“If there was a band I liked and I saw them advertising something, I’d probably be disappointed, and I’d look at that song a bit differently,” he says.
A couple of decades ago, this opinion was widely held. But in the years since Neil Young ironically declared, “This note’s for you,” artists have discovered that licensing tunes for use in major tube campaigns is the surest way short of payola to guarantee that a single becomes a smash. Ask Nelly Furtado, whose “Promiscuous” vaulted to the top slot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart thanks largely to exposure it received in ubiquitous ads for Verizon Wireless.
As a result, Parton’s views make him seem hopelessly out-of-date in today’s marketplace, something he understands well. “I kind of assume that everyone sees it the same way I do, but most people probably don’t,” he says. “Anyone new, that’s not how they’d go about it.” Still, he isn’t about to alter his position, however anachronistic. “If you’re making music, then to patch that music through whatever it is — petrol or beer or something — changes it in a way. And I want to keep it kind of pure.”
Purity isn’t the first characteristic that comes to mind when the Go Team is mentioned. After all, the combo’s most recent album, last year’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike, is an exuberantly bastardized amalgam of rock, rap, soul and soundtrack music that hardly serves as a monument to homogeneity. But deep down, the Go Team’s offerings are an undiluted reflection of Parton’s main ambition: to create a sound in which low art and high art can peacefully coexist and maybe even party together.
And if the folks from Nike phone again? Parton will politely decline the offer. “I’m probably seeing it a bit too seriously,” he acknowledges, chuckling. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a massive deal, and if anybody heard I’d turned them down, they’d be like, ‘What the fuck?’ They’d think I was a proper idiot. But, you know, I think music should be kept special, and I don’t think selling it for a commercial is a good way to do that.”
Nelly Furtado couldn’t agree less — but Neil Young would be proud.
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