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Passion Pit tackles Taco Time trouble

September 18th, 2012

A tale as old as time (and no, we’re not talking Beauty and The Beast): a band sells their music to a large corporation. It’s the debate between upholding the integrity of art and creating music for the sake of creating music versus the act of “selling out”. Guys! Can I just say the game has changed? And now this might spark so more controversy but before I get to my point here’s the story:

Passion Pit lent their amazing song Take A Walk off of their recent release Gossamer for a Taco Bell commercial. Passion Pit and indie fans alike are up in arms! “Why!?” they ask in disgust, “Why would an amazing band like Passion Pit feel the need to sell out to a taco company?”. Passion Pit front man Michael Angelakos explained in a statement, “It’s not about promoting celebrities or giant corporations or anything like that. It’s just airtime… It’s an amazing opportunity. And, honestly, you take what you can get. I say no to about 90 percent of the offers, but we just want people to hear the music at the end of the day.”

And that’s exactly it, kids. At the end of the day, didn’t you want to hear Passion Pit, a band that would not normally get so much play on the mainstream? Was the video not unoffensive? Personally, I don’t mind the video, it was filled with a bunch of crowd-sourced Instagrams of Taco Time tacos, photos you’d probably take anyways. It’s 2012 and I just can’t see us burning bands at the stake anymore for selling their music to large corporations. Why? Well, look at your own iTunes libraries. How many of you can say that you purchased every single one of those tracks? How many of you can say you support bands with your dollars versus supporting torrents? And even if you could say that you fully support all the artists in your library, pat yourself on the back because there’s not enough of you to feed these bands.

I say before we crucify bands for trying to get more airtime, we should see if there are better ways to support artists. Putting on tours is no easy feat for large and small productions alike and these things cost money. But at the end of the day I’ll support anything that begets even more great music so if Passion Pit has to sell their amazing song to Taco Bell so they can go on tour and feed themselves too, well I’m for that.

What do you guys think? Sound off in the comments section below and check out the Passion Pit Taco Time commercial here.