The Band Sell-Out that hurt you the most?

[Mike 03]

Plenty of great bands have sold some of their best music to TV commercials.

Is there some commercial musical betrayal you consider particularly painful?

[Sugarcoated]

1. Pete Townshend

The Who really did sell out.

[Left Is Write]

2. Seeing the Cars' "Let's Go" used in an ad AT ALL was really painful -

but it was particularly painful that the ad was for Lee Jeans.

[LostinVA]

3. "Dust in the Wind"

[Shell Beau]

4. I'm not a die-hard Bob Dylan fan, but I was surprised he did Victoria's Secret commercials.

[Maccagirl]

9. Off topic-but your Bella is beautiful.

She really is our official Lounge Baby.

To answer the OP-like another poster said- when Michael Jackson let Nike whore "Revolution" I about retched-and I believe he had Yoko's support for it. I have never bought another Nike product.

[Shell Beau]

11. Awww!! Thanks! I always love to hear that!

:hug:

[Bennyboy]

35. Grateful Dead "Touch Of Grey" for Touch Of Grey hair coloring for men.......

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ghostsofgiants]

5. I don't consider that selling out.

But it was brutal to hear The Clash in a car commercial.

Selling out, to me, is changing your sound at the will of the label to move units.

[Heidi]

24. Exactly. It's when one cedes artistic integrity.

And I don't happen to believe that making a living with one's art is necessarily akin to ceding one's artistic integrity. Some people seem to think artistic integrity is an artist doing what s/he always did, doing what's comfortable to _us_. Go from accoustic to electric guitar? Sell out. Decide to market prints of your original paintings? Sell out. Allow your original music to be used to promote a commercial product? Sell out. :eyes:

[GReedDiamond]

33. Another form of selling out...

...changing your lyrics so WalFart will carry your CD, which Green Day recently refused to do (good for them).

[Sebastian Doyle]

6. First time I heard a Beatles song in a Nike commercial, I threw a shoe at the TV

Oddly enough, it was probably a Nike.

Fucking Michael Jackson selling the rights to songs he had nothing to do with. I hate him for that as much as I do for fucking children. :puke:

[Oeditpus Rex]

7. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but

I'm given to understand that most bands and artists don't own the distribution rights to their music.

[Capn Sunshine]

17. For Example, Michael Jackson owned the Beatles Catalog

and it was he who sold their song to Nike.

[GReedDiamond]

39. Technically speaking, it's the PUBLISHING rights...

...where the real money is.

The Record Label to which a particular Artist may be signed distributes the product (actual CDs through "brick and mortar" and/or online retail outlets, digital downloads such as itunes), and keeps ALL the money generated by sales until the production costs for the project have been recouped. After that (if that EVER happens), the Artist may start receiving royalties on sales, usually something like pennies on the dollar. Most bands with "major label" product make the bulk of their money from touring and merchandising, not CD sales.

The proceeds from the publishing of individual songs usually gets distributed between the Publishing Company (or Companies) and the author(s) credited with composing the songs. An Artist's income from publishing is not usually generated by CD sales, but from royalties paid (for some broadcast radio airplay, online radio stations, entertainment venues and in-store use, etc.), through performance rights organizations such as BMI, ASCAP and SESAC, who collect and distribute the performance fees accrued to their affiliated publishing companies, who in turn send payment to the registered authors/composers of the songs; and through the Publishing Company (or Companies) licensing registered works for use in entertainment industry projects, tv and radio commercials, use by other performing artists, mechanical licensing for sampling, etc., who again, take their cut and distribute the rest to the registered author(s)/composer(s).

So, to sum up, while an Artist may not see much $$ from actual music product sales, they may benefit significantly from publishing royalties and other uses, such as "selling out" for a tv commercial, for which I don't usually fault the Artist for cashing in on.

And then there's the Copyright and Trademark issues, which are another couple cans of worms.

[pscot]

8. Charlie Parker with strings

I never understood it.

[mitchum]

19. It was a seemingly strange idea, but reportedly Parker loved those sessions

[Heidi]

25. Does the fact that you don't understand it mean Parker ceded his artistic integrity?

I doubt it. Are artists not permitted to experiment? To pursue other artistic interests? Or is that for the audience to decide?

[pscot]

26. Artists can do whatever they like

and so can their audience. Bird liked the string session. I thought it sounded like Mantovani with Alto. A large part of the appeal of Bepop was its edginess. That string session was the antithesis of edgy. I have nothing against violins. Sarah Vaughn sounded wonderful with a string section. I don't think that would have worked for Billy Holiday, for example.

[Heidi]

29. This is a thread about artists selling out.

How did the Bird sell out?

[kwassa]

10. Led Zeppelin and Cadillac

back in the seventies they represented opposites of consciousness.

[AlCzervik]

12. The Violent Femmes, Blister in the sun, it was used in a Wendy's ad and it was just wrong

I think whoever at the ad agency either did't know t what that song was about or did and was being snarky, anyhow i was disappointed and i hope the use of that song in that ad was not their decision

[PeaceNikki]

21. Brian Ritchie (the bassist) sued Gordon Gano (singer) for that.

It's sad and kind of broke them up. :(

-VFemmes biggest fan ever

[Roon]

30. I have seen the violent femmes 5 times..

They are my favorite band too!

[Rhythm]

13. Metallica bitching about Napster...

Camp Chaos said it best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIuR5TNyL8Y

[Broken_Hero]

16. ditto, nt

[rcrush]

23. +1

Death to Metallica forever!

[Orrex]

14. Never really been hurt by one, but "Blitzkrieg Bop" in a Cingular/AT&T commercial kind of bugged me

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. What was it, "Fortunate Son" and wrangler?? Turns out, though, CCR did not sell out, the parent

company owning the song rights did. (According to John Fogarty.)

[no name no slogan]

32. True, Fogarty doesn't own the CCR catalog

In fact, he later had legal problems with Fantasy Inc., the company that owns CCR's recordings for writing songs that sounded like old CCR recordings. Google "Fogarty vs. Fantasy" for the gory details. It was a pretty sad/ridiculous case.

[mitchum]

18. When Whitehouse sold "My Cock Is On Fire" to Prudential Insurance

[peekaloo]

20. I larf 'til it hurts at those Cruise line commercials featuring 'Lust for Life'

and the 'There She Goes' feminine product commercials.

[beac]

22. TheThe's 'This is the Day' for Dockers.

It pains me that the one-man-band-produced semi-obscure anthem of my when-it-was-still-legal Ecstasy-fueled college days was used to sell pants to ample-rumped, neatly-pressed, stain-averse middle-aged people.

The fact that I was in the same age group, if not older, than the target audience only added to the insult.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BigUfMbvFk4

[Initech]

27. Ozzy appearing in 10 different commercials

He's hawking video games, cell phones, and a bunch of other crap. :puke:

[LeftyMom]

36. The Guitar Hero one isn't bad, since he's actually in the game.

They used Crazy Train in the commercial, but, again, the song is actually in the game.

[SPKrazy]

28. no, its their music and they own the rights to it

don't consider it a "sell out" even

[Moondog]

31. Grace Slick & The Jefferson Airplane

did a musical commercial for "white" Levis, longer ago now than I care to remember.

[Arugula Latte]

34. Shouldn't she still be repenting for "We Built This City"?

[Moondog]

38. Great point! I actually remember the commercial. "We Built This City"

was worse.

[no name no slogan]

37. "I Melt With You" by Modern English

I love the band, and used to not mind the song (which is not one of their best, BTW). However, ever since they've licensed it to damn near everybody (especially fast food places that have any product with the word "melt" in its name) I can't even stand to hear that damned song. Sad.

[EndersDame]

40. I saw a VH1 thingy

one late night night and they do not have the rights to distribute that song. One of the members is a PETA person and could do nothing about the Burger King commercials

[MrSlayer]

41. Megadeth.

Countdown to Extinction was one of the worst disappointments of my life. After listening to it the first time I threw the CD out the window. They wasted a great opportunity to step into Metallica's vacated place and instead followed them down the commercial sellout road. They were my second favorite band until that point.