Your Song

Bill Wyman, the music critic (and not of the Rolling Stones), has finally found a way to measure the level of a musician's selling out, à la Moby's Play (in which every track on the album was sold to an advertiser). In fact, Wyman calls this formula "The Moby Quotient." As you will see, pop stars like Kelly Clarkson score low (a good thing) because of factors like "sacredness," "origins," and "reputation," whereas the Clash and the Ramones score rather high. Wyman refers us to a Nissan commercial, "which wanted consumers to understand that, if you owned an SUV, you could drive places. To underline the point, the commercial broke into the Ramones, who sang, 'Hey! Ho! Let's go!' That's the famous break from the punk rockers' 'Blitzkrieg Bop,' a heartfelt ode to pogoing to the beat of a Nazi military assault." Adds the author, "Well, at least it wasn't a Volkswagen ad."

Sadly, Wyman fails to mention my favorite instance, EMF's "You're Unbelievable," which then became "You're Crumbelievable."