“_________ Goes Better With __________”

“The Dodos are relatively new to the placement game.  Their song ‘Fools’, from the 2008 album Visiter, was placed in an ad campaign for Miller Chill, a lime chelada beer, that started in May this year. Miller approached the band during the past winter.  After the band accepted, ‘they came back with the commercial mock-up literally a week later,’ Long recalls.  ‘It happened like that.’  They received, as is standard with most ad placements, a placement fee, as well as residual fees for each playthrough on television.  While the Dodos had previously been offered placement in a few ads, this was the first ad placement they have actually done.  Since that time, a few more offers have streamed in.  But, ‘the offers that have come in have been for drinks,’ Long says, laughing.  ‘Apparently, we’re the “drink placement band” now.’”

And here you are, thinking that a Pitchfork Best New Music is the only ticket to stardom a band needs.  Tsk.

Really doe: this piece on Pop Matters starts out with the crusty “sell-out” talk, but quickly shapes itself into a nice bit of journalism about the day-to-day pressures smallish indie bands face, and the reality that licensing is often most likely the best way to continually make rent.  And most often it doesn’t have the backlash effect that it did for that one band and the family-friendly cow-based feedbag that rewrote his song (get a lawyer to read your contract, kids!).  At least that big mess all led to Kevin Barnes writing a Marxian treatise:

“It isn’t possible to be in chorus with capitalism and anarchy. You must pick one or the other. Very few people are willing to do it, though. The worst kind of person is the one who sucks the dick of the man during the daytime and then draws pictures of themselves slitting his throat at night. Jesus Christ, make up your mind! The thing is, there is a lack of balance. When capitalism is working on a healthy level, everyone gets their dick sucked from time to time and no one gets their throat slit.”

Bethany Klein doesn’t write about fellatio and Columbian neckties, because she’s a Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Leeds.  She’s got the best egghead take on the situation, “‘The New Radio’: Music Licensing as a Response to Industry Woe,” which uses Moby’s Play as a case study for artist options in the age of deregulated media outlets and declining digital revenues.  Now it’s even part of a book!

Personally, I always thought that Helio Sequence (remember them?) missed the licensing boat in 2004 with “Everyone Knows Everyone.”  Seriously, tell me that you can’t imagine this song in any number of ads for handheld communication devices:

Of course, if you’re Coca-Cola, and it’s the late 60s, you can always get Marvin and Tammi, Roy Orbison, or (um) Vanilla Fudge to write original jingles for your beverage.

Filed under: Bethany Klein  Coke ads  Dodos  Helio Sequence  licensing  Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell  Of Montreal  Pop Matters  radio  Roy Orbison  selling culture  Vanilla Fudge