Commentary

In last Sunday’s New York Times, music critic Jon Pareles came to the conclusion that very soon, advertising and marketing campaigns will become the central end-point and inspiration for our popular music. It’s a compelling argument, and I’m afraid I might agree with him — to a point.

The basic idea of Pareles’ well-researched and relatively gutsy article is as follows: There’s no such thing as “selling out” any more, because there is no longer any popular resistance to groups licensing their work for TV ads, video games, or movie trailers. No resistance when Aerosmith and Madonna do it, but also no resistance when up-and-coming indie rockers cash in as well. It’s simply not hip to look at the corporate world with disdain these days.

Part of this, as Pareles notes, has to do with the way the recording industry is changing. Artists just can’t sell physical CDs like they used to. People share files. They download one song on iTunes and forget the name of the band. Or they buy used stuff at a local store. But compared to the pre-digital ‘90s, the long green has definitely been cut short for those wanting to live like rock stars. For those disinterested in living like rock stars and really just wanting exposure, the labels are losing influence over listeners. So now your favorite indie folk group is selling DVD players and that bouncy synth band you heard of last week is promoting adjustable-rate mortgages.

Pareles sees the big threat of all this as the possibility that bands could soon begin knocking out a couple of jingles every time they’re in the studio, that soon the century-long effort of American popular music will be battered by the whims of corporate marketing squares with no interest in challenging new types of music. And I have to say that I can see that future as well, and it scares me a little.

But here’s the good news: It’ll never happen. Even if such a system wins out, and pop music turns into an arm of multi-national advertising, an alternate force will develop. It’s how it’s always been. In the ‘70s, pop music may as well have existed on another planet from the experiments in prog, electro, art-rock and post-punk. Tonight, somewhere in America, a hardcore band is growling and thundering in some abandoned warehouse. Thanks to revolutions in our listening styles, artists are now exposed to an immense and varied history of music. Much of that history’s most avant-garde (or at least quirky) musicians are now coming into a new vogue. As we slowly but surely drop the CD format, music production and distribution is going to get simpler and cheaper. The worst that could happen is a new dichotomy of ad-rockers and those reacting against them. And in my understanding of music history, things usually get interesting when there’s something to push against.

So, selling out is dead. Long live selling out.

Comments (2)