A few days ago our friends at the L.A. Times blog did some of the only decent coverage we’ve seen of last week’s Billboard/ Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference.
Ubiquitous music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas (“Twilight,” Gossip Girl, Mad Men, The O.C., etc.) spoke on two panels back to back the first day of the conference and the L.A. Times blog quotes Patsavas as saying, “Sometimes the songs that are played [in films and TV shows] are just used as background. I think bands are hoping for the Death Cab [For Cutie] experience.” They go on to suggest this would have been an excellent opportunity for a deeper conversation about the merits of licensing for bands, but we at The Playlist think it would have been an place for someone to bring up the ethics of music supervisors with 360 deals.
For example how about Patsavas’ own Atlantic Records imprint Chop Shop Records, which has signed four artists, according to their website, and seen placement for most of them across the various shows Patsavas music supervises. Additionally the “Twilight” soundtrack, which Patsavas produced, will come out on her imprint label with the Atlantic Records backbone promoting it. Fascinatingly enough this soundtrack features Atlantic band Paramore, who were commissioned to write “Decode” as the film’s lead single in an act of what can only be construed as great corporate synergy. In fact, out of the 12 songs on the soundtrack a solid 6 are directly signed to Warner Music Group labels (the parent company to both Atlantic Records and Chop Shop Records, also the owner of Warner Brothers Records and all their sub labels like Sire, Rykodisc, etc) and a 7th (Iron & Wine) is on Sub Pop which is 49% co-owned by WMG. This had to make at least the master use licenses for each of these tracks pretty affordable (like darn close to zero dollars affordable) since the lion’s share of the profits from this soundtrack will go to WMG CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
It’s no more flagrant than most record labels stacking a soundtrack with their own music than we’ve unfortunately grown accustomed to , but to know the music supervisor for the film, soundtrack and various TV shows has a vested monetary interest in album sales becuase she is releasing it certainly adds a new twist to the equation [ed. this happens all the time, but c’mon, this example aptly demonstrates that this is getting out of hand].
Nevermind the backhanded greediness of the 360 deal – the basic question that the L.A. Times bring up is still a good one: should artists be more careful in how they license their songs and in treating their bands as brands? The answer depends entirely on the band – old guard acts like R.E.M. still refuse to license music to any advertisers but will place their songs in even the most inane of TV shows & films (“Never Been Kissed,” “Bewitched,” CSI, Smallville to name a few) while we think Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, talking to MTV2 Subterranean, hit the nail on the head by saying about music licensing: “Don’t be stupid. People who write zines are not going to give a shit about you when you’re 40 and broke.”
True story, but we say don’t be stupid and let music supervisors who set themselves up as cottage industries take advantage of making money off of you in six different ways.
[ed. also,we know bands need to make a living and licensing is a great way for exposure and dollars, but this crap about inserting your own bands into your own film/tv projects seems questionable at the very least, not to mention entirely uncreative and boring. She’s part of the direct reason why we get a headache writing about music-in-movies. It’s all becomes a commerce issue and rarely about the “magic” (for lack of a better word) of what can make it special and worth dedicating a whole blog to]