Notable and Quotable

"Put simply, the current Marxist case is as follows: because the production of culture is subject to the laws of the capitalist economy, cultural products are degraded into commodities to make as much profit as possible on the market. The exchange value of those products is therefore essential for the producers, leading to a neglect of quality. The capitalist market economy is only interested in the production of surplus value and as such is indifferent to the specific characteristics of the goods: caring only that they are sold and consumed. Mass culture is the extreme embodiment of the subjection of culture to the economy; its most important characteristic is that it provides profit for the production.
But this is a one-sided presentation of the case. Marx himself stated that "a commodity only has exchange value in so far as it is at the same time a use-value, i.e. as an object of consumption, it ceases to have an exchange value if it ceases to have a use-value." In other words, one cannot succeed in selling a commodity if it does not have a certain usefulness. And it is here that the contradictory character of the capitalist mode of production lies. From the standpoint of production the product only features as a commodity, but from the standpoint of consumption the same product features as a use-value."
- Ien Ang (1985: 18) on the recent rethinking of cultural consumption in Marxist theory (quoted in Goodwin, 1992: 43-44)

Notable and Quotable

"I don't think there are any record companies now in the real sense of the word. We're all in the fashion business. You used to be able to sell records purely on music and musicianship. Now, it's packaging, media, television and video."
- Island Records founder Chris Blackwell (quoted in Goodwin, 1992: 26-27) (quoted in Garfield, 1986: 244).

Notable and Quotable

"When I've seen non-music lawyers look at music contracts they don't know what they're doing....There are now an increasing number of ways of exploiting an artist's work. Twenty years ago they didn't have videos, cable TV, satellite, pop songs used in adverts, jingle-writing, compact discs, cassettes, the 12-inch market, merchandising, and they didn't have TV advertising to sell records. The contracts have become more complicated because the whole industry has become more complicated, and you want to make sure that your client gets the benefit of it all."
- Music industry lawyer Alexis Grower (quoted in Goodwin, 1992: 26) (quoted in Garfield, 1986: 255-56).

All You Need is To Consume

According to Wikipedia, on June 25th, 1967, 400 million people worldwide tuned into Our World, the first live, international satellite production. For this broadcast, at the height of the Vietnam War, the Beatles chose to perform their soon-to-be hit song, "All You Need is Love" which quickly became an anti-war anthem.

Today, however, the political message in "All You Need is Love" seem to have become diluted, if not completely erased. Indeed, the song has proven to be perfect for television advertising. All a sponsor need to do is fill in the blanks: "All You Need is Diapers" or "All You Need is a Credit Card". A song that was once rife with political and social commentary, in other words, seems to have been transformed into a product-pushing jingle.

Take, for instance, this 2008 Luvs diaper advertisement which privileges the most innocent reading of a rather complicated song.





Or, perhaps, examine this advertisement for the Chase Rewards Card in which "All You Need is Love" becomes "All You Need is To Consume."




Of course, many fans would argue that using a song by the Beatles to further capitalistic consumption goes against the very nature of the ethics of the group. However, it is important to remember that this issue of authenticity is multi-faceted and extremely complicated. An apartment in the Dakota, after all, is rather extravagent for a man that supposedly shunned commercialism.

Indeed, the Beatles have lent themselves and their image to advertising since the very beginning of their careers. Consider this 1964 Marlboro Cigarettes commercial.



So, you see, the nature of the usage of Beatles music in advertising is not as one-sided an examination as it might first appear.

Notable and Quotable

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It's a really stupid thing to want to do."
- Elvis Costello, Musician, (February 1987: 56)

A brief glance at some television advertisements

For the next couple of posts, I'm going to concentrate on providing you with some pointed examples of the use of Beatles music in television advertising. These various ads express different conceptions of the Beatles. In some ads, for example, the Beatles are invokes as purveyors of revolution while in others, the band is used to privilege a message of togetherness and peace and, in others, they are used to instill nostalgia in aging consumers. Of course, it goes without saying that these conceptions can and do overlap in several of these ads.

The first one I'd like to show you is the first, and perhaps the most famous, example of Beatles music being used in a television commercial.

In 1987, two years after Michael Jackson purchased the Beatles' catalog, Nike released an advertisement that "Revolution" as its soundtrack. It is important to note that, at this point in time, Beatles music still had the capacity to carry political messages. While, today, most ads that make use of Beatles music tend to privilege the Beatles' message of love and togetherness, this particular Nike advertisement does not.

Nike, in using "Revolution", claims that its product would somehow allow its consumers to engage in rebellion. Indeed, the people being hailed in this advertisement is a dominant middle class made up of the baby boomers that, at the time, were approaching their late 30s and early 40s. The advertisement suggests, then, that buying a pair of Nike sneakers is somehow consistent with the ideals of their 1960s countercultural youth.