This is probably the worst thing that could happen to a musician or a band. Your dream has come true and your band is picking up speed. You get a record deal. Music videos are made. And then you get the offer to have one of your songs featured in a commercial. Depending on who the commercial is for, the money could be quite enticing. However, this is a double-edged sword. If your song is featured in a commercial, it will reach a much wider audience and get you more listeners, more ticket-buyers. But the song will also forever (for at least for a while) be associated with the product or company. And for some reason, this really affects me. I hate hearing bands I like in commercials. It ruins it for me. And I feel like it ruins the band as well.
This song by Freelance Whales was recently featured in a Starbucks commercial. Sure, the band now has a lot more fans, but at what cost? They're the Starbucks band. They're music will be associated with terrible corporate nonsense. Starbucks uses the song to give itself some authenticity, a trait held sacred by the indie music community and completely misunderstood by corporations. Hell, I still think about Volkswagon every time I listen to "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake and that commercial came out about ten years ago.
I know some music communities feel my pain for for a different reason. When the first trailer for the film Sucker Punch came out, it featured "Panic Switch" by Silversun Pickups which was relatively unknown at the time. In the comments section for the YouTube video of the trailer, there are a lot of responses from users flaming others for liking song just because of the trailer. These devout fans believe that enjoying a band requires some kind of rite of passage, either by seeing them in concert, scouring the internet for them and happening across them, or some other alternative discovery method.
And it's important to note that these bands aren't corporate shills. Freelance Whales didn't sell out because they're song is in a Starbucks commercial. They deserved to be paid for their work like anyone else but their identity might be in trouble.
