So, I heard Today by the Smashing Pumpkins in a Visa commercial last night. Well, yuck.
This reminds me of this article (originally via Kottke) that mentions the difficulty the environmentally challenged, oil guzzling Hummer has in pilfering music from even obscure, broke, and defunct bands for their commercials.
Do musicians even get accused of selling out anymore? It seems so pervasive that most people, myself included, don’t judge musicians for this anymore or at least as harshly. Are we just used to someone always trying to sell us something, are people more shrewd at parsing the creative from commerce, or is it a special recession pass? I don’t know. I guess for me it really depends on the context and what exactly it is that they’re selling.
I liked the Smashing Pumpkins; maybe that is why I found this distasteful. They’ve made some good music. They were really part of a soundtrack of a time in music and it just makes me nostalgic for those weird high school-college days.
Ultimately, there is just a lameness to this. Stating you won’t sell out, then selling out – to Visa – seems accurately sellouty, or what is the word Billy…is it slutty.
