Brad Paisley

[IKnowALittle]

Now, I'm not a huge sports fan anymore, but I still like football.
So, I was watching this afternoon, and one of the 3 million commercials was Brad Paisley for Nationwide.
Man, I upchucked in my mouth ... dude, u r a star, for good reason. this just diminishes you.
Still ... guitar was pretty tasty.

 

[toothace]

That dude can play!

 

[AP515]

Folks don't rip Gronkowski or LeBron, or Chris Paul as the dad and DeAndre as the mom in a family with a grandpa hall of famer, when they do a commercial for some company willing to pay their fee. Why should musicians be any different?

 

[shinksma]

Folks don't rip Gronkowski or LeBron, or Chris Paul as the dad and DeAndre as the mom in a family with a grandpa hall of famer, when they do a commercial for some company willing to pay their fee. Why should musicians be any different?

I can see both sides.

On the one hand, artists are often painted with the broad brush of "I do it for the sake of art only", and any compromise, even licensing old material, is sacrilege.

On the other hand, artists need to pay the bills, or just want extra income, just like athletes.

Typical stereotypes:

• If an artist writes a song for a commercial, but does not appear in the commercial, they are called out for lowering their standards as a commercial work for hire.
• If an artist appears in a commercial covering an old song, they are sell outs.
• If an artists writes new material for a commercial they appear in (like Mr. Paisley and Nationwide) they are vanity-driven sell outs.

I don't know if I have an overall "general" opinion. An artist I greatly respect made some extra money early in his career doing commercial jingle music, which if he had not done might have risked his ability to follow his career.

I do think that most celebrities appearing in ads are overpaid, and do not make me want to purchase the product or service any more or less than if some random "actor" had played the role.

I know I did not buy a signature guitar endorsed and played by that no-longer-struggling artist, even though it was a pretty good guitar, because it didn't do anything special for me, and adding his name to what was essentially an existing model just pumped up the price, not the value.

Lewis Hamilton (Formula 1) endorses a certain brand of luxury watch (I don't even remember what, TBH), and his driving glove has an oversized image of the watch printed on his wrist. He drives a racing car for a living, so his choice of luxury seems like an odd selling point for me. And frankly, if he came on TV to tell me how great the new Mercedes mark 456123 class zz-top was to drive and handles so smoothly, and I should buy one as my next car, I still wouldn't really be all that stirred, even though in theory at least I would have that in common with him - I also drive a car, and his opinion of a well-handling car might be valuable. But maybe I'm not the kind of person those ads and endorsements are trying to reach.

 

[IKnowALittle]

Folks don't rip Gronkowski or LeBron, or Chris Paul as the dad and DeAndre as the mom in a family with a grandpa hall of famer, when they do a commercial for some company willing to pay their fee. Why should musicians be any different?

Mr. Brad is free to do whatever he likes, as I am free to have an opinion about it. I'm 100% certain that he could care less what some random Canadian thinks.
Still, I wish he had done something a little more subtle or humourous (like Manning).
Honestly, does anyone really believe that Brad Paisley gives a rat's ass about Nationwide insurance and their customers ... puleeze!!!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

It's Brad Paisley.. He's not like an Ian MacKaye or Jello Biafra type musician that's actively fighting the establishment.

 

[LJD]

As someone who writes music for advertisements... if I ever reached a place of significant success (with my personal music) I would never license my music/art for advertising. I really lose respect for those who do it. I would however be open to be hired to write something original for the ad. I witnessed this first hand at my work about 10 years ago. Long John Silver's wanted to use Weezer's "Island in the Sun" for a spot but Rivers Cuomo said no. So, they hired Brian Bell (Weezer's main guitarist) to write a legal rip-off of their own song. He came to our studio and worked for a couple days at his own pace (which was far slower and more expensive than what the ad game is used to). It was eye opening for me. I can respect doing it that way. I recall Henry Rollins making a video post some years back defending struggling former punk and indie bands licensing their music for advertising and I thought it was horse sh*t. I felt like 20 year old Rollins would have kicked his older self in the nuts for talking like that.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

I recall Henry Rollins making a video post some years back defending struggling former punk and indie bands licensing their music for advertising and I thought it was horse sh*t. I felt like 20 year old Rollins would have kicked his older self in the nuts for talking like that.

As a forty-something punk (yeah, I still consider myself that) I agree with you, which is partially why I'm less of a fan of his.

The whole lawsuit with the other members of Dead Kennedy's tryin' to sue Jello over the Levi's thing was ridiculous too. Almost as ridiculous as using a song about Cambodian genocide to sell f@ckin' blue jeans.

Having said that, it's all about context. I've licensed some original music to be used in commercials but, it was a skate-rock band and the companies were using it to promote skateboarding, and I had zero problem making that decision.

 

[Goldtop]

I'm a big fan of Brad Paisley. He's amazing in my book. Plus, by all accounts, he a good, decent guy. That matters a lot to me.

Here's my take on him appearing in an advertisement for an insurance company:

First of all, he's just noodling around on a guitar. It's not a finished song that someone has come to know and love, or one that has touched and/or even changed lives.

Secondly, as a professional touring musician-songwriter-performer-entertainer working at the level he does, his overhead must be staggering. Consider the crews, musicians, techs and roadies, misc. staff, misc. equipment, rolling stock, fuel and maintenance costs, rental fees, venue expenses, permits, taxes, etc. he is responsible for every single day. Not to mention insurance costs. So if a company (in this case an insurance company) approaches him and offers to cover X amount of his daily nut in exchange for a simple advertisement or two, it might be a deal too good to pass up in his eyes. He can take no more than a day or two out of his busy schedule and cover a huge part of his operating costs for months.

The same sort of thing has been happening for many, many years in the form of tour sponsorships, product endorsements, magazine ad campaigns, etc..

It's only my opinion, but I have more respect for someone doing what Brad's doing than I have for an artist licensing a song for a beer commercial or a theme for a tv show simply for the sake of adding to their bank accounts. Or one who endorses XYZ brand of guitars yet only plays one in each show for the opening number then ditches it in favor of the same old _ _ _ _ _ _ _ he's used forever.

Goldtop Lloyd