A letter from Tom Waits to The Nation, reacting to an article by John Densmore about using the Doors' music in commercials ("I hope Sting has given those Shaman chiefs he hangs out with from the rainforest a ride in the back of that Jag he's advertising, 'cause as beautiful as the burlwood interiors are, the car -- named after an animal possibly facing extinction -- is a gas guzzler.")
Artists who take money for ads poison and pervert their songs. It reduces them to the level of a jingle, a word that describes the sound of change in your pocket, which is what your songs become. Remember, when you sell your songs for commercials, you are selling your audience as well.Although as someone on the Zorn list wrote, the irony is is that advertising may be just about one of the last places for creative music programming left, as radio has practically been given over to mega-corporations who play the same 25 songs over and over. (Classic rock really is the new muzak.)
At least in those Volkswagen commercials you could hear Charles Mingus, Stereolab, Nick Drake, Velocity Girl, and Psychic TV -- when was the last time you heard them on radio, except if you were tuning in to an indie college radio station?
Posted by the wily filipino at April 25, 2003 10:46 AM