The folks at Glorious Noise have hipped us to some controversy brewing in the UK over Iggy Pop doing a car insurance commercial out there, following in the footsteps of Sex Pistol John Lydon's recent butter ad.
Long-time readers know we've always been against the licensing of songs for TV ads. But our beef is with the well-off artists and estates that choose to do so, not with financially struggling songwriters and/or musicians. (When we heard Mike Watt had OK'd the use of a Minutemen song in an ad in order to pay for an operation for the late D. Boon’s dad, our reaction was “License the whole catalog if necessary!”) Yes, it’s disappointing when our heroes resort to this sorta thing, but sometimes it’s about survival.
We could be wrong, but we don’t think Lydon or Iggy have ever made more than average money. And by average, we're referring to what a regular office job pays—$30-$50K/yr—which is fine if you have that kind of cash coming in uninterrupted. But there’s no real revenue when you’re off the road, and records never made artists that much money unless they sold in the millions. Faced with practically non-existent record sales and diminishing concert revenue—which is why The Roots took a day job—and old age creeping ‘round the corner—what’s a 70 year old Lydon or Iggy gonna live off?—we're not surprised to see more and more artists surrendering their songs to Madison Ave. (And it gets even more complicated when we take into account certain artists who bemoan the availability of less and less avenues for exposure and license their songs to commercials for this reason first and foremost. Right, Sting?)
Are we happy with any of it? Hell, no. We've always felt it cheapens our personal relationship to the music in so many ways. But people gotta live somehow. And for the above dudes, it’s as close as they’re getting to a day job. (On a personal note, years ago we righteously waved our rebel flag, but now our broke ass would bite the bullet and let some bullshit light beer have one of our tunes for $20K, in a heartbeat. That’s a year of rent and bills right there.)
It’s a just a sad fact of life and music these days.
