Then Kluger threatened us with a lawsuit for… well, whatever straws were in reach.

You can read about it on the Wired Listening Post blog, boingboing, Radar Online, techdirt, and Gawker due to the Streisand effect.

If this has peaked your interest in the relationship between marketing and music, check out Emily Gallagher’s pieces from last year So Happy Together and So Happy Together Part 2: Show Me the Money.

UPDATE: A representative from Adam Kluger Public Relations in New York City (http://www.adamklugerpr.com/) contacted wired.com to say that there should also be no confusion over the fact that their New York City based PR Firm, founded by a former television producer (CNN, FOX), also coincidentally named Adam Kluger, is not involved in this issue in any way and should not be confused with the Adam Kluger quoted above in this article.

I am especially sensitive to the other Adam Kluger’s predicament because I too have the same name as some folks with unfortunate histories like this minister and a paralyzed motorcyclist (which is a little chilling given that I’ve ridden motorcycles for around 10 years.) So let me say it clearly, there are two Adam Kluger’s in the PR industry. Only one has threatened to sue us in order to take down information on our site.

Related posts:

1. Product Placement “oppertunity” from adamkluger@inbox.com
2. Listening Post: MySpace Play Count Inflaters – The Steroids of the Music Industry
3. David Lynch on Product Placement

Approximately two weeks after we reported on TuneBoom Pro, a tool apparently used by major labels and indie artists to artificially inflate the number of times their songs had been streamed on MySpace, the site has gone offline. We had contacted MySpace about TuneBoom Pro, but it’s unclear whether MySpace had anything to do with the site’s disappearance.

One way or another, the site is offline. However, bands and labels looking for a way to fake MySpace popularity have plenty of other ways to manipulate their play counts on MySpace Music. A reader recently sent in a list of 46 alternatives to the possibly defunct TuneBoom Pro service.

Is it wrong to inflate MySpace song plays? If every other band and label is doing it, you almost have to — just like baseball players and steroids. It’s unlikely that MySpace will be able to defeat every type of play count-increasing technology, just like it’s unlikely that Major League Baseball will ever be able to do away completely with all performance-enhancing drugs.

Read the rest… MySpace Play Count Inflaters: The Steroids of the Music Industry | Listening Post from Wired.com

Related posts:

1. So Happy Together?
2. So Happy Together, Part Two: Show Me The Money!
3. 5 Samaras Project Post Cards

Which unapologetic music hocker comes to mind first? The British Tantra master, Sting. I’ve tried to figure out just why Sting is so willing to sell his music to major corporations like Jaguar, and my hypothesis is that it is a midlife, career-in-twilight crisis. In 1999 the commercial pop musician (pun intended) created a dual purpose music video/Jaguar commercial (refresh your memory?), evidently hoping for a promise of exposure to a younger Jaguar-lusting audience, or reminding an older jaguar-owning audience that he’s still productive …and of course, the temptation of a fistful of dollars. On the other end, Jaquar purloins the cultural capital previously or currently produced by a recording artist (for example, The Police) to align their product with something culturally significant. In other words: motivated by greed from both sides.

It’s not just the usual sell-outs like Michael Jackson and his sappy “I’ll Be There” ad or rewriting lyrics to become jingles, or Celine Dion and her Chrysler ads who give it up to advertisers– the extent that peripherally significant “indie” and “punk” artists choose commercial co-option may be surprising. Wilco dismissed their car commercial by claiming that their image was similar to that of everyone’s favorite soft-spoken, long-haired, perpetually heartbroken car, the Volkswagen. John Schacht reveals in his article “You Say You Want a ….Car?” that pre-deathbed Joe Strummer dismissed the commercial appearance of the overtly anti-corporate “London Calling,” by saying he needed to make up from the deficit of selling cheap albums, a generosity that I’m certain he suffered deeply for. And again, many so-called “Indie” musicians (Badly Drawn Boy for Target, Apples in Stereo for New Balance, et al) are trying to uncreatively counteract their lack of exposure from radio and MTV by providing soundbeds for commercial spots. To the seemingly forgotten underground musician, ads seem to be a better way of reaching an audience. However, it’s the product advertised that becomes cemented in memory, and not the artist, otherwise it wouldn’t work as an ad. On the other hand… if you want to forever be “that fun music in the background of that cute station wagon commercial” I guess you’ve finally made it! Suddenly, I’m gaining a lot of respect for those who kept their socially conscious day-jobs and play shitty emo music at my neighborhood bar’s dumb open mics.

Unfortunately, it does seem that some truly independent artists actually DO need the money provided by a momentary advertising fix. Perhaps the most heartbreaking is the use of the Minutemen song “Love Dance” in a Volvo commercial to pay for D. Boon’s dad’s medical bills. For a band that spent their entire career driving around (and dying) in a shit van wearing dumpster clothes, I guess they’re allowed. The legacy of the Minutemen is an ephemeral one, based on ideas, activity, and the music, not being hot or rich. Are these values co-opted when immediate monetary help was necessary? I don’t know. Supposedly Liz Phair used all her sell-out album money, loaded with PlayStation references, to pay off her divorce. But she also lost a lot of her audience, at least as far as I’m concerned, so perhaps her monetary cash-out was an unsustainable faux-pas.

A new trend, more bone-chilling than the previously mentioned, is beginning to rear it’s brain-eating head. Now performers (I refuse to use the word artist) have not only donated their images and (questionable) talents to ad-men, but do it overtly, through explicit advertising deals. It’s no longer a completed song that’s purloined, but the promise of future songs, the way the naïve maiden promised her first-born child to Rumplestiltskin. These companies ask for visible presence in lyrics and videos, and gain editorial access to the work. The latest and sleaziest is Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas who has “teamed up” with Candies, the shoe and clothing line popular with young girls, on an entire album to be stuffed with advertisements for their product. This won’t be a jingle compilation, but a seamlessly disguised ad-creep album, with songs ready for preteen sleepover sing-a-longs. And if you think the album will disappear into obscurity (which it may eventually) you should know at the time of this writing her song, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” is number one the charts. Yikes. While the lyrics are seemingly benign and all about confidence building, the message becomes confidence = Candies, and the video features Candies products exclusively. Candies is featured throughout the entire album. At the Candies website, you can watch a “pop-up video” that specifies the exact name of every product shown in the video and order it on an adjacent page. Finally, a music video and catalog combined! Music videos have nearly always been a commercial for an artist’s album, and Fergie’s sharing her commercial with Candies. Admittedly, it’s not as if Fergie’s name is making any “Most Important Artists of the Century” lists, but allowing one’s songwriting and all the messages within it to be co-opted by a clothing company is detrimental to the young consumers who look up to her and emulate her (poor souls!)
In a similar attempt a few years back, McDonalds invited popular hip-hop artists to include references to Big Macs in their songs, and promised to reward them $5 every time a song mentioning Big Macs gets radio airplay. Additionally, McDonald’s held veto power over appropriate lyrics for the rest of the song. The deal was outed by Advertising Age, and Mickey D’s got major flack. But we all know it’s not just McDonald’s; not every deal can be outed by that old consumer watchdog, Advertising Age.

How do you think Courvoisier became the drink of choice for those other than 75 year old, top hat wearing gentlemen? It was the work of Russell Simmons and a Courvoisier representative, performed by a P. Diddy Puppet. Certainly hip-hop has been known to name drop, but how much of the “bling boasting” is backed by undetected Def Jam contracts? To demonstrate just how much name-dropping and product placement exists in pop-rap music, check out Evan Roth’s Hip Hop Popup (warning: it might crash your browser.)

Excessive product placements in popular music encourages people to focus on conspicuous consumerism, equating material goods with success, instead of putting their hard work and money towards more enduring pursuits. I know because I am a young person surrounded by gadget-lusting friends, I live in flashy New York City, and on top of everything else, it’s Fashion Week. The misleading value system, reinforced by product placement, leads only to perpetual dissatisfaction.

(Cue the Rolling Stones — did you ever notice that song is about advertising?!)

In my next little rant, I’ll try to uplift your now-crushed spirits with tales of die-hard anti-ad musicians, and the long battles they willingly endure in the name of artistic integrity.

UPDATE: A friend recently provided me with this link to idolator: http://idolator.com/tunes/endorsements/you-dont-have-to-pay-fergie-to-name+drop-products-277758.php

After several moments spent pondering, I’ve decided on several points. 1. . Fergie is clearly in a relationship with Candies Co., given that she appears in many of their ads and on their website. Long story short, Fergie does work for Candies. It’s kind of like sleeping with someone regularly, spending all your time with them, and he or she buys you dinner and talk to your mom on the phone, but when a stranger asks you about your relationship, you say that you’re “just friends”. Fergie’s inclusion of Candies, specifically, in her videos and some lyrics does have a relationship to a working agreement, regardless of whether or not the agreement specifically entailed musical shout-outs.

1. If Candies did not pay Fergie specifically to name or include their products in her songs, and she did anyway, let’s face it, that’s weird. It’s not as if Candies makes some really rare object, like faberge eggs, that can only be identified by their brand. They make pretty typical clothes. If I was going to talk about my sneakers, I wouldn’t say “My Vans blah blah blah” (ooh, Vans can pay me later!) I would just say, “my sneakers. Are our brains so grated by branding that it matters? Is Fergie working with Candies because she LOOOOVES their brand? Brand loyalty, according to recent studies, is a Thing Of The Past. So if Fergie is just intensely loyal to Candies for reasons other than paycheck$, she better start getting ready to cruise back in time with Doc and Marty, as far as I’m concerned. And if she’s not getting paid, that means to Fergie, self-confidence might ACTUALLY MEAN Candies, and for a 32 year old woman, that’s really very heartbreaking.

2. The UK Daily News is pretty reputable, right?

Related posts:

1. So Happy Together?

Given that this is a huge topic that needs a decent exploration, I’m going to take my time and explore it in chunks, appropriate, since favorite songs in advertisements often make chunks rise in my throat.

Music and advertising didn’t always go together. There were jingles (my dad can still sing all of them from his childhood) and their were songs, and ne’er the two did mix. As Carrie McLaren wrote in a piece called “Licensed to Sell” in the Village Voice in 1998, it wasn’t until Nike bought the rights to the classic Beatles song “Revolution” (sold by the imitable Michael Jackson) that companies really caught onto the emotional capital exposed by popular music.

With that emotional capital, advertisers could create psychological associations with a product rather than merely get a tune stuck in your head– a song can mean a summer, a person, a turning point in your life, and then, it can suddenly and unapologetically mean Golden Grahams.

Golden Grahams ruined the Turtles song “Happy Together” for me when I was 6 years old. (Even then, I was angry.) Let’s use the transitive property!

Golden Grahams = "Happy Together" AND "Happy Together" = Your Fond Memories
THUS Golden Grahams = Your Fond Memories

Golden Grahams cereal then acquires all the associations you have with that song; maybe your prom, your high school boyfriend, and summertime when it meant something – before your 9-5 job robbed you of summer vacation. But fortunately, Golden Grahams is there to replace these long lost golden moments of young life! (Nom, nom, nom)

In part 2, we’ll look at how different artists react to their songs being used, and who comes out ahead, advertisers or songwriters. Then we’ll move onto the many remarkable ways that advertising has poached and pawned (pwned?) music and how the two work together to conquer young souls and wallets.

No related posts.