Kurt’s catalogue, it made
me wonder if it would happen while he was alive. After all everyone
seems to do it sooner or later if they get the opportunity, with
some notable exceptions.
George Harrison said on the subject ”
We've got to put a stop to it in order to set a precedent. Otherwise
it's going to be a free-for-all. It's one thing you're dead, but
we're still around! They don't have any respect for the fact that
we wrote and recorded those songs, and it was our lives.”
George’s songs have never been licensed for
commercials, he was not signed to Maclen music that meant that John
and Paul’s songs could be sold off by a company merger with
Sony and Michael Jackson’s temporary ownership and end up
in commercials, hopefully Olivia will honour his wishes.
In 1988 Neil Young’s strident “This
Note’s For You” declared his anti-commercial, anti-corporations
in music stance loud and clear. At the other end of the spectrum,
Moby gleefully licensed every track on his hit Play album for commercial
purposes. Even unlikely people like Nick Drake, Marvin Gaye, Cat
Stevens, The Fall, Devo, Violent Femmes, Creedence Clearwater, The
Ramones and Iggy Pop ( Lust For Life (!) for a cruise ship and Mitsubishi
ad) have done it or had it done to them.
Coca Cola has recently signed up Jack White as the latest in a long
line of performers to pen a song for them or sing their jingle in
commercials, in the sixties Australian bands The Twilight and The
Easybeats rewrote the lyrics of their hits for the multi-national
, Come And See Her, became Coca Cola.
In 1963 The Rolling Stones not only sang for a
Rice Krispies breakfast cereal commercial, they wrote and performed
a song especially for it that remains otherwise unreleased on disc.
Since then their company has sold off a lot of their catalogue for
commercial purposes all over the world, many for top dollar. They
sold Start Me Up to Ford in 1981 and for $14 million to Microsoft
for their Windows 95 commercials, while currently their She’s
A Rainbow is being used in the Sony Bravia commercial, but The Stones
have always been more show business than no business, although if
Street Fighting Man ends up in an ad for Red Bull we may have to
re examine their supposed street cred.
Open up the fortieth anniversary edition of Rolling
Stone magazine and you’ll find a photo of Bob Dylan not on
the cover but in a double page advertisement for Cadillac cars,
looking inscrutable as always as he peers off into the distance.
After confounding his fans by allowing a rocked up cover version
of his anthemic Hard Rain’s a- Gonna Fall for an SUV commercial
with Get Hard! as the slogan, selling The Times They Are a- Changin’
for a Bank Of Montreal commercial, then appearing in ad campaign
for Victoria’s Secret underwear and lingerie, we can assume
that he has actually been inside a Cadillac, as opposed to the exotic
undergarments, but that is his private business after all. Apparently
in the television commercial the deal was that Bob would not speak
on camera, would wear his own clothes and that the television commercial
didn’t use his music; they used a track by Smog instead, an
odd choice given the polluting nature of automobiles.
So how do we feel about someone of his status
selling products rather than records and concert tickets? For many,
Bob Dylan symbolises an anti establishment attitude and antagonism
to the status quo, although steadfastly avoiding any party political
stance his lyrics have inspired listeners to question authority
and think for themselves. So how does his image being used to sell
products fit with that individualistic attitude? Of course it doesn’t,
it commodifies his own image; that his mere presence next to a product
will somehow encourage consumers to acquire that product, the very
antithesis of his lifelong standpoint. Which is sincere, his commercial
image or his hundreds of songs that counter that “consume
this because we want you to” state of mind? Surely Dylan is
successful and wealthy enough that when not touring continuously
or recording that in his spare time he could put his image to a
cause or worthwhile campaign that would benefit world rather just
encourage people to buy yet another product?
Some may cruelly comment that both he and the
car have been responsible for more than their fair share of noise
and air pollution and greenhouse gas over the years, but that dismisses
his undeniably positive effect on the planet’s consciousness
over the years, of encouraging a state of mind rather than a point
of view. No where in the gas guzzler commercial does it indicate
the environmental impact of its technology, ironically it is shot
in a desolate desert devoid of water, life or shade except for under
Bob’s stetson. Surely aside from some misplaced sentimentality
or nostalgia for the cadillac as some sort of symbol of an American
culture past even Bob must recognise the negative impact of car
culture on the planet and its unviable future.
Perhaps it’s simply one out dated icon from
the past paying homage to another.
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