The Beatles Revolution Nike Air shoes ad (1987)

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by PaulKTF, May 31, 2017.

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  1. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

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    Story Behind Nike's Controversial 'Revolution' Commercial

    How Nike Sparked the Sellout "Revolution" - OnStage Magazine.com

    “Nike & The Beatles”1987-1989 | The Pop History Dig

    I know there was a lot of controversy about Nike using the song in the ad but I will always remember the ad because it was the first time I heard the song Revolution (I was 6).

    I didn't really care about Nike shoes or clothes or the people in the ad.

    I didn't know it was a Beatles song (To me, The Beatles were those Mop Top guys who did She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand and that's about it).

    I didn't know who performed it.

    I just knew I really liked the small portion of the song in that ad I kept seeing on TV. "Wow! That song sure is loud and has a lot of energy" i remember thinking.

    It was actually a couple of years (maybe 3) before I heard the song again and recognized it "A-Ha! So that's who did it!". :)
     
  2. Vahan

    Vahan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glendale, CA, USA
    A Beatles trivia book says this commercial first appeared during a Cosby Show rerun on March 26, 1987.
     
  3. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Wow! So that would mean it aired on NBC in a national spot. Interesting.
     
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  4. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    Yes, the Nike commercial was very definitely a national spot. Years later, McCartney said this was one of many clashes he had with Yoko Ono in the 1980s: he was against the commercial and she was for it. Once the Beatles renegotiated their contract with Capitol/EMI after their royalties lawsuit was settled in 1989, they had a new stipulation that all four Beatles (or their estate) had to agree if any of their original recordings were used in a commercial, TV show, or feature film. I have been told for every song use they agree to do, there's dozens they turn down.
     
  5. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
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    This is why the movie I Am Sam had to use covers of Beatles songs instead of the actual Beatles songs.

    Interestingly, according to IMDB...

    I think this actually makes the soundtrack into something even better.
     
  6. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    I miss the good old days of artistic integrity: like Pete Townsend and Robin Trower doing commercials about what a great way of life the U S Air Force offered.
     
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  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    Hey! I worked on the movie! I told the editor about 4 months before it was coming out, "I'm amazed you guys were able to get all these songs cleared." About two months later, he sheepishly came back in and said, "welp, you were right... Harrison killed the whole deal, so we had to go out and spend a fortune on new versions of the songs." Weird film. I have to say, some of the songs worked pretty well.
     
  8. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

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    USA
    What, it didn't occur to them to get the songs cleared well in advance?!
     
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  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    I think the I Am Sam producers had an informal deal with Capitol that was initially OK'd, and ATV Music immediately made the deal, and then when it came time to actually sign the contract, Harrison balked. My understanding was that they threw that album together in less than six weeks.
     
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  10. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

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    USA
    Wow! If that's true about the six week thing then I'm impressed because it turned out quite good.
     
  11. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I recall speculation at the time regarding "I Am Sam" was that Harrison was still peeved about Sean Penn's being associated with the bad press regarding "Shanghai Surprise." I have no idea if that's true; I could just as easily see Harrison having any number of other beefs with it.

    I would think plastering a film with a full album's worth of *original Beatles recordings* was always going to be a tall order. It would start to take on the appearance of something closer to an official Beatles product at that stage.

    I would also have to guess licensing an album's worth of not just the compositions but the original EMI Beatles recordings would have cost more than the rest of the film's budget combined. Maybe they had to eat a lot of costs by commissioning cover recordings late in the game, but they surely paid much less for those recordings than licensing the Beatles EMI recordings.
     
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  12. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Regarding McCartney and his attitude towards the Nike commercial, it's instructive to know a key thing about him. Going all the way back to his earliest days as described by Mark Lewisohn in his epic group biography, McCartney doesn't like to be *told* to do something, or *told* something is going to happen outside of his control. He didn't like joining unions in the early days of the band, not necessarily because he was opposed to the concept of unions, but he didn't like being told joining was mandatory.

    I'm guessing McCartney didn't like the idea that the Nike ad thing was *out of his control.* Indeed, the lawsuit settlement with EMI eventually granted the Beatles full veto power over the release of their back catalog. Even stuff that EMI owned was still under veto power from Apple. No more "Reel Music" and "Love Songs" and all of that, and they also gained control over licensing the *recordings* of their songs (though not the compositions of course).

    Another reason I'm guessing McCartney just wanted *say* over the Nike decision was that, years later, he ended up licensing out a selection of his solo/Wings recordings for use in commercials. As long as it's his decision, he clearly doesn't mind. He just wants control.
     
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  13. dlokazip

    dlokazip Forum Transient

    Location:
    Austin, TX, USA
    At the end of this interview, at 26:46, he explained how he felt about the Nike and Maxwell House ads. I remember watching it when it first aired.

     
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  14. AKA

    AKA Senior Member

    They used "Instant Karma!" in an ad five years later.

     
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  15. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Well with that one Paul couldn't say anything about it. :)
     
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  16. Binni

    Binni Forum Resident

    Location:
    Iceland
    Is Revolution still the only Beatles song that has appeared in a commercial?
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    It would've been a nice follow-up to ask him why, if he felt like that, that he allowed Buddy Holly's songs and others that he's used to be in commercials.
     
  18. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Because those are not songs he wrote and performed. He bought them specifically to make money off of them.
     
  19. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    Paul has said that Holly did commercials in his life and that his heirs were in favor of Paul licensing Holly's catalogue so they could get money too.

    But leave it to a great humanitarian like Yoko to license the song to a company that charges $170 for a pair of sneakers and mistreats its third world workers.
     
  20. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Cool, I will have to check this movie out! :righton:
     
  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I actually don't have a problem with it. Most modern songwriters (including McCartney) have stipulations that you can't change the lyrics, you can't change the instrumentation, and they have to approve the subject matter of the commercial. You won't see songs at this level advertising beer, cigarettes, drugs, fast-food, sugar, or anything that pollutes. Nobody's killed by sneakers, so I think in the grand scheme of things, that's pretty safe.

    Let's not omit Apple, Asus, Dell, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sharp, and Sony from the list of huge corporations that use companies like Foxconn in Shenzen, China, and many of these factories exploit near-slave-labor as workers. That's a long, long list of corporations that do the exact same thing as Nike.

    I think the moment the interviewer pointed out that Paul was a hypocrite (to a degree), he'd abruptly leave the interview. In truth, Beatles cover songs still occasionally get used in commercials, but it's more rare -- and a lot more expensive -- to use them nowadays. Original songs performed by the Beatles are almost impossible to clear; even getting permission to use one in a TV show is unbelievably expensive, as Matt Weiner discussed when he talked about having to spend $250K on "Tomorrow Never Knows" for Mad Men (and that song wasn't exactly a hit).

    'Mad Men' Paid $250K for Beatles Song
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2017
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  22. MikeInFla

    MikeInFla Glad to be out of Florida

    Location:
    Kalamazoo, MI
    Interesting stuff. I just assumed since Michael Jackson owned it that he did it, but this may have been before he owned the catalog. Also I remember this commercial:



    From what I understand Styx could not use the A&M version of the song so Dennis & JY re-recorded it for the commercial. Some other interesting trivia, this was also used in Arrested Development when Buster (Tony Hale) had the "hook" hand.
     
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  23. Desert Explorer

    Desert Explorer Music Enthusiast

    Location:
    Athens
    No, it was The Beatles who did it. Not A-Ha.

    jk :p
     
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  24. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I have the sudden urge to run around in a sketchbook.
     
  25. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Re-recordings of Beatles songs aren't too uncommon in commercials or TV or films (I recall a weird one several years back where Julian Lennon was contracted to re-record "When I'm 64" for one commercial).

    Original Beatles recordings used in commercials is pretty rare. Uses in TV shows or films or trailers seems a little more common, though still cost prohibitive often. I believe one of the "Vocals Only" mixes of "Because" (either from "Anthology 3" or "Love") recently appeared in the trailer for the new sci-fi film "Valerian." In cases like that, they probably paid for a one-time use for the trailer and the song will likely not be in the actual film.

    And that's a whole separate weird cottage industry-type thing that has been cultivated where songs are licensed solely for trailers and don't even actual appear in films. Jeff Lynne made some good coin in recent years re-recording ELO hits and licensing his (admittedly pretty darn accurate-sounding) re-recordings to cut Sony out of the profit loop for use in trailers.

    It is funny, especially now that more people know the cost issues with song clearances (often because various DVD sets are deemed impossible due to music costs), when a Beatles song (evne a re-recording) appears in something, people immediately know they had to pony up a lot of cash to make it happen. I recall recently "With A Little Help From My Friends" was used in the "Gilmore Girls" Netflix revival, and I recall thinking that song clearance could have cost as much as the rest of the episode's budget combined.
     
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