A couple of weeks ago I was wandering around my house with the TV on (I like the background noise — it’s a weird psychological thing) and my ears perked up when a commercial for AT&T came on. There were some familiar, jubilant boy/girl vocals shouting out a spirited tune and they were backed by drums and organ. It was none other than Mates of State performing For the Actor for AT&T Wireless.

The song is one of the best off their most recent album, Bring It Back. Download the mp3 here (at the Web site for the guy who uploaded the YouTube clip).

A lot of people get their knickers in a twist about musicians selling their songs for commercials. Personally, I’m all for it (as you can see by this essay I wrote as a lad of 23). I don’t need my artists to take a vow of poverty for me to take them seriously, so if Mates of State are able to buy some diapers and vintage instruments because they took a day off to shill for a corporation, who am I to judge? As long as they just use the money to keep doing what they’re doing, it sounds like a win-win.

Some artists aren’t keen on the practice. The Go! Team licensed their song Huddle Formation to Honda, but did so kicking and screaming. Said Team captain Ian Parton at the time: “I’m not worried about fucking people off, but the trouble is that for the second album we need a publishing company to clear the samples (which is what a publishing company does) before it gets released to avoid the mistake of the first album. It would be a serious handicap to have an album full of uncleared samples. Basically this ad was a concession so that there would be someone to clear the samples.”

Take a look at the spot below.

Of course, I wouldn’t necessarily advocate selling music to dubious causes. The Thermals have famously turned down the people at Hummer who wanted to use one of their songs in a commercial. And God bless the people who can stick to their guns — I don’t know if I would have that much restraint with that kind of money being dangled in front of my face.

Thoughts?

I’m going to start taking vitamins. And then I’ll beat you all up!

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