Rolling Stones Sell Out, Marilyn Manson Gets Smelly (and a bit o' REM)

The Rolling Stones have embraced product placement. Indeed, they might be said to be dry-humping it. The group has made a deal with the soap opera Days of Our Lives to premiere the video for their song "Streets of Love" during Tuesday's episode of the program. The song will then serve as a "soundtrack" for storylines for an unspecified number of weeks after that.

So when ya think soap opera, think Rolling Stones! Or when you think soap, or corporate whore, or whatever, up to you... Corporations already sponsor tours, and there are plenty of other examples of "synergy" so this could be considered a logical progression. It isn't necessarily a move toward something good, though. Not entirely good anyway. While it might have some financial benefits for the group, there's a downside too... for one thing, that product-placement spot could have gone to a lesser-known group that really needed the exposure. The Rolling Stones have been around forever! They are old! The spot could have gone to fresh-faced youngsters like the kids from Death Cab. Please won't someone think of the children?

Meanwhile, Marilyn Manson is in discussions to market his own brand of cologne -- or perfume, something smelly anyway. No name yet, but if it wouldn't be as good as Cumming, why bother?

I feel like posting this Pavement song instead of something by Manson:

mp3:Pavement - Perfume-v (from Slanted-Enchanted)

I don't like this song at all. Not because it's been whored out to a television show, though I do feel for the Days of our Lives viewers who don't like it either. They're going to be hearing a lot of it, and wearing out their mute buttons. The product placement/soap song:

mp3:The Rolling Stones - Streets of Love (from A Bigger Bang)

Lastly, another REM song (a follow-up to yesterday's post), sent by one of the awesome readers of this blog.

mp3:REM - Permanent Vacation (live) (at Tyrones, 1981)