Selling Out
October 20th, 2010 -- Posted in General | No Comments »
So many adverts today feature cool and contemporary music. In fact, having your song featured on an advert is a great way for an up and coming and to get noticed or for a past artist to relive their glory days and get their tune in the charts. The amazing 80s tracks “You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties” is bound to make a comeback after featuring in a pretty cool Ikea advert recently!
If your music is used well, then featuring in adverts is a great way to boost your profile. Especially if the song is used to advertise a cool product like ipods! It does make you wonder what was going through the minds of cutting edge electronic band Cut Copy when they agreed to let one of their tunes be used to advertise cheap sofas and why the Polyphonic Spree thought people would enjoy hearing their song over and over again at the end of Sainsbury’s commercials…
A long time ago, one of my favourite rock bands, the now defunct Cable, provided the music for a Sprite advert. At the time, not many people outside of their native Derby had even heard of them. They scored a minor hit with the tune “Freeze the Atlantic”; a single which featured the fabulously named “The (We Did the Music for the Sprite Ad) Blues”. Sums up in one song title how many small independent bands feel about having the music used in adverts!
If you really want to sell records at the moment, however, it seems you should be persuading the producers of the hit US show “Glee” to feature one of your songs. Journey have been in the charts forever with “Don’t Stop Believin’” and sales on Madonna’s “Greatest Hits” went through the roof after the wholesome kids dedicated an entire episode to her back catalogue.