The Daily Swarm

”Bands and brands going hand in hand,” today’s piece in the Los Angeles Times on the sometimes tortured yet mutually beneficial relationship between advertisers and the musicians who lend their songs to commercials’ soundtracks, caught our eye, and not just because this humble website is cited above the fold.

The basic gist of the story is nothing you haven’t read on The Daily Swarm before (uh, like everyday): Guess what? Lots of bands are using commercial licenses as a revenue stream and avenue for exposure as CD sales and radio play go to shit. And some fans are disgusted. Whoa. But there are some pretty interesting tidbits of info in there worth noting.

First of all, writer Chris Lee refers to the Dr. Martens/Saatchi donnybrook as “among the most reviled marketing efforts in advertising history.” Yet, as he astutely points out, the uproar was actually sort of quaint and old-school.

“Tasteless!” ran a headline in TheDailySwarm.com, the website that broke the story. (The images were licensed for use in the UK through Corbis, the original photos’ supplier, apparently without permission from the musicians’ estates.) Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, lamented the “despicable use” of her husband’s image. Fan outcry lighted up hundreds of blogs worldwide. And as a coda, executives at Dr. Martens apologized for the “offensive” ads and fired Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency responsible for them.

Oddly enough, the fracas now commonly referred to as “Heavensgate” may be most notable for its nostalgic value—for reminding pop fans of a time when their idols would rather have been caught dead than appear in TV commercials, vogue moodily in print ads or shout out product placements in their songs. Nowadays, those practices have become an acceptable, if still not altogether palatable, part of the cultural scenery as advertisers increasingly look to pop music for sizzle and to some extent, vice versa.

(For those of you visiting The Daily Swarm for the first time, our role in one of the biggest advertising scandals ever can be found here, here, and here.)

Further down, Arthur’s Jay Babcock makes a good point about pop eating itself, especially in light of the Of Montreal/Outback Steakhouse mini-scandal.

“What kind of culture sets up a system where the only way to hear good music is through TV commercials for products you don’t need?” Babcock said. “What little art is out there has to sneak in wherever it can, being stand-ins for jingles. It’s the sign of an unhealthy culture. The culture is eating itself.”

We also learn that KCRW‘s Nic Harcourt moonlights as a music supervisor for television commercials, regularly handing out $75,000 – $150,000 checks to willing bands; that the Violent Femmes’ bassist Brian Ritchie never got asked – or paid – for that Wendy’s spot (say it ain’t so, Gano!); that Gray’s Anatomy pays up-and-coming artists $5000 – $20,000 to place a song on the show; and that Totino’s Pizza Rolls are really looking to break into that whole Pitchfork scene.

But leave it up to Tom Waits – commercial sell-out holdout and serial lawsuit winner – to sum it all up best:

“By turning a great song into a jingle, advertisers have achieved the ultimate: a meaningless product has now been injected with your meaningful memory of a song,” he said. “The songs and the artists who have created them have power and cultural value, that’s why advertisers pay out millions for them. Once you have taken the cash, you, your song and your audience are forever married to the product.”

And that’s why we’re looking forward to covering this intersection of art and commerce for a long time.