Also, who says Lou Reed is rich? Isn’t his the band thats famous for not selling many albums, but being heavily influential? Do they even control their own catalog?
The BBC remade Perfect Day as a group effort (everybody sings a line, including Lou) as a charity single a few years back, pitching it as a nice, happy song. Nobody really cared that it was a heroin song (and that it had just been used in Trainspotting in that context).
Not here on the board, here where I am, at my office! 
No, I don’t know why, others have told me they’ve gotten it. I think if it has casino popups or “questionable” ads it gets filtered out. And no, I’m not on the clock!
You really have it entirely backwards - music doesn’t make commercials big, commercials make music big. Nobody knew anything about Dirty Vegas until Mitsubishi put his Days Go By in a car commercial. Moby didn’t move a single copy of Play (ok, ok, maybe he sold a few) until he began licensing the songs to be used in ads. I can think of a few more examples offhand - Bittersweet Symphony, JXL v. Elvis, etc. etc.
I know that some years ago Volkswagen used “Roman P.” by Psychic TV in an ad. I can’t recall if anyone made the connection between the song and Roman Polanski and his reasons for giving the US a wide berth.
Really, I don’t think it’ll be controversial. I was making a small point b/c I was so amazed that the song “Heroin” was being used to sell anything, and b/c I’m a big VU fan. And to some extent b/c I realized that somewhere along the line, they didn’t care whether anyone would recognize it or not - sorta what Miller was getting at.
Fred - there’s nobody I know that didn’t already know all about Dirty Vegas before that commercial came out. Moby and The Verve were huge before they were used in commercials. While it’s true that some commercials get them radio play, etc, to say they were completely unknown isn’t accurate.
Works for me.
Well, the difference between “huge” and “unknown” is largely a matter of the circles you travel in. I’m certain that inside the world of electronic music Moby was a household name. If you were into music, then you’d come across Play in five star reviews and critics best of lists. Most people aren’t into music, though. For most, music is background noise.
In the context of pop music as a whole, getting no radio play is synonymous with being an unknown. I’m sure that if Moby hadn’t licensed his songs, then he would have sold a respectable (low six figures) amount of records. He certainly wouldn’t have exploded the way he did, though. He’s said this himself many times. Similarily, Dirty Vegas would get played in my grocery store if he hadn’t gone in for that car commercial.
One of the earliest examples of this genre was Mercedes using Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” in their ads. And I’ve recently seen the Dandy Warhols’ “Bohemian Like You” for a luxury car.
And don’t get me started on the furniture chain using the Bloodhound Gang’s “Bad Touch”…
Also used in a UK mobile phone network ad.
It may SEEM inappropriate to put a song about heroin in an ad for a car, or a song by Iggy pop in an ad about a family-oriented cruise ship… but it makes sense, if you think about it.
Who are the people running ad agencies and dreaming up commercials? They’re middle-aged folks who were once art majors or English majors, but who eventually had to get 'real" jobs and join the “real” world.
It’s painful for a former hipsters like these to admit to themselves that they’re part of a corporate America they once loathed. And it makes them feel better to pretend that, deep down, they’re STILL the same cool, rebellious, artsy bohemians they once were. That’s why you saw William Burroughs in Nike ads- NOT because anybody thought he’d be good for sales, but because it made some middle-aged ad exec feel good (“I haven’t REALLY sold out- look, I’m rebelling within the system!”).
And just a week or so ago I’m driving down the street in scenic Leesburg, VA and there’s a white hummer driving down the street ahead of me.
It’s painted weird so I try to catch up to get a look.
It’s painted like the US flag. It’s a recruitment vehicle for the National Guard.
Simple enough, right?
Then it starts blaring ‘Born in the USA’.
Nice little tale about how the country can let down it’s men in uniform, there.
Good one, guys. Good one.
The new Nissan Pathfinder – you’ll feel just like Jesus’ son!
Maybe the ad people really enjoy foisting ironic music choices on their clueless clients (like Devo’s “Beautiful World” for Target). Or maybe they really just don’t give a rat’s ass.
Occasionally a commercial can turn people on to good music they might not have encountered otherwise. A VW ad led me to Nick Drake.
The Ramones are now selling cell phones (or something…I can’t bear to watch those damned commercials.)
Wow, perfect example of just looking at the title of a song and never listening to the lyrics. Idiots…
So many aspects to this thread to comment on:
- Different artists feel differently about using their ads in commercials:
- some, like the Beatles, are against it (and have the critical mass of popularity to be able to afford not doing it - with few notable exceptions, usually out of their control)
- some recognize the power of commercials to get their music heard - Moby is the obvious example
- some have no control - Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony was used because the former manager of the Rolling Stones, Andrew Loog Oldham, sued for and won ownership of the song because the main riff is built off an old full-orchestra arrangement of a Stones song - a real crime, as far as I am concerned…
- some just want to make money - the Stones have always been in it for the money as well as the art. They have sold “Start Me Up” to a few companies for millions. Iggy Pop has stated that he wrote the songs to be heard, and if a commercial gives them new life, so be it - so he sold Search and Destroy to Nike, etc…
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To each his own - as long as they stick to their principles. The ones that bug me are the ones that sell a song, but only in non-mainstream markets. It’s like Arnold hawking vitamins, but only in Japan - I think that stinks.
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Humans process different parts of music differently. It makes perfect sense to me that a snippet of melody, or a brief lyric, without the controversial lyrics, can be used in a commercial - the ad people are building on your emotions, not the lyrics - maybe that song represents a great summer, or you felt really smart and cool for knowing about it, regardless of lyrics. THAT’s what they want to tap into.
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Depending on how a song is used, it can make me feel like the company disregards or respects its audience. “Lust for Life”? feels yucky - cruises are smarmy anyway, the opposite of Iggy Cool. Nike’s use of Search and Destroy, complete with a runner giving so much to a race that they throw up? Very cool to me - they got the essence of the aggression in the song. Or VW’s use of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon in the convertible Golf “let’s not go to that party - let’s enjoy the starry drive” commercial. Again - felt good and right to me. Then again, both the Military and Reagan’s use of Born in the USA feels so wrong it’s funny, simply because the lyrics AND Springsteen’s politics are so well-known. YMMV.
There’s so much inappropriate music in commercials I don’t even notice much any more. Some just jump out at me and I just have to shake my head.
There was a car company quite recently that used Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick. Pepsi has an ad with SEV’s Same Old Song (First you say Whoa, then you say Yeah. . .) which is about disillusionment, fighting and getting high. I’m sure it’s not the what image consciouse Pepsi was going for and yet they must have listened to the whole song.
bump
Like the topic and want to give it another chance…
One other fact to consider: many of the songs in question are fairly old now, and the former hipsters who used to listen to them are now middle-aged folks with money to spend.
So, while it may seem ridiculous to have a Led Zeppelin song played during a Cadillac commercial, it’s logical! The hippie who listened to Led Zeppelin in 1972 is now in his fifties- precisely the kind of guy who’s liable to buy a Cadillac. But of course, a former hippie STILL regards himself as a cool guy, despite his pot belly and bald head. He’s bound to resist the idea of buying a Cadillac (or Buick, or Oldsmobile) or any other vehicle he perceives as “an old man’s car.” Why do you think Oldsmobile kept insisting “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile”?
So, if Cadillac marketers want to appeal to him, they have to paint the Cadillac as a cool car, a rockin’ car. Using Led Zeppelin’s “Rock & Roll” in the commercials merely drives home the point.
Similarly, if you mention “cruise ships” to some people, they picture senior citizens in plaid shorts and black socks, sitting around the deck, waiting for the next all-you-can-eat buffet. If you want to convince a younger adult to go on a cruise, you have to paint it as something cool, something exciting! Using an Iggy Pop song in an ad may make someone’s ears perk up, someone who’d ordinarily think of himself as WAAAY too cool to do something as mundane and cheesey as go on a cruise.
No disappointment here, just happiness he has found a nice source of income to support his simple lifestyle (see the Iggy article in Biography Magazine a few years ago).
I remember an ad for a cell phone company a few years back that used “Street Life” in its commercials. Yep, use their phones and end up strung out and turning tricks on the corner. Sign me up!