Gang Of Four have spoken about the problems presented by offers to use their music in a commercial context.
Few bands have explored the commercial nature of the modern world to the extent that Gang Of Four have. The English post-punk group have spent much of their career focussing on the gaps between individuality and modern capitalism, sparking an endearing yet unsettling paranoia in their work.
Yet what if Gang Of Four were to be used in a TV advert? Frontman Jon King has his doubts over the idea, but told Impose that he could envisage a situation where the band could turn it to their advantage.
"I wouldn’t say that forever and ever we would say no to these things but something is taken away by the addition of visuals for other people to view them and you think about MTV when it was in, its pomp, and the YouTube thing, then you end up with illustrations of some songs after they’re made and generally they diminish the value of the sounds and when you tie down the image of something you’re telling the audience what it is and when you’re trying to mine that area of conflict and ambiguity and doubt, which is something we have always tried to do in our songs, you have, theatrically, one voice that goes, “I’m like this,” and another voice is really saying, “No your not, you’re like this.”
Continuing, the Gang Of Four singer analysed some real life examples. "When I think about the conundrum of pinning down meaning in a song I think about something like the Velvet Underground’s 'Venus in Furs', which was used in the U.S. a year or two ago for a car tire commercial."
"It was strange to me when I saw it, I was like I can’t believe this, here it is, 'Venus in Furs' being used in a car tire commercial, being this sort of immensely subversive and transgressive song, and it's lost all of its power, it was like cutting off all of Samson’s hair."
"Eric Satie, the early 20th century composer, is one of those people I have had a lifelong love for, and it’s a tragedy because so often in ads for puppy wipes, sanitary towels, air fresheners, you hear (his music), and it’s lost all of its potency" he continued.
"You don’t want your music to be castrated."
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