[In Pete Townshend Gets His Wish, we denounced Pete Townshend, among other musicians, for leasing his best songs to advertising agencies that have (ab)used them in TV spots for sports utility vehicles. This essay generated such interesting responses that we have decided to devote a separate essay to a discussion of some the issues that were raised.]
Though they don't like the particular TV commercials in question nor the very idea of using great rock 'n' roll songs in TV commercials, fans of The Who's music who have written to us have pointed out that, when all is said and done, these songs were originally recorded to make money for the person(s) who wrote them, and those recordings were distributed and broadcast on the radio to make even more money for the composers and to make money for the "middlemen" who first brought these recordings to our attention and allowed us to listen to them over and over again. And so only the naive can be outraged when these same songs are once again used to make money for the person(s) who wrote them; that is to say, when the record company is replaced or supplemented by an advertising agency and one of its clients.
According to Iggy Pop, who was also denounced in our essay for selling out, there should be no problem -- at least among those of us were aren't naive -- with musicians such as himself leasing his songs to advertisers trying to sell "sausages or cars" (it doesn't matter to Iggy) because these songs weren't originally written to sell anything at all. Instead of being a damn good reason to object to their use in TV commercials, Iggy cites this fact as a reason not to object: legally speaking, there's no problem; there would only be a problem if a song explicitly written to sell sausages was later used to sell cars or vice versa.
By far the most interesting response came from a well-known rock music critic, much praised on these pages, who argued that there should be no objection to the use of great rock songs in TV commercials because, if the song is truly great, no matter what happens (the song is compromised or degraded, left unaffected or even enriched by its use in a particular TV commercial or advertising campaign), the results will always be interesting, even if or precisely when the results distress, disappoint or anger the fans of the original recordings.
In each of the responses described above, "the song" is defined as or assumed to be a commercial (a commercial for itself or the person(s) who wrote it). But these songs aren't commercials, but commodities that regularize "commercialization" (publicity).
18 February 2002.
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