VH1 show

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

VH1 is running a series of annual Behind the Music's today, and (among 
others) they covered the year 2000, including the role of commercials in 
music promotion.  Pete has said something about this in apparent response to 
complaints (like Kevin's) about "selling out" The Who's catalog.

There are a couple of artists who have used interesting approaches to this.  
Moby was the first one presented.  Apparently he's an old punk rocker, and 
found himself doing this interesting electronic music that no one was 
interested in playing.  No interest from radio, none from VH1, MTV, etc.  So 
his only outlet as musician was from touring and from commercial uses.  So 
he licensed the music for movies and commercials and he says he saw sales 
jump at every commercial release.  Now he's considered a successful artist, 
and he's got enough sales to get videos on VH1.  Moby says you should sell 
out ethically and responsibly.  ;)

The other artist was Sting.  He released a somewhat different album in  
2000, featuring an Arabic singer.  He tried to market the album and a single 
from it and they tanked because they totally failed to fit into any radio or 
TV format.  So he approached Jaguar (the company) and struck a deal to make 
a music video/commercial to promote both products.  The result was sales.

It's become commonplace for artists to do this with movie deals--a video to 
promote both the movie and the music, but it's a little different to produce 
the ad with no movie.  I remember seeing Sting's ad on VH1, but I thought 
Sting had financed it himself--I didn't even see the car.  That's not bad 
for a strategy, huh?  :)


keets