Music Blogs

Not all aspiring artists need a starring role on a TV show to achieve mainstream success. A recent trend in music promotion is the placement of songs in commercials.

Praise the gods of advertising, because commercials are a springboard for hip young artists. TV ads are all about branding, but they do a great job at getting people to search for commercials online. Apple ads have insane exposure. For Feist's "1-2-3-4" YouTube video, traffic grew 1200% from the month before the Nano commercial's launch, and over 45X when views of the actual commercial (on YouTube, or Apple) was included.

Growth for CSS's "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex," was created by a fan, and then used by Apple in the iPod Touch commercial.

Also, Apple exposure seems to create loyalty. In fact, 3 months after the Nano commercial aired, traffic to Feist "1-2-3-4" videos on YouTube was receiving 5 times the monthly views it was getting prior to its feature in the Nano commercial.

Apple is so crafty because their ads define the company and generate demand for musicians--but it also helps get people to look up the tracks on iTunes.

Similar chart-climbing success occurred for Sara Bareilles' "Love Song" following advertisements for Rhapsody. Bareilles, a pop singer-songwriter and pianist, released her debut album Little Voice last summer. She made a digital debut on iTunes, but her big break came about six months later. After Rhapsody ran "Love Song" on a Tivo ad, she leapt from No. 73 to No. 16 on the pop singles chart in just one week. Before long, Bareilles appeared on The Tonight Show as her song shot to No. 2.

After music supervisors found her on MySpace, pop-folk singer Ingrid Michaelson sang the praises of Old Navy's Fair Isle sweaters via her dreamy song, "The Way I Am." Before the warm and fuzzy ad, Michaelson was an authentic indie singer--with no label or licensing deal. After appearing on the Billboard chart and playing to sold-out audiences, Michaelson is on tour with fellow ad celeb Sara Bareilles.

Now if you're big time, you can get a plug on a TV show. Previews for the third season of Grey's Anatomy fueled the Fray's "How to Save A Life" to No. 3 on the Billboard charts. Considered one of the top 10 shows currently on TV by Time, Entertainment Weekly, and TV Guide, Battlestar Galactica won the prestigious Peabody Award in 2005. In 2006, in conjunction with the release of the Season 2 soundtrack, Bear McCreary and his ensemble performed a special one-night performance. The event was a tremendous success. It sold out the venue. This year the event is moving to a larger space, the famed Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip.

AMC's new series Breaking Bad is about a high school chemistry teacher with a terminal diagnosis who decides to finance his family by cooking meth.  The last episode of the season finale featured an apropos and unreleased Gnarls Barkley song, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" The band's rush-released The Odd Couple arrived at No. 18 in its first week. It sold 31,000 copies after being released to digital retailers on March 18. The CD was originally pegged for an April 8 release, but was bumped up after leaking online.

Tune in next week for the hottest songs and singers flooding our small and big screens.