Merchandise Music
If I asked you who Lord David Dundas was, you might forgivably have trouble answering, even if I was to tell you that he has also had a number 3 hit in the UK and saw top twenty success in the States. The thing is, that was back in 1976, and since then, he’s done, well, nothing that you’re likely to have heard. His song ‘Jeans On’, a catchy little slice of pop-rock, found itself selling Brutus Jeans. Inundated with requests for the vinyl copy, the brand politely suggested that Dundas might like to release it. Changing “Brutus Jeans” to “Blue Jeans” was enough, and neither the clothing company nor Dundas’ accountant were complaining.
This wasn’t the first time the world of advertising has had an impact on the charts. The Hillside Singers were formed for the express purpose of recording a song for a Coca-Cola advert and the resulting song ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’ shot to number 3 in the US and is still in the Top 100 sales list in the UK. More cheesy pop, to be sure, but this phenomenon is in no way genre-specific: Pianist Ludovico Einaudi gained substantial recognition from the John Lewis ad a few years back, and I’m going to hazard a guess that you all remember Donovan’s ‘Mellow Yellow’, even though it was released in 1966.
More recently, we’ve seen phone companies embracing music from bands that your average HMV customer probably knows little about. Vashti Bunyan might not right a bell, but I can all-but guarantee that you’ll instantly recognise his ‘Diamond Day’ from the T-Mobile ads.
But why now? And why do wealthy corporate entities use obscure songs that nobody knows? Well, by choosing a band that’s quite different from anything that the general public has heard, their brand gains individuality, ensuring that the song is assosciated with their product alone. Mobile phones are pretty much homogenous these days, with all those snazzy features that seened so exciting a few years back now taken for granted. So a catchy little tune could make all the difference between commercial sucess and failure.
Will all the bands whose music is used in adverts make it big? Of course not – there are a great many that have failed as well, songs from people who no longer make music, that anybody hears at any rate, but the bottom line is that television is a great way to reach a mass audience.
Perhaps for this very reason many musicians consider the commercial use of their art to be an unforgivable act of selling out. From Neil Young to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, there is a long list of vocal objectors to such crass commercialism. On the other end of the spectrum we have U2 who allowed their music to be used to promote the iPod for no financiall gain, just because they thought it was a great product. Admirable? Make up your own mind.
So, if you have a band and think you could sell a company’s product for them, why not give it a go. After all, who needs artistic integrity?
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