Radio On the TV

If you’re like me, and for your sake lets hope you're not, but if you are you’ve noticed something lately: terrestrial radio is all but totally irrelevant. Now, honestly you don’t have to be anything like me to notice this, so if you have don’t worry, we’re probably nothing alike. It really doesn’t take much to notice that there are a rather exorbitant number of artists doing considerably well for themselves without the aid of radio. As a matter of fact lately it seems fans are more and more likely to cry “sell out” when they hear their favorite band on an FM station.

Of course the concept of underground artists surviving without the aid of radio play is certainly not something new. The Grateful Dead managed to sell out shows on the smell of patchouli oil alone. Lately however, it seems like the number of artists on the radio are vastly out numbered by the artists who are not being played on any FM frequency (excluding college radio, of course) and still having no problem with ticket sales. A lot of this is due in no small part to the internet, but for many artists there is another factor entirely and that is commercials.

It used to be that if your favorite band were suddenly being played on the radio you got excited and called your friends to tell them to tune in and listen. However, the moment you heard them in a diaper commercial you threw your albums away and started listening to Motorhead. This is what the American Medical Association has come to call the Motorhead syndrome. Apparently when the human brain experiences a loss of faith in any band it goes in to a fight-or-flight type of response where by one’s subconscious suddenly understands that the only band that can be trusted to never sell a song for promotional use is Motorhead. The mind thus assumes that Motorhead will never betray their fans, and therefore the only logically safe option is to listen to “Ace of Spades” at maximum volume.

However a strange phenomenon has occurred in the past few years. Suddenly artists are turning to commercial advertising as an outlet for their music and without a massive surge in Motorhead album sales. It seems that commercials are the new radio. My Morning Jacket can be used to sell beer and we don’t immediately think “hey, My Morning Jacket wants me to drink MGD.” We’re seeing it in the most random of artists as well from Mates of State to Andrew Bird to the infamous rewording of an Of Montreal song for the “lets go Outback tonight” campaign.

What’s so interesting about all of this is not so much that so many underground and Indie Rock artists are turning to commercials as an outlet for their music as the fact that we seem to be ok with it. There certainly seems to be a difference between The Arcade Fire in an NFL commercial and the Counting Crows selling soft drinks. Where we once used to see it as endorsement we also seem to understand that our favorite bands are just trying to make it.

I honestly am not really sure what this says about us. Should we be upset about this? It seems to me that either way the revolution is well over and marketing has won. All I know is I suddenly have a strong urge to listen to Motorhead.