The Darkness Returns! For what reasons?

Okay, I will admit another dirty secret. Back in 2004 I got into "The Darkness". Some students on my practicum were listening to them on the bus to a music festival and I thought should check them out.  At that time their video for "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" was on pretty heavy rotation. Amazing that only 8 years ago Much Music actually played music videos on a regular basis. Anyway, bought the CD and enjoyed about 75% of the album, best as could be expected from a campy, over the top, hair/metal/rock band.  It is called "Permission to Land",  check it out for some fun. 

A year or so later they released another album,"One Way Ticket",  that was rubbish, way over produced.  Then you didn't really hear much from them. I believe there was some sort of solo album after that but I don't know. It appeared that after the colossal success of their fist disc, they seemed to just drop off the face of the music scene.

Well, last week this came across the pages at Alan Cross's website:

Needless to say I was a little excited. Come on now, you know you like campy over the top falsetto hair/rock! 

As I said I was a bit excited, then I saw this add from Super Bowl Sunday:

Interesting timing isn't it?

So Justin Hawkins and company are just cashing in. With a Super Bowl commercial featuring their biggest song, AND Justin himself must equal a big payday and a fairly large level of exposure of their music. Right off the bat I was screaming sell out!  

Now, not that I don't totally agree with selling out to some extent, you have to eat right? I remember a conversation two guitar players were having in our jazz theory class about this very subject. The one who had lofty ideas of art and the genius of playing guitar was adamant that he would never sell out (I think he even included the obligatory "Man!" at the end of his statement for added effect). The other guy just responded with "Hey, if someone paid me stupid money to play the polka, I'd play the polka!"  

Great album - get it!

Once my knee-jerk reaction faded I thought a bit more about this, and in the end, it actually seems like a good business move.  The music industry has changed big time since 2004. Even in the last two years that most effective method of marketing for a band has changed.   Licensing songs for advertising can be a lucrative source of revenue for a band. The first instance of this that I can remember in my musical journey was noticing that quite a few songs from Moby's "Play" album were being used in car and shoe ads. At the time he took a lot of flak for this. This was actually one of the first few albums to have EVERY TRACK licensed. Moby came out in defence of this decision and explained that it was one of the only ways he could get the music heard. Long story short, the album was a huge success for him, with a major part of that success due to his decision license the tunes. Take a listen to "Porcelain".  Great track! Take the time to check it out.  

Well, regardless what you think about selling out, a band has got to eat, and sometimes doing commercials and lending music to films can help them continue to exist as artists. Agree or disagree, musicians have to find ways to promote their tunes while not giving them away for free. I have to say, I agree with licensing songs, provided it is the original artist that is doing this, not just someone or some company that owns the rights to the songs (any old adds with Beatles music was not making a profit for Ringo and the boys, it was lining Michael Jackson's pockets, he owned most of the rights to their songs). 

So I say, welcome back The Darkness, I am looking forward to the zaniness that will ensue!

Cheers!