As Heard on TV: A Critical Cultural Analysis of Popular Music in Advertising

Download or read book As Heard on TV: A Critical Cultural Analysis of Popular Music in Advertising written by Bethany Klein and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years it has become increasingly common to hear popular music outside of the expected and traditional vehicles of radio and personal stereos. In the realm of marketing, and particularly with television commercials, popular music has become ubiquitous. The turn to advertising is partly a reaction to dilemmas currently being confronted by the radio and music industries, yet the advertising industry comes with its own set of parameters for recording artists. The continuing debate about the use of popular music in advertising is evidence that the commercialization of the popular arts comes inbuilt not only with advantages but also with strain. Among the issues relevant to song licensing for commercials are the relationship between authorship and ownership in popular music, the artistic legitimization of advertising, transformations in the radio and music industries, the role of music in branding, and the restructuring of texts that results from commercial placements of popular music. Through a close investigation of six emblematic case studies, this dissertation traces the continuities and unpacks the complexities of this increasingly common marketing practice of licensing music to advertising. The use of popular music in advertising is one example of a larger debate about the seemingly appropriate role of commercial objectives in the production of culture and, as such, provides a lens through which a wide range of practices that have flourished as a result of hypercommercialism can be understood. This dissertation addresses what the role of advertising means for popular music culture, weighing the celebrated benefits of corporate support against the negative implications of erasing an already fluid line between cultural and commercial goals.