‘Glee’ brings money into music industry

I remember growing a little concerned for the broadcast medium back in 2009 when the words… I remember growing a little concerned for the broadcast medium back in 2009 when the words “Glee” first crossed a Fox announcer’s lips. A musical television show about a diversely disadvantaged high school glee club seemed like a ridiculous idea from the start, but after two years “Glee” is a different beast all together.

Beyond being an illustration of teen bullying and other issues that confront the average adolescent, “Glee” is a representative entity for the changing nature of the music industry. Why? Because it makes cash from music in a way that record companies have rarely seen in the post-Napster era.

Licensing is a word that the Rolling Stones probably didn’t think about when they sent “As Tears Go By” — the band’s first song — somewhere for copyrighting, but today any artist who hopes to make money on any kind of scale needs to understand licensing.

Licensing allows the owner to decide who can use the copyrighted music and how it can be used. It also allows the owner to negotiate a price.

Though album sales used to make up the bulk of non-live revenue, the Internet (be it through file sharing, Pandora, or what-have-you) has put a significant dent in that income.

Enter the multimedia-hungry new millennium, and you’ll see the value in letting someone license your song. Ida Maria’s “Oh My God” isn’t a chart topper in the United States at this point, but because of the trailers for “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” and “The Virginity Hit,” anyone who has watched television for an extended amount of time has probably heard the licensed song.

Similarly, Glee has allowed artists to make money through licensing: featuring their songs on the show, as well as selling those songs on compilation CDs and on iTunes as singles. If you throw in the publicity for artists the show features, you’ve got one financially lucrative avenue for your music in a world where few still seem to exist.

Countless artists have allowed their music to appear on the show, from Katy Perry and Neil Diamond to Leonard Bernstein and the creators of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“Glee” isn’t a universal favorite, however, and a few artists have sparked controversy for not allowing their music to be licensed.

Coldplay and Bryan Adams didn’t allow their music to be licensed during the show’s first season because they didn’t know what it was going to be about. They have since reversed their decisions.

Others have made it clear that they don’t want their music on “Glee” — because it’s “Glee.”

Perhaps the most interesting controversy has involved the virtual band Gorillaz. The band’s leader, Damon Albarn, not only sold millions of albums before the advent of the Internet with a little group called Blur, but has also been a pioneer of technology and its use in music.

Just this past December, for example, he gave the members of the group’s mailing list a new Gorillaz album he created mostly on an iPad. Despite his interest in the changing methods of music distribution, he’s not interested in contributing to the Fox show’s range of covers.

Albarn takes issue with the success of the “Glee” covers — they’ve now surpassed The Beatles for the number of Top 100 Chart appearances for a non-solo act — saying they don’t compare to the originals.

Perhaps there’s some truth there. How will the character Finn’s rendition of “Losing my Religion” from the “Grilled Cheesus” episode stack up against the seminal alt-rock ballad by R.E.M? I don’t doubt Glee’s artistic merit, but I do understand the concern of an artist who wants to maintain the dignity of a song.

Another group caught up in “Glee” controversy is Kings of Leon, who might have been in the same boat as Coldplay before the show’s creator Ryan Murphy criticized their lack of licensing.

From Murphy’s view  — accentuated with a “F**k you, Kings of Leon” in The Hollywood Reporter’s article about the feud — the show’s use of popular songs can inspire kids to participate in a glee club or start to play an instrument, and for this reason, Kings of Leon’s refusal to license their songs results in a great loss.

Kings of Leon seemed shocked by the anger directed at them as they were promoting “Use Somebody” at the time the “Glee” people tried to license their songs. They said they hadn’t seen the actual show.

This all makes me wonder if it’s appropriate to view the intentions of an artist in not licensing something to “Glee” as a slight against the children of the U.S. “Glee” is not synonymous with children. It’s a television show that relies on ratings to sell ad space to advertisers and would be canceled if people stopped watching it. That’s not to say it’s a negative entity, but it is what it is.

We probably won’t hear “Clint Eastwood” or “Sex on Fire” on the show anytime soon, but “Glee” still provides an interesting look into how the music industry still makes money and how music licensing can be about more than just giving — or not giving — permission.