Is Your Favorite Band A Sellout?
by 
Jennifer on November 16th, 2007
Do you care if your favorite band sells out; or in nicer terms profits from their music by using it to sell coke or skateboards. Is it worse if a band you like uses their music to say support Walmart instead of a cooler product like Simple.
I found an interesting list a long while back. I keep forgetting about it and figured today I’d post about it. The list; Sell Out: Hippie Music Used in Advertising is from Art of the Mix. There are 29 tunes listed and the companies they sold out to. Some interesting ones include:
- The Doors — Light My Fire (Buick)
- The Beatles — Revolution (Nike)
- Rolling Stones — She’s a Rainbow (iMac)
- And in huh news… Zombies — Time of the Season (Tampax) WHAT! Have you seen this? I haven’t.
I’m not a supporter of Nike for numerous reasons but the fact that the Beatles sold their song to them won’t make me stop listening to them. Not that it will make me buy Nike but I don’t hate the Beatles or anything. The point of the list is that 60s music was heavily based on non-commercialism yet some of the bands sell out to extremely commercial companies. Is it right, should we care. My stance is not to care too much. It does sort of irk me when I see a song I love where it shouldn’t be but it’s not my art and not my call so who am I to say what’s right. In most cases it’s a frivolous issue.
I will say that if a band supports something I very seriously can’t abide by like Bush or unnecessary clear cutting with no apparent rhyme or reason that it would make me think twice about them. But will I flip out because The Doors advertised a car? No; it’s a waste of my energy.
What do you think? If a band sells their music to advertising will it affect your decision to listen?
By the way, if you want a super slick shirt with the “sell out” logo you see above visit Salon Shirts — they have the Sell Out tee and other fine tees available.
Tags: coke, favorite_band, hippie-sounds, music, Music in Advertising, profits, sell-out, simpleshoes, skateboards, walmart| 2.8 |
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POSTED IN: 60s Music, Beatles, Music in Advertising, The Doors
3 opinions for Is Your Favorite Band A Sellout?
Nov 17, 2007 at 6:37 pm
FYI: The Beatles didn’t sell “Revolution” to Nike. It was Michael Jackson, because he bought the rights to the Beatles music in like the early 80’s.
The funny thing is that Sir Paul had suggested buying the rights to music as a good investment to Michael Jackson; so Mike took his advice and bought the rights to the Beatles. Paul was bitter for years, because Mike outbid him. Then, once he let Nike use “Revolution”, Paul was really ticked.
Anyways, I don’t really care about bands selling their music to companies; unless it’s an evil place like Wal-Mart. I mean The Who and Zeppelin have “sold out”, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy their music any less.
I heard that Viagra wanted to use Pearl Jam’s “Alive”, but the band just laughed at them. Now that’s good stuff.
Nov 17, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Dang, I forgot about the whole Mike bought the Beatles issues. Likely because I try and stay clear of anything having to do with Mr. Jackson :)
It’s weird to me how music rights can be sold. Don’t you find it odd that someone can basically own a band that’s made up of humans. I get it, but it’s so odd.
That is extremely funny about Pearl Jam. That would be an amusing yet completely bad idea to have Alive sell Viagra.
“Selling out” is so variable which is part of the problem. You hear some artists in little coffee shops who say they’d never even charge for a show because that would be selling out. On the other side you have all kinds of bands promoting every which item (some good some not) so I think it’s tough to say oh, that band sold out.
Nov 19, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Yeah, I don’t get how an artist can create a piece of work and then someday it’s not theirs. I guess it’s part of the buisness side of music. Although I don’t like MJ owning the rights to the Beatles, I can be a sucker from some of his songs.
In a weird way, I would have loved to see that Viagra ad with “Alive”. I bet it would be rather funny.
Yeah, I know what you’re trying to say. When I think of “sell-outs” I think about Kiss and Aerosmith. It just seems like they’ll do about anything to make a buck.
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