Article: Rock out. Oh, and buy our products

[Guest]

Rock out. Oh, and buy our products - Mark Morford, SF Chron, Dec. 10, 2004

Maybe rock 'n' roll finally died, really and truly and once and for all, roughly a decade ago, when Microsoft shelled out a whopping and still quite ludicrous $10 million to Jagger & Co. for the use of the Stones' classic "Start Me Up" for the massive overblown launch of the utterly awful and terrifically bug-addled Windows 95. And maybe that sad epitaph was writ even larger a few years back when stodgy old Cadillac bought the rights to Zeppelin's manic mega-anthem "Rock n' Roll" for use in hawking the wildly mediocre CTS sedan to wealthy boho yuppies, all of whom vaguely remember inhaling back in the '70s and who might've believed Page & Plant to be demigods but who now only fantasize about owning a riding lawnmower and having sex once a month.

Did you cringe at all when you heard Iggy Pop's fabulous "Lust for Life" during that commercial for the utter dystopian nightmare that is Royal Caribbean cruises? Did you laugh in a bitter and dejected sort of way when you read about that PR firm that wanted to use Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" to market a hemorrhoid cream? Did a small but significant part of your rebellious anti-establishment anti-corporate soul get slapped like a drunk Hilton sister when you first heard The Who's "Tommy" to hawk Clarinex or Sweet's '70s glam rock masterpiece "Ballroom Blitz" to sell Nissans?

Because make no mistake, there is no longer any sort of line. There is no longer any even the remotest argument that says cool rebellious artistic integrity still exists as any sort of separate and distinct category from crass commercial whoredom. Not that it ever really did, I know, but it was a wonderful delusion, wasn't it? Especially in music, especially in rock music, where the universal belief was once held that rock 'n' roll really could change the world and affect minds and rejuvenate souls, largely by defying and decrying and nonconforming and by screaming out against injustice and sameness and cubefarm- itis and the very hollow and heartless megacorporate establishments that have now wholly co-opted it and turned it against itself.

To be sure, art and commerce have always been wicked and bizarrely fused Siamese twins, ever connected and interdependent, but they used to bicker and fight and at least pretend to hate to be in the same room together. Now, of course, they smile coyly and pant lustily for each other and make out like desperate Mormons. Bowie's "Heroes" is used to sell flowers for FTD. Hendrix's drug-addled "Purple Haze" moves cases of Pepsi. James Brown's "Sex Machine" wants you to drink Gatorade. The Cure's "Pictures of You" is all about HP digital photography. Styx's ultra-cheeseball "Lady" gets abused in the "Happy Cows" ad for, appropriately, California cheese. Intel used Blur's "Song 2" to sell Pentiums. George Thoroughgood's "Bad to the Bone" was used to sell everything from Crispix cereal to aspirin. And of course, in the longest-running and most obnoxious example to date, Chevy still somehow refuses to kill Bob Seger's "Like a Rock" to hawk big-ass trucks to monosyllabic Midwestern dads who dream of piloting their tanks over giant muddy boulders as they haul the kids to Wal-Mart.

The Stones, by the way, have gone on to whore out the lovely "You Can't Always Get What You Want" for Coke's obnoxious C2 cola campaign and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" for the new Chevy Corvette. Apparently, Mick wants to have more money than God.
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(My favorite bizarrely ironic musical bedfellow example has to be that nastygood grunge tune "Awake" by heavily tattooed and happily pierced pagan nu-metal dudes Godsmack, now used in recruitment ads for the US Navy. Ah, yes. Kill me now).
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Rock music has lost perhaps its most vital ingredient. Rock is no longer about rebellion. It is still, gratefully, perhaps eternally, about sex, and drugs, and money and power and girls and depression and loneliness and sex and angst and anger and youth and sex. Which is why ad companies love it.
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[cloudy]

I will never forget the first time I saw that cadillac ad with the Led Zeppelin tune in the background....I sat there, mouth agape, unable to comprehend the two things in conjunction.

I'm a huge Zeppelin fan, and somehow, Cadillac=Led Zeppelin just does not make it through the synapses in my mind.

Another odd pairing is that Jimi Hendrix song (the title escapes me at the moment, even though I'm sitting here with the words running through my head) that they use to sell the Nissan Exterra.

 

[The_Darkness]

A remix of Magic Carpet Ride for a little MP3 Music player was one that really sent me for a loop. I had to sit back and think "Say....just who are their target audience here? Steppenwolf isn't exactly popular with the young, sober kids of today..."

 

[minsue]

A remix of Magic Carpet Ride for a little MP3 Music player was one that really sent me for a loop. I had to sit back and think "Say....just who are their target audience here? Steppenwolf isn't exactly popular with the young, sober kids of today..."

Nope, but they're not the ones that'll be paying for it come Christmas.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

"Can't go back. Dead Head Sticker on a Cadillac."


Personally I'm waiting to see a Dead Kennedy's song used to sell a brokerage service.

You laugh now, but...

 

[The_Darkness]

Rolling Stones for Birth control would be awesome.

Ti-i-ime is on my side, yes it is!

 

[Xelebes]

Hence the reason why I listen to techno, house and dnb, but even there Alec Empire's greatest hits are being used in BMW commercials, DJ Junkie XL's greatest hit was selling Nike shoes.

One of the greatest strugles for a musician is to know when to stick to your fanbase or screw your fanbase. They already have the money, they have already risen to the top and now they don't care how their music is handled.

One of the good things is it forces people to find new anthems and lullabys to rally behind giving other artists to appeal.

But when is music sacred? I don't know. As an artist, I can't really see anything of mine being sacred enough to keep it such high prestige such that it is not to be exploited.

It is in fact the way the artist writes as to harness a fanbase of some sort and then write songs to not garner attention but to express real emotions.

 

[The_Darkness]

Xelebes, a noble point....but in the end, you still have to eat and pay rent. If (for the waiting-to-be-discovered) writing jingles for commercials gets the bills paid and keeps the roof overhead, then rock the hell on.

But for the bigger songs, there is a line that shouldnt' be crossed, or at least products that shouldn't be endorsed by certain musicians or songs. Keith Richards writing a song endorsing Anti-freeze would be inherently funny, but on some level we should all look at that and cringe.

Even the techno is getting to be used in the mainstream, and it's the audience that's controlling the music we hear, not some corporate exec. If we all still listened to big band music, we'd be hearing Armstrong and Goodman instead of Paige and Plant.

Either way, there's just somethings out there that are way out of line with the music selected to play while the commercial is on, such as Green Day sponsoring McDonalds (not that they have, but that would be horrid).

 

[Xelebes]

I think that was what I was trying to say - artists write tunes to garner an audience in one form or another to listen to more serious songs.

I highly doubt that the songs that the artists created that sounded good enough to be put on a million dollar selling cd can be detached enough to let the songs be used for commercials. It's the songs that don't make it onto albums and the sort that are the most important, from an artistic and biographical view.

Just remember, the music put on their albums to sell are just that - meant to sell.

 

[rgraham666]

Don't have a TV so I never have to watch this stuff.

Now I'm thinking it would be funny to see some fundy church start an ad campaign using The Pogues If I Fall From The Grace of God as its theme song.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't understand what's so bad about this. Rock has been mainstream for at least 30-40 years now. What kind of music should they be using in comercials? Sarabandes and Gavottes? Steven Foster?

What's more amazing to me is not that they're using old rock tunes in commercials, but that rampant consumerism has co-opted music altogether. The most rebellious music these days is rap, and rap has bought lock, stock, and barrel into the whole consumer-status thing. Rap is full of name-brand plugs, and when it's not about sex, drugs and murder, is about the joys of consumerism. So you have the (to me) absurd connection of cop-killa mack daddies singing about their Escalades and Boxsters and the labels on their clothes.

Consumerism is the dominant ethos of our time, just as corporations are the real sources of power. They've taken over everything, even rebellion.

---dr.M.