Sellout watch: The Feelies (Of all people)
From the NYT profile of the band, which has reunited for some shows:
[Glenn] Mercer said he had earned more lately from Feelies royalties than he had when the band was active. One Feelies song, “Let’s Go,” turned up in a Volvo commercial.
Wow—”turned up in a Volvo commercial.” Like magic, just as the check Volvo paid the band for the use of the song in the commercial magically “turned up in” Mercer’s bank account.
It’s hard to begrudge the Feelies, the consummate uncommercial band, for making a few bucks, more than fifteen years after their (hardly remunerative) heyday. But if the band sold one of its songs to be used in a car commercial, the story should say so, preferably by using the words “the band sold one of its songs for use in a car commercial.”
Stories about bands reuning should also say something like this: “While the 1980s college-rock world that spawned the band provided it with some priceless cool, it didn’t make the Feelies any money. The band surely has been aware that many other acts from the same broad era have been getting back together and earning paydays on the road many times greater than anything they could have dreamed of at the time of their original work.”
6 Comments so far
Leave a reply
The Feelies are playing 3 shows; this is not a Duran Duran-esque cash grab. Hopefully the shows will lead to more, but to suggest the Feelies are like other 80s bands hitting the road for a payday is off the mark. Likewise, if you have something against this band selling a song for an ad (or undertaking the tour I hope follows these gigs), you should come out and say it instead of splitting hairs over how the NY Times writer chose to refer to it. The writer was being crafty, and anybody with any sense who read the piece knows that songs don’t “magically” appear in ads. Your post, while admitting it’s hard to begrudge the Feelies, begrudges them in the same strange, passive aggressive way a lot of blogs are this week. There’s a difference between selling out and licensing a piece of art you own (or taking your music to the fans who remember how great it was in a live setting). The rules have changed and recording artists can and should do whatever the hell they want to survive. The Feelies’ reunion is as exciting and relevant as any band’s since Mission of Burma’s. I’ll gladly pay for another chance to see and hear them.
This is not the first time the Feelies have cashed in post-9/11. They had a song in that remake of “The Italian Job.” Also, some NBC prime time drama used one of their tunes a couple of years ago. Those middle class dweebs are raking it in.
> This is not the first time the Feelies have cashed in post-9/11. They had a song in that remake of “The Italian Job.” Also, some NBC prime time drama used one of their tunes a couple of years ago. Those middle class dweebs are raking it in.
So is it also a sellout now to allow your song to be used on a soundtrack?
Ugh. I bet they never received a cent from A&M Records. Shit, I think the only way artists like The Feelies ever make any money is years later, after the wolves have all moved on and no one has any hands in their cookie jar…mixed metaphor, I know. The Feelies brought us a lot of us music that we loved, yet they most certainly didn’t get paid. And I am sure they are not raking it in now. So I begrudge them nothing. And the Feelies thing doesn’t seem like a cash grab anyway. Ooh, two shows this week at Maxwell’s? Wow. To me it seems like something for aging hipsters like Jim DeRogatis. And me.
All of which, BTW, are points Bill makes in one sentence (”It’s hard to begrudge the Feelies, the consummate uncommercial band, for making a few bucks, more than fifteen years after their (hardly remunerative) heyday.”)
So I am mostly responding to the “middle class dweebs” commenter. I think that Bill was doing what he always does, critiquing the media. I didn’t feel that he was slamming The Feelies. And I think his critique was right on target. I suspect, though, that the NYT writer was just being lazy, using the cliched turn-of-phrase that is always used in this context. And I almost think the original “turned up” comes from the surprise that we all have when, like, the Lilys are used in a Calvin Klien obsession commercial or when Friday Night Lights uses Big Star’s “September Gurls.” These always surprise ME anyway.
Speaking of sellouts, Warren Ellis started a projected two year run on X-Men this week. Now, anyone who remembers the Ellis of, oh, 6 or 7 years ago might find this fitfully amusing, or really pathetic.
Very low key reunion gigs last week, and if Thurston didn’t talk them up the support slot wouldn’t have been big either.