Joel Simon, president of bicoastal JSM Music, believes that the past can be recaptured—and improved. For the recent American Express spot "Beautiful Things," directed by Mark Romanek of bicoastal Anonymous Content, out of Ogilvy & Mather, New York, JSM recorded a new version of a nearly 40-year-old song, "Beautiful Things," from the 1967 film Dr. Doolittle. The tune (with such lyrics as: "The world is full of beautiful things/Butterfly wings, fairy tale kings/And each new day undoubtedly brings/Still more beautiful things") works in counterpoint to the images of not-so-attractive objects that flash across the screen which people have bought with their American Express cards. Angela McCluskey sings the tune in an up-tempo, playful fashion.
"It’s a contradiction," Simon comments. "The song is about these beautiful things that people buy with American Express. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder; some of this stuff is real nasty, really ugly. You don’t want it in your house, but they do."
The commercial and the song have been a big hit, with the singer and American Express both getting repeated requests for the song’s release on CD. Simon relates that there is talk about recording a full-length version of the song to release on its own right. The single would likely come out on Artemis Records. JSM and Artemis teamed up to form Artemis JSM earlier this year. The venture exposes the label’s talent to the ad world, while giving JSM a window into the record industry.
Licensing Drive
Simon reports that about 30 percent of JSM’s business consists of licensing old music, the bulk of which are re-recordings like "Beautiful Things." The company is not alone. In recent years, traditional music companies have more aggressively entered the fray of licensed music, creating alliances with record companies, bringing music supervisors aboard, and/or ramping up their offerings of production music. These include shops such as bicoastal Elias Arts; Duotone Audio Group, New York; Groove Addicts, Los Angeles; and Crushing, New York.
"What you’re seeing is a lot of music houses starting to jump on the licensed music bandwagon," notes Dain Blair, president of Groove Addicts, which has its own library division, Groove Addicts Library Music.
In today’s market, licensing comes in different types and styles. The most well known—and generally most expensive—method is the licensing of pop hits of the past, performed by the original artists. "In those cases, you are licensing usually to get the cachet of the artist or song, and that’s more costly," says Jason Bentley, producer/music supervisor at Machine Head, Venice, Calif.
More common, for cost and aesthetic reasons, are the remakes and rearrangements of old hits. This can be significantly less expensive than buying the original tracks and can be reinterpreted for a contemporary audience.
"You can take an old song and make it new again," says Simon, who points to "Beautiful Things" as a prime example. "It was an old standard, but they didn’t want to use the original version. Creatively, it was more about the lyric, and although it’s recorded in the old school manner, it’s fresh. Angela McCluskey has a unique sound. It all comes down to what the agency wants to do: do they want to license the song because of the lyric or do they want to license the master because of the song and the recording? If you license a Rolling Stones song, do you actually need to have the Rolling Stones sing?"
Sometimes, the choice leads to a hybrid. A prime example of this is the Universal Orlando spot "Surrender," directed by Enda McCallion, out of Form, Los Angeles, for agency davidandgoliath, Los Angeles. Dave Curtin, partner/creative director at Hollywood-based DeepMix Music, which does music supervision and original music, says that the rights for Cheap Trick’s song "Surrender" were secured, but rather than use the song as it was, the company remixed the tune to "give it a more contemporary feel. We got the original masters and added a new drum, new bass and new guitar, but kept a lot of the integrity of the song," he shares. "All the vocals stayed the same but we processed them and gave them a different flavor. You could call it a 2004 version of ‘Surrender.’ "
"A rerecording is an interpretation," says Simon. "You’ve got your music, how can we make it work with the creative demands? Our creative challenge is to reinvent it with the new creative concept that they’ve put forth: ‘How can you take a song from another era and make it valid to a twenty-four-year-old? It’s a very big challenge."
Keeping current with a contemporary audience’s tastes is important in another aspect of licensing: finding new and alternative acts. For Bentley of Machine Head, that part is easier than it sounds, thanks to his second career as a radio disc jockey (he has been a DJ at influential Los Angeles public radio station KCRW for the past 12 years, and at KROCK for eight years). "Club culture, electronica, the dance music explosion—they have certainly influenced the mainstream," he notes.
That esoteric knowledge came in handy for a Mitsubishi campaign via Deutsch/LA called "Journey," directed by Erick Ifergan of bicoastal/international Believe Media. Through a series of quick cuts, the spot depicts phases of a man’s life as seen from the seat of his Mitsubishi—carousing with friends, just married with his bride next to him, driving around with a baby seat in back, and so on. For the music, the agency chose Télépopmusik’s "Just Breathe," an alternative pop song that Bentley had come across in his role as a DJ.
"It really resonated with people and got a Grammy nomination," says Bentley, who adds that the radio is a fertile ground for finding new acts that can be good for spots. "There is no agenda in that sort of music; it is just for the music. We sent the client the initial CD search of [possible titles to license], and they picked ‘Just Breathe’ right away."
Library Sources
Licensing usually comes down to a question of dollars. Clients with tight budgets often can’t afford to buy original music or even original remakes of old hits. "Ad agencies will often call us and say they have no music budget, so although we can’t help them on the custom side, we can often help them on the library side," relates Blair. "A lot of times, they’ll send us a QuickTime [version] of the spot, and we have two music supervisors who put up countless cuts against it and find out what will work and what won’t. Then they fire it back to the client: ‘Here are fifteen choices, what do you think?’ "
Such needs are also finding music houses licensing out original tracks that were not chosen by clients for spots—for use as library music. Curtin says DeepMix’s "commissioned music becomes part of our catalog; [there are] probably in the neighborhood of one hundred tracks."
"Our music never goes to waste," says Simon of JSM. "It can be utilized as licensed music for other clients or it can be used as a temp track, after which we add on or delete or make more appropriate for a particular spot."
Those reuses pale beside the really big libraries, however, such as Groove Addicts. Although it produces original music for commercials, the company counts among its many divisions a library of 600 CDs with 25,000 titles, distributed in 32 countries. The house employs seven full-time staffers to handle requests.
"Interest in our library—and library music in general—is growing," observes Blair of the mostly orchestral compositions. "There are broadcasters and cable channels that all need music. They can’t always afford to come to the custom division, but they still need quality. Even Fortune 500 companies have their own in-house audio/visual departments that have to put together sales promotional videos. They have to use library music."
Music from the Groove Addicts library has recently been licensed for an infomercial for the Lateral Thigh Trainer and several episodes of CBS’ CSI: Miami and ABC’s Extreme Makeover. Plus, there have been trailer campaigns for Catwoman, Shrek 2 and The Chronicles of Riddick, among many others. Recent spots include Sizzler Steak & Shrimp, Coors Brewing Com-pany, Busch Gardens and Kraft Easy Mac.
Some are not happy with the licensing trend—particularly regarding the use of old tunes to promote new products. Nicole Dionne, creative director at Primal Scream, Los Angeles, is associated with Rubberband Music, a Los Angeles-based company that licenses music primarily for films and episodic television shows. Although she acknowledges there are uses for licensed compositions in spots, she opines, "For companies to brand with music, they need to go with something original. I support original music. I think it can be more powerful for branding than licensing."
"There’s only so much you can do with licensed music," agrees Bentley. "I am looking to license less and do more original music. I love being the nice guy music supervisor, but at the end of day when these things go on to get a Grammy, I think, ‘I’m glad I placed their songs, but what about me?’ I much prefer being able to create and produce and be in that position. It’s more rewarding."
Nonetheless, others believe that licensing is here to stay and that it can actually create profit-making synergies. Simon, for one, is excited about the possibilities.
"If the client pays for a new arrangement of an old tune like ‘Beautiful Things,’ they can earn additional money and value through CD releases, which reinforce the original ad," he remarks. "There is a viable revenue stream that the agencies and the client can be participating in. The only thing that has legs beyond the spot is the music. We are the new record business and the reality is I’m reinforcing the brand that called the party. Music doesn’t have to just be an expense, it can be a revenue stream."
