Songs From the Heart of a Marketing Plan

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Songs From the Heart of a Marketing Plan

By JON PARELES
Published: December 24, 2008

IN “Creator,” the rawest track on Santogold’s debut and self-titled album, the singer Santi White boasts, “Me I’m a creator/Thrill is to make it up/The rules I break got me a place up on the radar.” It’s a bohemian manifesto in a sound bite, brash and endearing, or at least it was for me until it showed up in a beer commercial. And a hair-gel commercial too.

It turns out that the insurgent, quirky rule breaker is just another shill. Billboard reported that three-quarters of Santogold’s excellent album has already been licensed for commercials, video games and soundtracks, and Ms. White herself appears in advertisements, singing for sneakers. She has clearly decided that linking her music to other, mostly mercenary agendas is her most direct avenue to that “place up on the radar.”

I know — time for me to get over it. After all, this is the reality of the 21st-century music business. Selling recordings to consumers as inexpensive artworks to be appreciated for their own sake is a much-diminished enterprise now that free copies multiply across the Web.

While people still love music enough to track it down, collect it, argue over it and judge their Facebook friends by it, many see no reason to pay for it. The emerging practical solution is to let music sell something else: a concert, a T-shirt, Web-site pop-up ads or a brand.

Musicians have to eat and want to be heard, and if that means accompanying someone else’s sales pitch or videogame, well, it’s a living. Why wait for album royalties to trickle in, if they ever do, when licensing fees arrive upfront as a lump sum? It’s one part of the system of copyright regulations that hasn’t been ravaged by digital distribution, and there’s little resistance from any quarters; Robert Plant and Alison Krauss croon for J. C. Penney and the avant-rockers Battles are heard accompanying an Australian vodka ad.

The question is: What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use? That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede: to embrace the element of vacancy that makes a good soundtrack so unobtrusive, to edit a lyric to be less specific or private, to leave blanks for the image or message the music now serves. Perhaps the song will still make that essential, head-turning first impression, but it won’t be as memorable or independent.

Music always had accessory roles: a soundtrack, a jingle, a branding statement, a mating call. But for performers with a public profile, as opposed to composers for hire, the point was to draw attention to the music itself. Once they were noticed, stars could provide their own story arcs of career and music, and songs got a chance to create their own spheres, as sanctuary or spook house or utopia. If enough people cared about the song, payoffs would come from record sales (to performer and songwriter) and radio play (to the songwriter).

When Moby licensed every song on his 1999 album, “Play,” for ads and soundtracks, the move was both startling and cheesy, but it did lead to CD sales; an album that set staticky samples of blues and gospel to dance-floor beats managed to become a million seller. Nearly a decade later, platinum albums are much scarcer.

For all but the biggest names — like AC/DC, which made Wal-Mart the exclusive vendor for CDs of its long-awaited “Black Ice” album, got its own “store within a store” and sold more than a million copies in two weeks — a marketing deal is more likely to be its own reward rather than spawn a career. With telling ambivalence, Brooklyn Vegan, the widely read, indie-loving music blog, recently started a column, “This Week in Music Licensing: It’s Not Selling Out Anymore,” but soon dropped the “selling out” half of the title. There’s no longer a clear dividing line for selling out, if there ever was.

And as music becomes a means to an end — pushing a separate product, whether it’s a concert ticket or a clothing line, a movie scene or a Web ad — a tectonic shift is under way. Record sales channeled the taste of the broad, volatile public into a performer’s paycheck. As music sales dwindle, licensers become a far more influential target audience. Unlike nonprofessional music fans who might immerse themselves in a song or album they love, music licensers want a track that’s attractive but not too distracting — just a tease, not a revelation.

It’s almost enough to make someone miss those former villains of philistinism, the recording companies. Labels had an interest in music that would hold listeners on its own terms; selling it was their meal ticket. Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered. By contrast, licensers have no interest beyond the immediate effect of a certain song, and can save money by dealing with unknowns.

As the influence of major labels erodes, licensers are seizing their chance to be talent scouts. They can be good at it, song by song, turning up little gems like Chairlift’s “Bruises,” heard in an iPod ad. For a band, getting such a break, and being played repeatedly for television viewers, is a windfall, and perhaps an alternate route to radio play or the beginning of a new audience. But how soon will it be before musicians, perhaps unconsciously, start conceiving songs as potential television spots, or energy jolts during video games, or ringtones? Which came first, Madonna’s “Hung Up” or the cell phone ad?

Not wanting to appear too crass, musicians insist that exposure from licensing does build the kind of interest that used to pay off in sales and/or loyalty. Hearing a song on the radio or in a commercial has a psychological component; someone else has already endorsed it. Musicians who don’t expect immediate mass-market radio play — maybe they’re too old, maybe they’re too eccentric — have gotten their music on the air by selling it to advertisers. That can rev up careers, as Apple ads have done for Feist and for this year’s big beneficiary, Yael Naim, whose “New Soul” introduced the MacBook Air. (Sites like findthatsong.net help listeners identify commercial soundtracks.)

The Sri Lankan art-pop-rapper M.I.A. already had all the hipster adoration she could ever want for her song “Paper Planes,” which compares international drug dealing to selling records, and it turns gunshots and a ringing cash register into hooks. But having the song used in the trailer for “Pineapple Express” was probably what propelled the song to a Grammy nomination for record of the year.

(Grammy voters often seize on music from everywhere but the albums they purport to judge; they seem particularly drawn to film soundtracks.) And if the song now conjures images of the movie trailer for many listeners, that’s the tradeoff for recognition.

The old, often legitimate accusation against labels was that they sold entire albums with only one good song or two. Now there’s an incentive for a song to have only 30 seconds of good stuff. It’s already happening: Chris Brown’s hit “Forever” is wrapped around a jingle for chewing gum.

Apparently there’s no going back, structurally, to paying musicians to record music for its own sake. Labels that used to make profits primarily from selling albums have been struggling since the Internet caused them to lose their chokehold on distribution and exposure. Now, in return for investing in recording and promotion, and for supplying their career-building expertise (such as it was), they want a piece of musicians’ whole careers.

Old-fashioned audio recording contracts are increasingly being replaced by so-called 360 deals that also tithe live shows, merchandising, licensing and every other conceivable revenue stream — conceding, in a way, that the labels’ old central role of selling discs for mere listening is obsolescent. Some musicians, like the former record company president Jay-Z, have concurred, but by signing 360 deals not with labels but with the concert-promotion monolith Live Nation.

Maybe such dire thoughts are extreme, since some people are still buying music. The iTunes Music Store has sold more than five billion songs since 2003. But it’s harder and harder to find a song without a tie-in. It took Guns N’ Roses 15 years between albums to complete “Chinese Democracy,” certainly long enough to receive worldwide notice when the album was released this year. But instead of letting the album arrive as an event in itself, the band licensed one of the album’s best songs, “Shackler’s Revenge,” to a video game that came out first. Metallica fans have complained that the band’s new album, “Death Magnetic,” sounds better in the version made for the “Guitar Hero” video game than on the consumer CD, which is compressed to the point of distortion so it will sound louder on the radio. But they take for granted that the music will end up in the game in the first place. Consumers reinforce the licensers almost perversely: they pay for music as a ringtone, or tap along with it on the iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge, but not as a high-fidelity song.

Perhaps it’s too 20th century to hope that music could stay exempt from multitasking, or that the constant insinuation of marketing into every moment of consciousness would stop when a song begins. But for the moment I’d suggest individual resistance. Put on a song with no commercial attachments. Turn it up. Close your eyes. And listen.

Bo Borland · From: South Jersey -

whew! Thats' deep but art for arts sake, money for Gods sake!
I don't see anything wrong with a marketing plan or good advice but I wouldn't sign with a label if they asked me to..well maybe I could be convinced, but it would take a lot of up front bread.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Ever notice how much great music, film, and so on are made during difficult times, and how trite "the arts" tend to get when the living is easy and mainstream society obsesses over trivial crap?

Maybe it actually requires a really long 1930s style depression to stop this. Perhaps if practically everybody is too broke to buy yet more useless throwaway garbage, we can just start doing things we naturally love just for the sake of doing them again, without a thought about who it will make money for. It certainly would cut the value of advertising down to size. When was the last time you saw a sexy ad for the real necessities of life - things like plain potatoes, rice, beans, fresh vegetables, or simple meats? No, no - it's usually something much higher up the food chain or something we really don't need like convenience food, various kinds of knick-knack paddywhacks, or various types of luxury items.

The ironic twist is that such a depression is not out of the question. I wonder how long most of us could function without buying any more useless garbage. I'll bet I could go for years without ever noticing.

I know this scares the blazes out of the powers that be - it would be off-with-their-heads politically - but they may not be able to control it. Not to mention the mainstream folks who seem now to be firmly addicted to all this "stuff".

My opinions, of course.

Roger Shackelton · From: MINNESOTA (deceased)

Hi Dave,

I totally agree with you. There is way too much useless crap on the market today. Sad

ROGER

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Labels only loan you money.
You need to pay money to get played on the radio.

Commercials pay up front. It is a whole lot of money for a national ad. Plus you get residuals. The jingle house stuff does not pay as well as if you get used as an artist.

Its amazing how much money is in advertising. Its way better than the movie soundtrack tie in scam in the 90's.

The concept that a pop musician would sell his music to a corporation doesn't bother me much. Except for Iggy selling "Lust for Life" to carnival cruise lines. That's just not right.....
_________________
Bob

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

When you do things strictly for money, the art form is usually compromised - that goes without saying. Those who want to do something truly creative and meaningful, however, don't usually worry about money, they do it because they feel the need to do it. Of course, if a great song is sold for a trite commercial use, it's still a great song. I can't think of a single song that's worse off because it was used in a commercial or movie.

Songwriters have always had the power to control completely how anything they've written is used. But when they transfer a song to a publisher, those rights go out the window.

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

Richard Sevigny · From: Salmon Arm, BC, Canada

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

Most of the great classical composers day jobs was to,
make sure there was a new organ piece or choral work each sunday

'The lord' had pieces of interest he or his wife and/or children
could play themselves with chamber orchestra arrangements

There were new fanfares and operatic treatments of classic literary themes

And 'grand entertainments' when many underlords and ladies were in court.

In general most of these were in the style the composer
was already comfortable in,
but not always.
_________________
DLD, Chili farmer. Plus bananas and papaya too.

Real happiness has no strings attached.
But pedal steels have many!

Rich Weiss · From: Woodland Hills, CA, USA

Hey Chas, they played your beautiful piece 'Joaquin Murphy' from your re-mastered cd - on Global Village today on KPFK FM, and the host said some great things about you. Happy New Year!

Don Drummer · From: West Virginia, USA

Dave Mudgett wrote; "Maybe it actually requires a really long 1930s style depession to stop this." Now that's "Hope" I can relate to. I guess F.D.R., if nothing else, was the musicians best friend. Don D.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Don Drummer · From: West Virginia, USA

Yes Dave, the depression started during Hoover and his attempts to fix it ie. the Smoot Hawley act and various govt controls made it worse. Roosevelt's actions were just a continuation of this same mind set. That's what became the Great Depression. FDR presided over it through all of his terms and unemployment never got out of the teens. But as you point out, people became more aware of the "good things" in life not the least of which was popular music. But wait a minute. Before the depression there was a rampant consummerism that also ushered in an era of popular music the effects of which are still being felt today. Personally it is my opinion that music in terms of it's complexity and the abilities required have been de-evolving since then. As far as the shilling aspect let's just say we are going through a transitional period art wise and as long as there is a creative spirit and an open mind art shall survive. Making a career out of it is going to change based on the circumstances as history unfolds. Don D.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

The analogy to the 20's is appropriate. From 23-29 when the real damage was being done, that was the realm of Coolidge. Interesting that Obama comes in having to deal with the analog of Hoover's problems, and if he fails to deal with it well, it will probably be laid on his shoulders as was done with Hoover.

There are always positives and negatives to any approach to economics, government, commerce, or anything else. With freely flowing money, lots of things happen - some interesting but a lot of it silly, IMHO. Yes, it was the Jazz Age, but I think the foundations for what jazz really became developed better and more fully in swing and bebop, which was the 30s and 40s. I view the 20's and its social and economic ideas as fundamentally flawed.

Again - I don't hope for a depression. My concern is that is we don't change our mindset, one will be inevitable. At a certain point, unless a system is truly completely open and expanding, a conservation law of some sort kicks in and brings the pendulum back. My opinion, naturally.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA