This Space for Rent
It's becoming clear to anyone paying attention to mainstream culture that advertising and editorial content are merging into one, so I'm probably stating the obvious here, perhaps not. But I often find that discussions of the economics of the music business are real shallow, falling into the well-known indie-versus-major or art-versus-commerce rut. It's become obvious to me over the years, that outside of jazz, there are probably very few musicians that don't consider the commercial end of their art, whether it be conscious or not. Some of the things I've actually heard songwriters talk about out loud in regards to their audience would simply shock you, but I'll save that for another time.

Remember years ago, it was oddly thrilling or annoying to hear the Flaming Lips on 90210 or whatever, the crunch of the underground sound breaking the surface crust of the above ground big money world was unusual. Now, the cycle is so accelerated that bands are being broken by TV rather than the largely musically irrelevant MTV and often without building any fanbase at all. While MTV turned its back on pop-punk, indie and emo genres (okay, they're on M2 now in a steady stream of Jimmy Eat World soundalikes), the young-people-oriented series on television have filled the marketing niche. Flip the channels and you can hear The Futureheads on Gilmore Girls, The Walkmen on The OC, someone kinda good or Shuggie Otis on Six Feet Under and on and on. Death Cab for Cutie were "broken" as they say with a lot of TV exposure, though I tend to think that two years of non-stop hype probably had something to do with it. Movies don't seem so relevant but take commercials... that Jet song pretty much made a band huge that would have been a post-Strokes record label write-off otherwise. I was sucked into the air intakes of that Jet album before the iPod commercial hit I'm not embarrassed to say. But this is what is not being said in articles talking about bands signing to majors left and right. They're doing it, in a large part, for the marketing synergy, getting pushed on TV, radio, etc. in advertorial form, in the background of teen dramas, on and on. The songwriters especially stand to make much more if a band's songs are licensed for TV ads, than he/she will get doing a regular amount of touring. Record sales are weak all-around this decade as I understand it (numbers anyone?) but the ad industry is slowly bouncing back and throwing more green around. While many of the big advertisers are conservatively sticking to hitting the baby boomer who prefers his Led Zep, Stones, Seger there are plenty that are going with obscure hip sounds turned fashionable (famously the VW ads with Nick Drake's "Pink Moon") or the ironic ("Eye of the Tiger" with the actualy Survivor miming). Advertising (and the infectious ad mentality) is ubiquitous and as editorial and advertising and promotion have all mixed in magazines that even serious music fans read (see The Fader, Vice) there's probably almost no unspoilt ground if you are one to consider it so. It's a grey world, this world of rock. None of this is really as new as it appears. The latest trend is big labels paying outright and legally for radio airtime for entire albums. Payola never really went away, it just got used to promote lousier and lousier music. I can't confirm, but I'm fairly sure that the rock revolution of Chuck Berry and the Beatles wouldn't have happened without payola. My point, if there is one, is that when considering a rising popularity of band, or when noticing what sells and what doesn't, the marketing aspect of music has become a key part of the story. How the hell do people decide what to buy? Of course, people are not always so easily manipulated and there are surprise hits every year, as well as artists that build their followings through hard work, making great records and so on or having a classy name to start with (Bebel Gilberto anyone?). Whether you like it or not, almost everybody is doing it, and I don't think it's half bad considering the state of rock radio for bands to explore other avenues for exposing your music and get paid in the process. In these days of rising expectations for success following hype and diminishing actual sales, it's really more about making it last rather than making it big.

I've heard things I like on the WB, as scary as that sounds. The idea of someone buying the soundtrack to a TV show is totally bizarre to me, but you can bet the truly mediocre Dandy Warhols (who seem to land on a lot of these) are not complaining. But considered another way, look at the track listings for the TV show comps mentioned above, if it were a radio station, would you listen? Heck ya. Am I buying the CD? No way dude. Let's see what's on cable.