Selling Out or Making A Living?

Being a talented musician in today’s music industry is not always enough to pay the bills. In addition to licensing music for commercials and movies, many artists have been signing up for sponsored deals.  The most recent story I have come across is Strokes’ frontman, Julian Casablancas, signing on with Azzaro, a French perfume company. He wrote a new song for the advertisement and is also featured in the clip. The commercial for Azzaro’s new perfume Decibel can be seen below or here.

Azzaro ‘Decibel’ Ad

Does this count as selling out in today’s music industry?

If you’ll remember back in 2000 Sting released a new single, “Desert Rose,” which radio stations refused to play, claiming listeners weren’t interested. Sting managed to get his song on a Jaguar advertisement, which regularly ran on TV. Soon people were demanding to hear the song and the radio stations had to give into Sting.

It worked for Sting and many other musicians soon followed suit helping them gain greater exposure. Casablancas’ song, “I Love the Night,” from the clip is catchy and honestly I would like to hear more of it, so hopefully this technique will work for him.

I am undecided on whether I consider this selling out or not. If this was an advertisement that featured a song I already knew and would constantly see ran on TV, I may lean more towards Casablancas selling out. However, this is a brand-new song, written especially for Azzaro’s campaign and will be aired in Europe.

I realize with digital age the music industry has taken a hit and artists need other avenues to earn a living. I just hope that they make smart business decisions and do not lose site of what is important to them, which should be the music.

Go to Spinner for more information on Julian Casablanca’s new Azzaro campaign.
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Sources:
http://www.spinner.com/2011/09/01/strokes-julian-casablancas-perfume-ad/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/26/sunday/main1346174.shtml