Ask a music scene micro celebrity

[electrical]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you think about the commercialization or "selling out" done by bands in the indie scene, such as licensing songs for movies, TV shows, and corporate commercials?

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a pretty big topic.

A band that willingly associates itself with some commercial enterprise is attaching itself forever to that business and everything that business does. If a band abdicates that decision to a third party, then the band is admitting that its music doesn't mean enough as art to be protected from such associations.

There is also a distinction to be made between music made for its own sake (say for records) and music made for hire for commercial use, which seems like a completely different kind of music to me. Companies choose to use the first kind of music (let's call it "real" music) because the band, the music and the audience have cultural significance that the advertiser wants to co-opt and attach to a product or movie or whatever.

There are very few circumstances where using the first kind of music (let's call it real music) as a cultural lubricant for commercial intercourse doesn't creep me out a little bit, and I tend to think less of people who sell out their art, their reputations and their audience this way.