The problem isn’t creating associations with music through commercials–movies have been doing this with popular music for a long time with relatively little outcry [“In Praise of Selling Out,” by Miles Raymer, June 22]. I’m sure most people can’t hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “The Sound of Silence” without them conjuring superficial images of Wayne’s World or The Graduate. And expecting advertisers to be condemned to using terrible music in their commercials for the principled reason that “good” music should be off-limits is pretty silly.
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The problem is the new status quo on the horizon foreshadowed by this trend of artist/corporation collaboration. The implications are of a future where the new gatekeepers are big nonmusic corporations and not record labels.
All this will be under the guise that it is a winning situation for the artists–but it’s not. As interests become more and more conflicted–as we see with consolidation in the media industry and news outlets being subservient to big corporations–artists will find themselves in a new realm of restriction and forced compliance. What if the Shins (who licensed their music to McDonald’s) write a song about how it’s bad to eat meat? Or what if in the not-so-distant future Halliburton’s theoretical record label signs a band like Interpol–will they barred from making antiwar statements? This situation may seem far-fetched, but it does not require too much imagination to think of the implications of a Wal-Mart or Nike record label, and the gag orders that would be part of their record contracts. Will artists have to make sure they write “safe” sanitized songs in order to prevent them from possibly offending a future corporate-sponsored record label (a la Ludacris and Pepsi)? Has Sonic Youth resigned the right to advocate for better treatment of coffee farmers by collaborating with Starbucks? This Faustian exchange might seem enticing to an aspiring indie artist looking for their break, but beware of trading freedom for fame.
