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Amy McGarrigle considers if selling your songs to advertisers still equates to selling out...

Anybody with a telly will have noticed Iggy Pop trying desperately to defy his age once again, jumping around bare chested like a kid on a sugar rush. Only this time he's selling car insurance to the craazzzzy kids.

Tag it along with a thumbs up for butter via punk legend John Lydon and a slight up roar was heard from some disgruntled fans. I say slight, because once people started to really discuss it, there was an air of... yeah... ok...I guess so.

You see, times have changed. Once upon a time musicians could hold up to their ideals against outright commercialism because they could sell music directly. Imagine that. Make a product - sell the product. That simply doesn't happened any more. CD sales have plummeted, yet musicians still have to write, record, package, distribute, tour and promote etc. Only now they are being asked to do this with essentially no income. It doesn't take a genius to work out the finances end up in the red.

The result is more and more bands in search of sync deals (placement of songs in TV or adverts) as a means of survival. It's the new life line - the new platinum disc. But, not really that new.

It's been ten years since Moby released Play. That's ten years since he was absolutely ripped for licensing every single song on the album to advertising. But, thinking about it now - he was the Godfather of Sync.

Sync in television shows like Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy have massively helped our very own Oppenheimer, Snow Patrol and Foy Vance. But it's adverts that seem to get peoples backs up. I didn't hear a backlash when Iggys 'Lust for Life' became synonymous with Ewan McGregor legging it down a street in Edinburgh. But putting his face to such an un-rock and roll product as insurance?

Really though, can we judge a band if an advert will end up funding a new album or tour? Nevermind the fact that it will spread their music faster than any radio show or blog these days. But can you take a band seriously after they've tried to sell you a, erm,Ìýpoop in a box in the name of survival?

Perhaps the question is more to do with bands putting their face to a product, more so than just being the soundtrack to an advert? Or have we all just been swallowed up and blinded by a society void of morals? Well??

I guess there's no definitive right or wrong.

I think I've confused myself.... You?