Popular artists selling their music for use in advertising is nothing new. In some camps, it’s viewed as being a shrewd business move and in others, it’s viewed as selling out. But regardless of where you sit on that fence, you know it’s bound to happen.
When I saw this ad for Kraft cheese crumbles,
I thought, “Of course! They must be crumbelievable.” I also thought, “What the hell happened to EMF?!!”
But the other day I heard this ad for Outback Steakhouse on my car radio and I just about drove off the road.
I thought I must be dreaming. Chocolate and peanut butter are two great tastes that go great together, but Elephant 6 and steak?!!
Then I saw the TV ad,
and I knew it was true.
*sigh*
I’m going to take solace in the fact that the folks at Outback Steakhouse appreciate good indie pop.
They appreciate it so much to have forever altered the meaning of Wraith Pinned to the Mist (And Other Games) in the same way that Golden Grahams altered the meaning of The Turtles’ Happy Together, the lyrics of which, I now think go something like this:
Imagine me and you / and you and me / together eating Golden Grahams / so happily / that crispy graham and honey taste / was meant to be / so happy together!
*sigh*
In the original Wraith Pinned to the Mist, Of Montreal sang:
Maybe I’ll never die / I’ll just keep growing younger with you / And you’ll grow younger too.
Somehow I think that just might be impossible while enjoying a blooming onion at a mediocre chain restaurant.
Buy The Sunlandic Twins at insound.
I was thinking much the same thing when I first saw that Outback ad: “Wow; I would never imagine that the band that wrote and performed the Gay Parade, quite literally, would hock steak.” Let’s pretend the ad doesn’t exist.
So crazy. When I first saw that ad I didn’t believe what I was hearing at first. I thought maybe I had Of Montreal stuck in my head, and I was the one making them sound similar. Man did they butcher that song. Pun sadly intended. In the end, the whole thing strikes me as extremly lazy. I see some young fresh faced “kids” at some NY ad agency just digging through their CDs, looking for a jingle. They totally phoned that one in. The whole thing feels like Tina Fey being given her own show to write…so she writes one about working on a sketch comedy show at 30 Rock. Lazy! Lazy! Lazy! ….man I have too much to say on this topic….
I, too, had the most unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach when first viewing the Outback ad. But I also had the same feeling when I saw the Toyota commercial with the instrumental riff from the Dandy Warhols ‘Bohemian Like You’, and the most recent Victoria Secret/Hendrix riff spot. But, don’t fear people, all those bands have years and years to go before they sell out/make shrewd business deals like our friends The Who. (I wrote a little about these ‘Master’s of Greed’ back in July at http://rockislandlife.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Who).
While I agree that it does suck to see the bands that you love selling out for commercials, it’s also sadly sometimes the only way that bands can get their music in front of a national audience anymore. Mtv certainly doesn’t play videos anymore. Corporate rock stations suck. Sure there’s the internets, but you still have to get people to find out about you and seek out your music. I read an interview with Moby several years ago after he had licensed some music for a car commercial and his stance was: Yes, it was selling out, however it gave him a great opportunity to get his music heard and that if he hadn’t done it they would have just commissioned some studio musicians to rip him off and make something that sounded like his music anyway. So why not be the one that gets paid for it?
And then there’s also the bands that don’t own the licensing for their own music who get mightly screwed and have no say in what happens to it or who uses it.
I don’t mind it so much as it makes me laugh in this case. Especially because this wasn’t Outback using Of Montreal’s song, nor was Of Montreal even singing their song, it was Outback buying the song and changing its meaning.
It’s one thing to see a Range Rover ad with Moby’s God Moving Over the Face of the Waters in it, but it’s an entirely different thing to see a Range Rover ad with that track played by someone else and featuring product specific lyrics.
(in the case of God Moving Over the Face of the Waters it would be weird hearing that song with any lyrics)