Since I’ve been thinking about the whole “no one wants to pay for music anymore” idea, along with the “Metallica brought to you by Summer’s Eve” thing, I wasn’t really surprised to find this article at TechCrunch.com.

From the article (about Microsoft sponsoring an entire episode of Family Guy):

Really the thing we should all be worried about is that Microsoft Guy could be the start of a trend, not of product placement in television – that ship has sailed – but of entire shows being rebranded at the whim of technology companies.

The similarity to what we talked about at Podcamp 4’s music panel is eerie. If the idea of having corporate sponsors subsidize music in return for shameless promotion is foreign to me, this next step is completely alien:Will we get to the point where  artists write entire concept albums singing the praises of their sponsors?

Yes, I think it sounds like a ridiculous idea. But the idea that a Family Guy episode would be built around promoting Windows 7 sounds equally implausible. And yet it’s happening.

Well, I’d like to write more, but I have to get to work writing lyrics for our new record The Miller and the Light. Hey, a band’s gotta make a living.