And Bob Seger is retired on seling "Like a Rock" to Chevy, and the Clash have sold Jags and Levi's and Led Zeppelin are on Cadillac commercial and the Doors sold their songs 30 years ago. It's only an "exception to the craft" (spoken like an idealist) because heretofore advertisers weren't as hot on going after rock tunes to sell to their target markets. Now that people who listened to Zep are Cadillacs demographic, Caddie's agency come to Zep with a hatful of money and Zep takes it. If Billy Joel chooses not to take that route, it's because he feels an appearance of integrity is more valuable to his "brand" than the money from the ads would be.
The Japanese text in those Van Goghs is meaningless, Vincent just chose the words that looked nice. He whored his craft to try to create something that could be a commercial success.
Vincent's brother didn't live but about 6 months after Vincent. Theo's son was the one who inherited the bulk of the paintings (and they are largely still in one collection housed in Amsterdam).
Vincent whored out his craft too by repeating images. Cookie cutter. No different than someone churning out Elvis paintings on black velvet. Vincent DID make some paintings for himself and DID make a special effort in some of his works. Had he been a commercial success, he might never have done these works.
There are plenty of artists/musicians who create for the sheer enjoyment it brings them. It doesn't make them amateurs or dilettantes.
Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, the Beatles and others are established bands that are long since dead (even if their members live). The use of those songs (as that author asserted in his editorial, if you had read it) is to touch a reference point for wealthy baby boomers. The boomers did not first hear these songs in commercials, they heard these songs long ago and are instantly identifiable when they hear the ad. If it makes them look up at the tv when it is on, it is doing it's job.
No one who is buying Moby's sponsors' items ever heard of Moby or his songs before hearing them on a commercial.
Moby offered up all 18 songs for commercial use. Brian Eno did this sort of thing in the 1970s (he released an album of production music which contained an address on the back so the people could pay to use his songs from that album in films/tv shows/etc.). It was a widely used album but Brian Eno never claimed it was "art".
Today people who remix songs and DJ have been raiding old record vaults to find original albums of production music (largely from the 1960s and 1970s). Some find those albums to contain works of "art", others just think that they sound good; others recognize that the music may not be great but it is "vaguely identifiable" because it appeared in so many old movies and shows.
Is a song "good" just because you "heard it someplace" before? There are plenty of lousy songs that I have been subjected to (whether it is bumper music on tv/radio, riding in an elevator, waiting in an office or on the phone, etc.).