Some songs (e.g. Blur’s “Song 2”) have probably made more money from adverts and being played at sporting events than they have from traditional means (I’m not sure what the royalties situation is with being played at sporting events, but I’m sure Song 2 got more publicity that way than regular radio).
Has any artist admitted writing a song specifically so it would get played this way ? I don’t mean being paid by a specific company to write a song. But choosing the lyrics and music in such a way as SOME company are bound to want to use it in ad.
I don’t think the OP is unaware. The question is basically this: has any artist purposely recorded music in the hopes of it being snagged for commercial use without it being commissioned for that purpose and without explicitly stating that was the purpose ahead of time?
I have to believe the answer is yes, but can’t recall ever hearing such confirmed.
I was going to nominate Moby’s entire album Play as an example but there’s a quote denying this on the wikipedia page. Still every single track on the album was licensed out.
I believe I heard, in an interview with Brian May, that when Freddie Mercury wrote We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You, he wrote it very specifically to sound good in an arena with the idea that it would be played during sporting events.
Todd Rundgren had an unintentional sports arena hit with the monumentally stupid “Bang The Drum All Day”. So he wrote a song called “Mountaintop” on his 2008 album Arena specifically to be a sports anthem. Didn’t work.
Hey Soul Sister by Train has to have deliberately been written with commercial royalties in mind. Everything about Train’s music screams “designed to be used in commercials/previews.”
Song #2 by Blur is the “Woo-hoo!” song. I remember reading that it was written as a sort of parody of American rock and grunge, but I’m coming up a bit short in looking for a cite.
Rock ‘n’ Roll, pt. 2 by Gary Glitter is the “Hey!” song. Which would also be a good suggestion for this thread. On a related note, that new Black Keys song that has the line “Baby, I’m howling for you” was inspired by the drums on RnR, pt.2
What I remember hearing was something along the lines that someone told told them (Blur) that they’d never make it big in America because they sounded too British, so this was their, “Oh yeah? We’ll show you.” type response.
As for the OP, that’s a tough one. I can think of artists willingly licensing their music out for commercials, but that’s not the same thing as writing them as jingles in the first place.
Yeah, first time I heard that song, I was like “Wow, the Black Keys really are angling to be on a Jock Jams compilation aren’t they?” That song sounds like a cross between "Rock n Roll Part II: and the Fratelli’s “Chelsea Dagger,” both songs associated with sports. (And even the opening drums of “Chelsea Dagger” are somewhat reminiscent of “Rock and Roll Part II.”) If that song isn’t written specifically for the sports crowd, I don’t know what is.