License, Library or Original Score?: While radio and video hits keep coming, composers are challenged with selling clients on original scores

Post, March, 2002 by David John Farinella

For better or for worse, depending on who you ask, there has been a trend toward licensing music for commercials. This year's Super Bowl commercial extravaganza featured a Cadillac advertisement with a Led Zeppelin music bed. And on any given night, music by Moby, Madonna, Sting and a handful of other artists might pop on spots for a variety of products. This trend has left some music houses scratching their heads in amazement.

There have been some brilliant executions," says Jeff Rosner, composer/owner of Sacred Noise. "Mitsubishi, for one, has been so successful in their approach. That's the upside. The downside is that it's so overwhelming hearing licensed tunes with different products that the products get lost in the shuffle."

Even as clients look toward licensing well-known music for their commercials, music houses are pointing to the simple fact that without original music sometimes the message is missed for the messenger. With no slight intended toward Moby, whose brilliant work has become one of the hottest advertising musical acquisitions out there these days, one has to wonder how many products can feature similar tracks. Sure a vintage music track -- think Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Steve Miller Band -- recalls great memories for viewers, but will it register when the customer is shopping?

L.A. Post Music's owner Tom Borton takes another angle when he says, "The downside of licensed music, unless you're talking about a famous old tune, would be because you will hear those tracks possibly on another person's commercial. Then all of a sudden it's, 'What's unique about this?' It looks like those people don't have their own unique vision, there's nothing very special about that company, because they're doing the same thing you've heard a thousand times. This is opposed to when you put your heart and soul into it, it really represents an artistic and creative and business philosophy."

Original music, according to many of the composers Post spoke to for this month's look at the competition between licensing music and creating original scores, has the added benefit of being memorable as well as unique. And, for the cost conscious, original music is more affordable by a long shot One composer estimates that licensed tracks can cost from a mere $1,000 for an unknown band that is looking for television exposure to the $8 to 10 million mark that it would cost for an established piece of music. On the other hand, original music can be acquired for $10,000 to $50,000 per spot, depending on the sophistication of the production.

That said, composer Jeff Koz of Hum Music Sound Design believes the decision is up to the client. "If your objective as an advertiser is to have something super high profile and recognizable, which means a piece of music that people are going to recognize, that's going to cost you a lot of money. But if an advertiser is saying, 'I'm willing to go for an unknown, but I just like the feeling it creates with my picture, then that's going to be much more affordable.' With original music, if they say it's got to be John Williams and the London Philharmonic, that's going to be expensive. If it's a solo piano with a synth string patch, that's a different level."

YESSIAN MUSIC TAKES THE FRESH APPROACH

Creating their own line of music available for license is one of the ways the staff composers at Detroit's Yessian Music (www.yessianmusic.com) are competing against licensed music, explains Brian Yessian. It's Glow CD is filled with the Yessian composers creating songs, rather than commercial music. "We let them go," Yessian says. "We used talent in New York, Nashville, Chicago, Detroit and LA and what we came up with is about 15 tracks on the CD. Basically we've made these songs available for licensing or buyout, so we can get into that game -- instead of people going to license a popular band's music. That's one of the ways that we've taken to the field to combat the whole licensing popular music thing."

The Yessian team has also added a music search site to its Web site to help agencies while they are conceptualizing a spot. "Oftentimes agencies will go to a piece of popular music that's out there and throw that against their concept," he explains. "A lot of the time the client will fall in love with the piece of music and they end up wanting to license [it], where it was never really planned that way from the get go. So, by the time we come into the picture, if they still want to go with original music, they're wanting us to get as close as possible to that piece of music without any legal issues happening." That's not the easiest thing to do and that's where the music -- which often comes from demos on other projects -- on the Yessian Web site comes in handy. There are currently over 1,000 tracks available for search.

Yessian believes clients should pick original over licensed for unique brand identity. "When you hear popular music on commercials, sometimes it can work really great. I can't deny that, but I think when you employ a piece of original music on a spot it makes that spot unique," he says. "I think people are more interested in being original instead of copying each other all the time. Moby has done a great job of getting his name out on a lot of commercials and sometimes it gets a little confusing, because his music will be used on two or three different products. I'm really not associating it with any particular brand, because it gets used so much." Original music, he adds, that takes a fresh approach is more memorable. "I think it brings that brand to life, because ultimately when you look at the entire spot music is pretty much half of it -- because you see it and hear it. Obviously, music is an integral part of the entire process."