Anyone who's given some thought to the question of popular musicians licensing their music to advertising should read
this fascinating Q&A with Bethany Klein, the Philadelphia-born media industries lecturer at the University of Leeds whose book,
As Heard on TV: Popular Music in Advertising, comes out in April. Klein delves into the examples of Moby's
Play and Nick Drake's "Pink Moon." I have one minor quibble, though. Klein's statement that, "Historically, if you look at the terms of constructed authenticity in popular music, you’ll find that Moby gets out of certain aspects of it because it is electronic music; it’s not rock ’n’ roll. It doesn’t have the same stakes in the art-vs.-commerce debate that rock ’n’ roll might," overlooks the fact that dance-music aficionados tend to define "authenticity" in terms every bit as stringent as rock fans—maybe more so, since dance fans tend to be, as a relatively tiny subculture, more protective of their music.
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