There are quite a few perverse products in which music is used beyond the film and TV world and here's a few of my licensing use roundups:

REAL INDUSTRIAL MUSIC!

Way back in the days of yore licensing preexisting music was rare and jingle writers abounded. Radio station WFMU offers a compilation of the finest industrial ditties written for the likes of Ford, Exxon and 7-11. They all rock, although Clark Equipment's Hooray For Human Engineering is a jingle writing feat in and of itself, if only for fitting the title into a melody.

While I have a personal connection to American Standard's Rosemary Clooney-esque My Bathroom Is A Private Kind of Place, there are others to which one might find some very special meaning or other. Case in point, one wonders why the dubiously named likes of Squibb Pharmaceuticals isn't still thriving to this day with a jingle such as this. Needless to say none of these songs will probably find their way on to Gray's Anatomy, but it does lend another dimension to the meaning of "selling out".

MUSIC GAMES WITHOUT MUSIC!

Next up, a lesson in how to create a music product without licensing any music. Hasbro releases the Music Edition of a game called Catch Phrase, in which participants must name a song title in response to a clue while being distracted by a repeating piece of very painful royalty free library music.

Clues include US Dummy (American Idiot), Brought Together Again (Reunited) and other ambiguously random hints and I am immediately surprised into thinking that the game is vaguely hip. Example: 123 and... Well, Go! by Tones On Tail, of course. Oh. No, wrong. Okay, Again and Again. Duh, Over and Over from Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. Nope. One more try: Not Going and Not Dead. Screw it, how about Bauhaus's Bela Lugosi's Dead (okay, random association kicks in). I give up and go home.

KIND OF CREEPY!

There's nothing inherently wrong per se with the concept: parents and children listen to a vaguely thematic selection of music (Music Talking, and About Goals and Values: Good Music. Good Times. Good Kids.) and then "discuss". In my family, most of the discussion might center around the inanity of Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy and emphatically and consistently skip over Matthew Wilder's track Break My Stride. God forbid any child show an interest deeper than the tracks listed; Ian Dury's Reasons To Be Cheerful is safe on surface level but deeper catalog exploration would inevitably dig up his better songs like, oh, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Good thing there's a guided discussion book or families across America would be lost.

KIND OF WRONG!

Every election year this happens. A Republican candidate inevitably chooses something they deem hip and cool and usurp it without any given thought to the human being who actually created the music or that musician's inevitable political leanings. This year, apparent Medal of Honor: European Assault fan John McCain uses Barack Obama supporter Christopher Lennertz's composed game music for a campaign ad.

Because I've been working with musicians for about a million years, I've learned a great deal about the subtle hints in conversation, styles of pitching oneself and overall accomplishments in assessing the success and happiness of working with artists quite quickly.

Aside from the obvious (see Rock and Roll Confidential's Hall of Shame), an email is as telling as anything. Despite the constant appeals from music industry folk via interviews, panels and other advice outlets, the "be yourself" suggestion often goes unheeded, despite the fact that we really, really mean it. Because if you're not, we can tell. We all like working with musicians who are actual people, we swear. And real people are easier to work with because we're really all in the same boat together.

Some giveaways on what does and doesn't make a good working band:

Advertisements: I receive pitches from artists mostly via email and here's a hint, if the heading begins with a "dear sir", it's difficult to get beyond the greeting. Also warning signs: "now available for listening" and "now offering tracks for licensing", often accompanied by html embedded graphics of the band. What it comes down to: I don't want an advertisement, I don't need to be hyped, and the music will speak for itself. Over hype makes us industry types suspicious and I've found that the best artists also tend to be simple and sincere.

Failure: Artists that have failed at some time in the past are great. I love them. I work with artists who have been signed to major labels and dropped, written crappy songs and go on to record something brilliant down the road, survived horrible band breakups and re-form new groups. Artists who have failed and are still in the game are still making music because they're true musicians; they can't do anything else and they'll continue to do so no matter what. Artists that believed their own hype so heartily don't continue on and thus don't improve. Those that have had some failure in their past and forge ahead always, always succeed on some level and they truly appreciate what comes to them much more deeply.

Overhype: Something I learned late in my management days, artists that over-hype, insist that others absolutely love them when those others ultimately claim they do not, speak with amazement that they drew 5,000 people at their show (when they didn't) and exaggerate tells me they're not as good as they think they are. Again, the music speaks for itself and if you're great but still have an audience of one, there will be more fans to follow.

I've worked with, and continue to work with artists who truly love making music and of every single band I've signed to my roster, not a single one thus far has happened to include selling points and super-hype in their introduction. Bands in it for the long haul tend to want personal relationships with the people they work with just as much as we on the business side do.