Never Too Soon to Sell Out ~ by Dennis Green

The popularity cycle is the shortest it has ever been.

Pop culture used to live according to "The Five Stages of Life As An Actor," credited to Hugh O’Brian.

(1) “Who is Hugh O’Brian?”
(2) “Get me Hugh O’Brian!”
(3) “Get me a Hugh O’Brian type.”
(4) “Get me a young Hugh O’Brian.”
(5) “Who is Hugh O’Brian?”

Trust me, he was a big deal at one time.

Not that long ago, this progression played out over a number of years. But the kind of rapid rise and fall that we used to associate just with One-Hit-Wonders or Flavor-Of-The-Month teen idols now seems to be the rule for everything in entertainment.

If a movie doesn't debut at #1 the first weekend of the release, it's a disappointment. An author I know recently blogged to his fans that the most important thing they could do to help his new book was to buy it on Amazon the day of release.

“First week sales,” he said, “are the only ones that count.”

And don’t even get me started on technology, where it is perfectly OK for an Apple or Google to quit supporting a phone that is less than two years old.

It’s also happening in in pop music. I’m not necessarily talking about chart life. I haven’t researched average life span of a pop hit, although I bet it’s a good deal shorter than in the past. No, it’s the licensing of current songs for commercials.

Remember when letting a song be used in advertising was the worst kind of selling out, or the final refuge of a has-been who needed the money? Today, songs pop up in ads while they’re still on the radio as a current hit.

It also used to be that only a giant company could afford to buy the rights to a pop song. But Hy-Vee, a mid-sized Midwestern grocery chain, recently licensed Sia's "Unstoppable." No idea what they paid but I'll bet it was modest compared to what Chevrolet paid for "Like a Rock," even in 1991 dollars.

And even stranger, it’s now not uncommon to sell commercial rights to more than one company at the same time. A couple years ago, you could hear Phillip Phillips' "Home," in back to back commercials for totally different products. I can only assume that the company that only bought the instrumental "hook" paid a lower price.

Originally, the reason for a company to license a song was to connect a product with the good feelings we associate with a favorite tune. But now it can also be the other way around.

Sofi Tukker's "Best Friend" was featured last year a commercial for the iPhone X. The YouTube video was viewed 8 million times in just 24 hours after Apple's September launch event.

And that's not even an Apple Watch on her arm.

I guess it's now the musicians that seek the benefit by connecting to a much-loved product.

But on the up side, it used to take me months to get well and truly sick of a song. Now I can do it in about twenty days.