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Underground > Radio & Music >

Music and advertising

10:32 / 12.08.02

Just found a new toy that helps me identify Music from adverts from the UK which made me think a bit.

What do people think of the impact of advertising on music? Is it destroying the industry or has it become one of the best most effective forms of promotion for modern music?

pointless and uncalled for

20:59 / 12.08.02

I've oft maintained that life needs a soundtrack and advertising is as much a facet of life as anything else. Thusly there should be music in advertising and if an artists riff comports the desired character/emotion of the product/provider then it certainly has it's place above that of a jingle.

The tru consequence here comes from the failure of advertising companies to consider the possibility of rotation with the exception of a couple of instances. The common end result is often similar to excessive rotation on broadcast media of a single. Eventually you will top out the market for appreciation but somehow still manage to keep playing it beyond its shelf life.

Classic common example would be Avril Lavigne with Complicated. The only enjoyment taken from this excessive radio play is that it's the second Canadian in a row to hold the record for one weeks radio play in America. Other than that it's now reached the state of ad nauseam.

Apologies for the grotesque nationalism but a person has to take pride in what they have, no matter how petty it may be.

Boy in a Suitcase

21:46 / 12.08.02

For some reason, when a song is used in an ad I almost "see it clearer"–just the clip of music that the ad agency thought summed up the song. For some reason I'm thinking maybe ads are the true home of pop music. (That's pop music, I say, pop music, not any much-sainted "art.") Ads certainly resurrected Nick Drake's career, on the other side of that argument.

08:23 / 13.08.02

In the UK Advertising seems almost the only place where people who do not voratiously read any segment of the music press will come across something a bit different from britanny fucking spears.

08:47 / 13.08.02

Sleaze - interesting comment. A lot of ads make me laugh, purely because I'm convinced the creators are my age, judging by the songs used. The ad for the BBC's coverage of the World Cup this year featured Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name Of', which worked rather well with the comic style of the ad.

I remember an old punk fear that one day the tune to 'Anarchy In The UK' would be used to advertise washing powder. Hasn't happened yet, as far as I'm aware. Would it matter if it did? would it change what punk meant, or did (or didn't) do? I do find it fairly naff to have a song I like used in an advert, but I'm aware that I am very probably being snobbish/elitist.

The Natural Way

08:55 / 13.08.02

Sounds like funny guilt speaking, SFD.

It's perfectly okay for someone to get a bit upset when the song they loved, that felt so HUGE and transcendent and powerful, etc., gets reduced to the backing track for a mobile phone ad. Esp when you really hate the ad.........

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:32 / 13.08.02

I do feel a bit irritated that Portishead's 'Sour Times' got lifted for a car advert, especially as it had fuck all to do with the product. But then I thought the ten-second loop of 'Dry Stuff' that was used on the Breathe adverts both tied in with the advert very well (and a cooler way to advertise an ISP than AOL and 'Connie') and was better than the full length track...

During Britpop the BBC especially got sussed in using current tracks to advertise TV shows (I think there was a large influx of people with a pulse to work on the BBCs fledgling web presence and graphics). It's dropped off a bit since but that's as much the fragmentation of the music scene so less appropriate music that people would identify as anything else.

10:09 / 13.08.02

Actually the britpop example of music in advertising (and music critiquing the thing it is ostensibly promoting) is an interesting one. There was a period where kids tv show Blue Peter was using prodigy tracks firestarter, breathe and hilariously, smack my bitch up to promote itself as being hip and cool. The irony inherant in the advert was that while Blue peter oft had fresh faced boy bands and other musical acts on - they would never have prodigy. So they were both attempoting to borrow prodigy's cool while also tacitly admiting that they did not nor ever would possess it.

Matthew Fluxington

02:28 / 15.08.02

There's a more elaborate US-centric version of the song/advert indentifier site as well.

I'm still very fond of what Autopilot Disengaged wrote about this topic the last time it popped up... I still think he's right on.

Still, playing devil's advocate: I feel more empathy for artists who do adverts so that they can quit dayjobs/support families/become less dependent on their label by paying for their own records, etc than people who do it in an attempt to spike their album sales.

10:12 / 15.08.02

Some musicians still have strong views about this though...

And I'm sure it isn't made any less emotive or binary by the ghost of a dead friend looming over you when you have to make the call.

20:37 / 15.08.02

They're using "London Calling" to sell Jaguars here in the States.

That'd be the Clash.

Used to sell luxury cars.

Maybe it'll introduce a whole new generation to seminal punk rockers, but there's a juxtaposition at work there that really, REALLY makes me uneasy. Of course, that's somewhat mollified by the fact that I always thought that song was a post-apocalyptic song about a city in beautiful ruins, which seems also to say something about the quality of the car... I dunno.

Music in ads: makes for some pretty strange marriages.

21:52 / 15.08.02

the problem with music in ads is that no matter when you hear the song next, it will always make you think of the ad first. like the new volkswagon ad with aqualung. they'll always be the band who did the song for the volkswagon, and that must be annoying.
some songs in ads are cool. i liked the flat eric song a lot.
sleazenation, wait, when were the prodigy cool?
meh meh meh.

Matthew Fluxington

22:18 / 15.08.02

Grant, that's not the only Clash song in an ad right now - "Should I Stay Or Go?" is in some beer ad or something. I guess it's nice that I never can remember the product, but always the song...

What happened to make the Clash all of a sudden do adverts? I can't imagine that Strummer and Jones are hard up for cash.

I'm really hoping that "Train In Vain" doesn't end up in an ad, cos that would break my heart. I don't want products get in the way of my sentimental love of that song. Or "Guns of Brixton"!