A friend of mine subscribes to Entertainment Weekly, which I happened to peruse the other day because I am a magazine (and entertainment) junkie. In there was an article about one of the newest young songbirds tweeting out of the British Isles: Miss Adele.
I didn't memorize the article, I don't have it right before me, and I am not a correspondent for EW, so don't expect a torrent of specifics. One of the things I do remember finding interesting in the article is Adele's pride in the fact that she had joined the ranks of several of her national and regional brothers and sisters in the grammy nominations she - and they - had received in the category of best album.
Duhhhh, I autogloated to myself, as I recalled the playlist I had just finished posting on this very blog, for over the weekend I had played not one, but two songs by the Botticelli-esque vocalist. I had also played two tracks by Duffy, one of her grammy-nominated soul sisters in crime.
But before I could pat myself on the back for playing some really funky, now-grammy-nominated yet underground artist, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was playing a funky, now-grammy-nominated, cleverly exposed artist.
You see Adele - and Duffy - have songs on heavy rotation if you watch or fail to change television commercials. It's something that I started noticing slowly, but now I'm almost embarrassed! I mean Voices of Women airs on RI's largest NON-COMMERCIAL radio station.
Take Adele's song Chasing Pavements - NOT one of my favorites - but let's go with it. If you watched the Lifetime channel leading up to and after Thanksgiving, you probably saw commercials for Flirting with Forty - an essentially white, Heather Locklear-led version of the movie, When Stella Got Her Groove Back. And if you left the room or didn't change it, you would have noticed Adele's song blaring in the back- and foreground of these obnoxious commercials. And these commercials played over and over and over...as if Lifetime was actually sponsoring a telethon for the film and its lead actress.
Duffy too!!! Now, MTV watchers probably got a taste of her in between programming on the channel, and I know I caught her on one of the rare Saturday evenings when I decided to actually care about what SNL was airing. But she's definitely getting more than her share of exposure; you can hear her in 2-3 commercials! I'll have to come back to update this post with the products being advertised, but needless to say - the sounds of this platinum, retro-soul chanteuse is far from underground.
Now that I've rambled on and on, I guess there's a few conclusions with which I walk away and choose to share:
- The game of How to Manage musicians and broadcast music is definitely on. Those pushing for the use of classic rock and motown in commercials may now be directly competing with the management of newer artists and contemporary masters. Look at Santogold and The Neptunes and the sneaker and beer commercials, for instance. Or look at Cat Powers and the diamond commercial that featured her beautiful rendition of a Cat Stevens song - aired regularly prior to the release of her most recent album.
- Does this count as product endorsement, or are commercials just easy to break into for a musician wanting exposure?
- Are there comment lines to call if you want more information about an artist playing in a commercial - or if you think an artist's music should be removed.
- If MTV, The Grammy's, Lifetime TV, and car companies are all playing the same musicians, maybe I need to be a little more conscious of the artists I'm NOT playing. Either everyone should benefit from these opportunities to share their music or we (I) have to be aware of what I can do to support that equity.
On the other hand, from Amy to Corinne to Duffy to Adele - I do love the new British Invasion!!! And I'm not alone.
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