Selling Out

In my Music Business class, we were assigned to work on an advertising pitch for Panasonic. Our job was to pick music for a commercial and edit it together with the sound effects and voice over. My group had 3 submissions and my pitch was chosen as the strongest. Hooray for me.

I chose "No One Does It Like You" by Department of Eagles.

Here's the clip:

I don't know how I feel about this assignment. I know that whenever I see a commercial with music I know and like in it, I get angry. On one hand, I know that musicians need to make a living and gain exposure, but at the same time, it's just another selling technique where artistic merit and musicianship are set aside in order to sell a product.

Perhaps I'm just angry because then after an artist gets really popular after successful commercials (ex. Feist, CSS, M.I.A) then their concerts are packed with annoying teenagers that I want to slap in the face. Or perhaps my 2+ years of past retail experience has something to do with it. Well, the selling part anyway.

What I do know for sure is that music licensing is a sensitive subject.