NINA SIMONE NINA

Posted on Monday, March 8, 2010 in Music Mania

Nina Simone Nina

Music, Products and Commercialization

Buying rights to songs for the promotion of commercial products has become more and more popular. It is so common now that it is difficult to hear a song you used to enjoy for the sake of the song and not think of a product. And this is just what advertisers want to happen for you.

What songs are being used with what products? Can you recall any? Maybe it has become subliminal already for you as well. Here are a few songs and the companies that are using them:

•   "Dream On" by Aerosmith - Buick
•   "Rock and Roll" by Led Zeppelin - Cadilac
•   "Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin - Carnival Cruises
•   "Melissa" by The Allman Brothers - Cingular/AT&T Wireless
•   "Happy Together" by The Turtles - Clinique
•   "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson - Coca-Cola with Lime
•   "Love Train" by The O'Jays - Coors
•   "Ain't That A Shame" by Fats Domino - Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
•   "You Sexy thing" by Hot Chocolate - Dr. Pepper
•   "Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake Your Booty by KC and The Sunshine Band - Fidelity Investments

The list goes on. On the flip side of the coin, we also hear artists using brand names of products in their music. How about Janis Joplin's song Mercedes Benz or Paul Simon singing about his Kodachrome. Today, if an artist is using a namebrand, you can be sure they have been paid to insert the product name into their song. Companies will go so far as to advertise for selling space in lyrics to advertisers.

What are some other products or trade names mentioned by artists? Here are a few:
•   Cornflake Girl - Tori Amos
•   Corona and Lime - Shwayze
•   Little Red Corvette - Prince
•   Life In Technicolor- Coldplay
•   Poprocks and Rock - Green Day
•   Volvo Driving Soccer Mom- Everclear
•   My Adidas - Run DMC
•   Maybellene - Chuck Berry
•   Red Barchetta - Rush
•   Louboutins - Jennifer Lopez

For a company to use an artist's song they must purchase the music rights. Some companies will re-record a song as the rights are then cheaper. Re-recording the song leaves you recalling the song somewhere in your mind but maybe it just quite isn't the same. Some companies that rerecorded songs make a parody of it. For instance Burger King remixed the song "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy. Some companies just re-record music such as Buick with Nina Simone's "Feeling Good".

Music is not limited to selling products of course. There are many films and television shows that love to use music to either promote nostalgia or emphasize a feeling. How many of you can hear the Beatles song Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and not think of the TV show Life Goes On? Likewise, many films and production companies make songs popular and mainstream after putting them into their movies or these companies even hire artists to write songs specifically for their productions. The movie Top Gun had composers write the song Danger Zone and then sought out artists to perform it. Originally they asked Bryan Adams then Toto, but ultimately they went with Kenny Loggins. The song went on to be on the Billboard Hot 100.

Advertisers want to invoke emotion as do film producers, so what better way than to use music. Likewise, artists want to strike emotional cords and sometimes that involves the products of our lives. Both can often go hand-in-hand whether we like it or not.

About the Author

Jeff Bachmeier is owner of 977music.com, an online music and online radio station network providing live streaming Internet Radio channels with music from the 50’s thru Today. Users can also choose to create their own customized on demand playlist through their own social media profile. For more information please visit http://www.977music.com.

	Nina Simone BG Archives Print
	Wolfgang's Vault exclusive photographic print by Anthony Pidgeon

	Nina Simone promo print photograph
	Wolfgang's Vault exclusive photographic print

	Allman Bros Butterfield Airplane Nina Simone Concert Ad
	This original newspaper page is packed with original concert promo ads for various concerts in Los Angeles in 1968. One one side there is a 4"x3" concert ad for Richie Havens and Nina Simone live, and another 4"x3" ad for Richie Havens live, and a 4"x10" ad for Eric Burdon and the Animals and also the Hour Glass (Allman Brothers) live in Los Angeles...

	Nina Simone Anthology Sale Price: $13.34

	The Thomas Crown Affair: Music From The MGM Motion Picture Sale Price: $9.39
	The Thomas Crown Affair is a caper story with a new (well, retread) twist: Pierce Brosnan plays a guy who can afford virtually anything, so he attempts to get something he can't, a Monet. It's a movie fitting of a polished, well-produced soundtrack, which is exactly what this disc delivers...

	Very Best of Sale Price: $6.51
	UK only 21-track collection. BMG. 2006.

Live at Ronnie Scott's [VHS]

There's some deep soul in effect here--as there nearly always was when Nina Simone, who died at age 70 in '03, got anywhere near a piano and a microphone. The fiercely individual, genre-defying performer, filmed in a 1985 performance at Ronnie Scott's in London, is accompanied by drummer Paul Robinson for a set that includes some of her better-known material, like the Gershwins' "I Loves You Porgy" and "Mississippi Goddam," a product of Simone's racially and politically charged '60s period...

	Donizetti - L'Elisir d'Amore / Pido, Alagna, Gheorghiu, Opera National de Lyon [VHS] Sale Price: $8.70
	With dazzling star turns by the real-life husband-and-wife team of soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna, this 1996 production of Donizetti's frothy romantic comedy L'Elisir d'amore ("The Elixir of Love") is a must for any opera fan...

	Herbstromanze [VHS]

Nina Simone - Live at Montreux 1976
Sale Price: $9.96

Nina Simone was one of the great female vocalists of the 20th Century. She was equally at home singing jazz, blues, soul, gospel or pure pop. Hugely prolific throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, she recorded only rarely in her later career, but remained a major live performer until well into the nineties when, becoming increasingly frail, she retired to France where she died in 2003 at the age of 70...

Does Nina Simone have a daughter?

That sang the lead in Aida on Broadway about 4 years ago? What is her stage name? I can't find anything about her on line

The lead in Aida was Heather Headly, one of my favorite singers. She is not the daughter of Nina Simone

Here's more info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Headley
http://www.heatherheadley.com/

Edit: Disregard that Heather Headley was the first to play Aida. Simone, the daughter of Nina Simone did play Aida in 2003 or 4

Here's her web site: http://simonesuperstar.com/newmain.html