Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: quickest sellout ever?

[speedoo]

I love their Raising Sand collaboration, and one of my two favorite songs on the album is "Killing the Blues".

So I hear the tune coming out of my tv and look up, expecting to see them singing. Probably a promo for the album or their upcoming tour, I say to myself.

Instead, I see smiling Americam faces, beautiful countrysides, etc. No, this can't be an ad!

But it is. For JC Penney.

I am very bummed. It's such a gorgeous song.

Couldn't they have waited a year, for crying out loud?

[LeftyMom]

1. They'll do it as long as their fans put up with it.

Even now, your expectation is not that they won't sell out (nevermind that they're both making shitpiles of money on the album and tour already) but that they'll wait a bit to do so, in order to maintain a bit of propriety.

Then again, every time your av sells out again, there's a thread about it, and the man already did Victoria's Secret ads, for pity's sake. People forgive, forget, and are freshly wounded when it happens again.

Bottom line: musicians with boomer nostalgia appeal know that they make a lot of money on selling out, and their fans will forgive them.

[speedoo]

2. "Dammit. I feel bad about this!"

My reaction to your insightful post. Like the Tim Hutton character with his shrink in Ordinary People, I guess I just wanted somebody to kvetch with me.

But no. You have to be all intelligent about it.

Thanks a lot.

[cbayer]

3. NO SHIT!!!

This totally pissed me off last night.

I mean I was screaming at them through my TV like they could hear me.

WTF! Did they need to do this?

I loved that song and they have sold out and ruined it for me.

Whores, god damn whores.

I am so disillusioned.

[cbayer]

4. How did you feel when Bob Dylan sold himself out to Apple?

I had the same visceral reaction as I am having to this.

[speedoo]

5. Apple? I know about Cadillac and Victoria's Secret.

But Apple does not ring a bell.

Did Dylan actually sell out any of his songs? I'm not sure.

[cbayer]

7. Oh yeah.

it was a great commercial, but I couldn't believe the sell out. It broke my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCw33l7w1fQ

[speedoo]

16. Thanks, I remember now.

One thing about Dylan... if he decides to participate in a commercial, he's in it, doesn't allow them to use his songs unless he performs the song himself. The guy loves to be on camera, he's always been that way.

Check this out:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WQDeYzUkXOU

He won an Oscar for that song, from the movie "Wonder Boys". He always has the Oscar on stage in concerts.

[bridgit]

6. What about The Stones going to Microsoft years back now, Windows: Start Me Up!

My husband said when he heard Dylan's: Like A Rolling Stone, in an elevator on his way up to his dentist being done by 101 Strings years & years ago he knew that that particular revolution was over :(

[cbayer]

8. It's really scary.

Everytime I hear one of my muses on a commercial or in an elevator, I just cringe.

[Twillig]

10. I don't think the Rollling Stones have control over their catalogue.

In the commentary for Layer Cake the director mentions something about this.

[bridgit]

11. Layer Cake was a trippy movie...

:thumbsup: As for some of the rest, I think that's Mick London School of Economics Jagger. He's all like, "You want your chateau in the south of France, right? And you want that little island in Micronesia with the monkeys and the coconuts, yes-yes? And I want what I want...then this is what we need to do."

[kwassa]

20. I liked "Layer Cake", too. Great little movie.

The Brits can make these great little gangster films, like this and "The Long Good Friday".

[bridgit]

25. They sure do, huh? Very stylish...

I'll check out The Long Good Friday, we just watched Snatch...another trippy brit gangs'ta directed by Madonna's hubby I think it was

[supernova]

29. Check out Essex Boys

It's based on a real-life gang murder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ6Sp-3MKtQ

[bridgit]

40. will do

:thumbsup:

[kwassa]

35. It has Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren.

It is the movie that made Hoskins a semi-star. Great performances.

[bridgit]

41. Ooh, two of my all time favs, a true deal closer fer sher...

:hi:

[harmonicon]

9. calm down

It was a sell-out from the beginning. Do you think they put their own money into the record, self-released it, and then just hoped it would get enough buzz to be picked up by a distributor? The record was put together by the record company - all they ever were were two faces and voices to sell a product. I don't know about this Alison Krauss character, but that's all Robert Plant has ever been.

[speedoo]

15. Rounder Records is the record company.

We could use a lot more record companies like them. And I have a hunch that T Bone Burnett, the album producer, might have been the driving force behind the collaboration. Because the album's sound is all his.

And since you don't have any idea who Alison Krauss is, I'll just assume you don't know anything about the kind of music I like and dismiss your advice to "calm down".

[harmonicon]

30. I know who Alison Krauss is

I just don't know her history, like I do Robert Plant's. I heard something about the record when it came out. T Bone Burnett was indeed the driving force behind the record, both doing the production and choosing the songs for the singers to perform. They're no different than N'Sync, just sold to a different crowd.

[speedoo]

36. "They're no different than N'Sync..."

LOL, you don't know when to stop, do you. As someone else suggested in this thread, do some reading and/or listening before you make any more silly statements.

[harmonicon]

37. I would guess that I've done more reading and listening of music...

... than most people at DU. This people are capitalist/corporate slop (their album is advertised on TV in the UK, fer chris'ake). It amazes me that people who will accept them for what they are on one level would then get mad about them "selling out". Led Zeppelin was nothing but a group quickly thrown together to sell records (the NEW yardbirds), and stole gobs of their material. Two-faced corporate thieves win the hearts and minds of America.... what else is new?

[speedoo]

38. That's possible I suppose.

But your comparison of Alison Krauss with N'Synch is simply bizarre.

[harmonicon]

39. I just think all pop music is more-or-less the same

Alison Krauss and N'Sync have more in common, I would think, than do either one of them with what I would consider to be "art" music (Phil Niblock, Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, etc.)

edited to add that I don't think this makes it less culturally relevant, or means that those who like it have bad taste - I just think it's silly to get upset about the corporatization of what is inherently corporate (that being pop music).

[LynneSin]

34. Rounder Record put out the album (haven't looked at the CD case since I uploaded it)

I know Plant has Esperanza Records, which he has used with most of his previous albums (I think all but the first one which was under LZ's old Swan Song)

[LynneSin]

32. Well now you don't have a clue

First, yes, I was disappointed with the sell-out.

This was NOT some idea at the Record Company put together - Plant has his own label. About a year ago it was reporting that Plant had been spending several months travelling through SE United States working on what his next project would be. Allison Kraus, along with T-Bone Burnett, are 2 very major names in the Bluegrass genre. Burnett, if I'm correct, is a record producer himself (he was also the one that did the soundtrack for "Walk the Line" along with training Jouquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon how to play their instruments and sing for the movie - those 2 did not lip-sync")

This album is selling well not thru traditional pop music but it has been very popular in the country/bluegrass circles where Kraus & Burnett are pretty well-known. Heck even my mother loves the album and I can assure you she never got any of the music I would listen to, including Robert Plant.

As for Plant, well, if you think his solo career has been nothing more than an extension of who he was with Led Zeppelin, you are very wrong. Plant's voice is a far cry from what you'd get on any given LZ album, his range is much lower and years of straining his voice with LZ limits all that "Baby Baby Baby" type stuff you would get. "Raising Sands" works along the type of music Plant has put out in his later part of his solo career where he would explore a region of the world and utilize the sounds & styles he finds there.

So you know, before you roll off this bullshit crap - read a little. This information mainly came from one of my 'bibles' - Rolling Stone plus I regularly read-up at Plant's website. Also, CMT (that's Country's version of MTV) did an hour special on the making of the album.

As for the sell-out - hell if I know. But it's not like Plant is the first to do this. Hell the CDs for Dylan's "Modern Time" were barely off the shelf until Apple promoted the hell out of the song (which they've done for U2 along with a host of others)

[nickgutierrez]

12. At the same time, though...

...it's kinda cool to hear music from a lesser-known band in a commercial. I remember, last year, a commercial for a digital camera, using a rather obvious song by Bishop Allen, and it really didn't feel like much of a sellout at all.

[peacefreak]

13. I actually thought it was kind of cool

for Rolly Salley, who wrote that sweet song over 20 years ago. It was recorded by a couple of other artists, but never got noticed until Krauss & Plant released it. I hoped Salley got some good $$$$ for it.

[speedoo]

18. Agree with you on that!

And I think at least a few other songs on the album are by songwriters like Salley. Nice.

[LynneSin]

33. The whole album are from previously released songs

And after the whole Willie Dixon thing I highly doubt that the owners of the song aren't seeing royalities.

The Grammy that Plant/Kraus won was for a little known Everly Brothers song.

[NashVegas]

14. If Artists Want to Make Their Music Irrelevant, It's Their Business

People who have the album and no TV will have their own images for the song.

[Iggo]

17. I saw that commercial and was hypnotized...

...by that song. And it got me thinking, "Who sings that?" (Ironically, I was watching a certain episode of Crossroads at the time...duh.) Now that I know, I'm gonna go out and buy it. Looking into tour tickets now, too. Nice marketing strategy, I say. Good job.

[speedoo]

19. That's interesting.

Your comment about marketing strategy might be spot on, since none of the songs from the album are on FM radio much, unless you listen to independent stations.

[Steerpike]

21. These are professional musicians.

In my opinion there are too many poor musicians on the planet and god speed to those that can make lots of money from their craft.

[RandomKoolzip]

22. Robert Plant sells out?! Shit, I'll alert the media!

Wow, it's like the 70s never happened.

[mulsh]

23. Have you ever tried to make money by playing music?

Do you even know if the artists had a voice in deciding to license this song for a commercial? If you had the opportunity to have your music heard by a TV audience, even on a commercial, what would you do? Just continue to rely on word of mouth and scarce radio and internet broadcasts or jump at a chance of catching a much larger audience's attention.

[SteppingRazor]

24. Why wait a year? The song is popular now.

I swear I don't get this whole "selling out" thing, especially in regard to already-veteran artists like Plant and Krauss. Why shouldn't they let JC Penney use a song? Why shouldn't they actually make some money off their artistry? What the hell is wrong with that?

[CTyankee]

26. I just discovered that album and liked that song best.

I can'thelp singing along with it. Maybe that's why the JC PEnny folks got hold of it. You do remember it.

It's too bad. What a nice duo they make. She has a lovely "mountain" soprano voice, and I am an opera buff!

[tigereye]

27. blame their agent...

gotta make some money while the song it popular...

:shrug:

[mikita]

28. don't watch TV....

fixes LOTS of problems ... including this one!

[leftofthedial]

31. well, I'd like to see capitalism flushed down the toilet of history

and then fumigate the bathroom,

but as long as we insist on allowing capitalists to own everything, why do you get unhappy because a couple of musicians made some money?



on edit: besides Mellencamp will forever own that distinction. "This Is Our Country" was released at a sporting event as a Chevy commercial.