Jingle all the way

When I'm with my parents somewhere that has an oldies station playing on the radio, my dad will name the songs, who sang them, the month and year they came out and whether they played in southern Ohio, where my folks grew up.\nI do the same thing -- except, as an indie-rock fan, my music doesn't get much airplay. Instead, I have to do it with the background music to commercials. "That's The Postal Service!" (in a UPS ad). "That's M.I.A.!" (in a Honda ad). "That's Goldfrapp!" (in a Verizon ad, in a Motorola/Alltel ad, in a Target ad).\nI have decidedly mixed feelings about this. Don't get me wrong, I'm not yelling "sell out!" -- at least, not in most cases. (Of Montreal's rewrite of "Wraith Pinned to the Mist [And Other Games]" into an Outback Steakhouse jingle really pushes the line.) I've never been one to think that being able to make money off your art made an artist any less legitimate. I'm happy to see that bands are successful, that they're able make their music and still eat and put roofs over their heads.\nAnd, after all, what can you do when most of radio is limited to tiny, nationally homogeneous playlists dominated by the major record labels (and their marketing -- sometimes, payola -- budgets)? What do you do when, out of any given day, about 18 hours of MTV's programming, and all of its prime-time, is dedicated to reality shows? What can you do when practically the only place you can get MTV-style exposure as an indie band is MTV2's "Subterranean," a program that regularly airs from 1 to 2 a.m. on Mondays?\nHow does a band get the word out? The Web does help, but sorting through the sheer volume of competing bands asks a lot from potential listeners (not to mention that the best known source for such music -- MySpace -- is so irritating it can make them want to gouge their eyes out).\nIn Michael Azerrad's history of '80s underground rock, "Our Band Could Be Your Life," he shows that indie pioneers such as Black Flag and the Minutemen had to endure seriously grueling conditions to produce and publicize their work. If getting a bit of a song in a commercial saves you from having to go through that, more power to ya.\nMy real worry is this: What does it say about our culture when commercials have better music than our major mass-media sources? When it's nearly the only way for great new, original rock and pop to reach your normal, non-Web dwelling person? When advertising executives clearly have keener ears than top-flight record executives?\nThis can't be healthy. In the oppressively politically correct future of the sci-fi movie "Demolition Man," what's the hottest music around? That's right -- 20th-century advertising jingles! So, if you see Wesley Snipes running around with his hair dyed blond, know this: I told you so.