(By Benn Ray, The Mobtown Shank, 6/7/2012)
When ad agency DDB was contracted by Volkswagen to to create a new commercial, conceptually, the ad was built around Beach House’s song, “Take Care”.
After all, what’s the big deal? Indie bands selling their music to commercial producers is now part of the indie business model.
The music biz ain’t what it used to be, there’s no MTV or radio to promote music. So fiscally, music revenue is dependent upon unit sales (which are down in the era of the download), touring, merchandising, and soundtracking the sales of other products – aka selling your music to ad agencies.
Some bands, like Matt & Kim, embrace this so much, it becomes hard to think of the music as anything more than a soundtrack for advertising – music for product sales.
But still, few fans these days cry “sell out”, as if they understand the sad desperation it must take for any band with any level of integrity to sell their music to ad agencies.
But DDB ran into a problem when Beach House, citing an inconsistent aesthetic, declined to sell them song, despite the agency’s repeated attempts to get the band on board. Beach House is not taking an entirely anti-commercial principled stand against selling out here, they have sold their songs to commercials before. The band simply did not want their song to be used in this commercial, period.
Continue reading “Did VW Just Swipe Beach House’s Sound For A Commercial?” at The Mobtown Shank.
