Rock Stars Turn Music Into Advertising

Aug. 12 -- Rock stars are cleaning up their act and shaking hands with Madison Avenue in an obvious attempt to sell more records and boost their names.

Gone are the days when rebellious musicians would shake their heads and laugh in scorn at the idea of selling their tunes to ad men.

Songs are being licensed in such great numbers that if you close your eyes while channel surfing on TV, it might sound more like scanning the dial of a radio station.

Nissan and Volkswagen are among the carmakers with ads featuring pop hits. VW uses songs by The Roots and Ben Neill. In Nissan’s case, it’s the music of Smash Mouth and electronic artist Moby, who also stood in front of the camera for a recent Calvin Klein campaign that includes Korn drummer David Silveri.

Is it selling out? Maybe. But it’s big business. Smash Mouth’s song “Then the Morning Comes” was licensed for a cool $1.5 million for a peppy Nissan Sentra ad.

Their manager, Robert Hayes, says the ad has helped sell about 1,000 more records a week. “The person that normally wouldn’t buy your record that doesn’t necessarily listen to the radio watches TV and all of a sudden they hear this song.”

For Moby, a favorite in the underground scene for years, licensing is a way to make sure his music will be heard by the masses. All 18 tracks of his latest album, Play, have been licensed for either ads or film use.

Moby-fying the World

The media onslaught of Play took on bigger proportions than initially intended by Moby’s manager, Barry Taylor. “It’s pretty unique to me, certainly wasn’t our goal or objective with this record. But Moby’s music has been licensed in the past, and when this record came out we felt that there was a lot of music on here that might be licensed,” Taylor says.

Taylor says they keep a close watch on what the songs are used for, while recognizing the need for such a liberal marketing approach.