October 29th, 2007
Musical Sellouts
You are sitting at home watching TV when a commercial featuring a rock song that you know catches your attention. “What the f***?,” you think. “How could that artist let their song be used to sell that crap!” But is it really shocking that the artist let their song be used? Is the artist really a sellout? Now you don’t have to wonder because Bill Wyman, formerly of NPR, has developed the Moby Quotient to remove any doubts.
The Moby Quotient is named after the musician Moby who sold every single song from one of his albums, achieving a feat that few musicians are capable of achieving. The formula is explained in detail in the article, but I’ll explain the basics. The most important features are the “sacredness” of the song and the un-rock-and-rollness of the advertiser. So Led Zeppelin selling Cadillacs is a lot worse than Fallout Boy promoting Circuit City. The next important features are the artist’s underground roots and (to a lesser degree) the artistic reputation of the performer. So The Ramones would be much more of a sellout than Kelly Clarkson. The remaining features of the formula are the wealth of the artist and amount of time since the song came out. Old songs by wealthy artists (Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan) are less of a sell-out than new songs by poor artists (Modest Mouse).
An example is the Iggy Pop song Lust for Life which is used for a cruise line commercial. Iggy Pop, of course, has a reputation as a nonconformist and the song is pretty high on the sacred front. Pop isn’t hugely wealthy but he is doing OK and the song is from the 70′s so that lowers the Moby quotient. The result is a fairly high number in the high-70′s or low-80′s. But beyond Iggy Pop being a sell-out, it is funny that Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines is advertising using a song about heroin addiction. That alone makes me willing to forgive Iggy.
