The New Beat-A Different Kind of Sell Out

So in watching the news this morning, I ran across
a really interesting segment on bands selling out
and selling their music. It made me think. As I
said in an earlier blog entry, MTV has become one
big bowl of SELL OUT, but do the same rules apply
to the musicians? I’m not really so sure.

I currently do a lot of work with integrated sales
and marketing in television. It’s progressive and
innovative for the network, for the viewer it maybe
a little annoying but if it’s done correctly it’s
subtle. With Tivo and DVR it’s near impossible to
create revenue in Ad Sales, which is one of the only
two lines of revenue for a cable network (the other
being the cable providers). So what do you do when
you need to create revenue through advertising sales
and no one is watching the commercials (the airspace),
which you are selling? Simple, you stick the products
in the show! Brilliant!!!

I feel like it’s respectively the same deal with musician’s
selling their music. You have your classic rock bands, like
The Doors who refuse to give the rights to anyone to play their
music. Then you have Zeppelin who finally handed over their
music to Cadillac a few years ago. Still, artists like Elvis Costello
and Tom Waits refuse to follow in the footsteps of Zeppelin and the
Beatles. In fact Tom Wait successfully sued a company for attempting
to play Wait’s sound a likes on a commercial.

Other bands like Sting and Sheryl Crow have been welcoming the
opportunity to play their music against ads. Face it radio is dying.
It’s bizarre to watch what was such an innovative form of media bite
the big one. In college, in addition to working in the studio I was
forced to work on the campus radio station for a semester.
I had to learn how to splice and how to play from a reel to reel.
That technology which I used, only a matter of years ago, is
incredibly obsolete now. It’s ridiculous. You know what they say;
technology is a liability, turning over every six months.

Keeping that in mind, are these artists really selling out?
Or are they being flexible and smart? Sting sold “Desert Rose”
to Jaguar and weeks later the song-hit number one on the charts.
The same also applies to Sheryl Crow and Direct TV. I personally
found what is now one of my favorite new bands via a car commercial.
Telepopmusik’s song “Breath” was played on a Mitsubishi commercial
and I totally fell in love with it.


In an over promoted, over exposed, over advertised, none radio
listening society, aren’t these musician’s just playing the game?
Trying to get their beats heard? Everything is a business,
even art. While I strongly admire Costello and Waits for not
giving in to the bling and sticking behind their music,
is it a smart idea? Is this really selling out?
I think it’s a fairly progressive approach, which seems to
be paying off. While I think MTV has lost their rhythm
because they are completely about advertising,
I think there is a difference between them and artists playing
their music on the last billboard available, TV. The musician’s
aren’t changing their music to fit the commercial or to fit a genre.
They are playing to one of the few audiences now available.
If you ask me, it’s being smart!


*Sorry for any egregious spelling or grammatical mistakes,
I’m only on my first cup of coffee*