Does Mick Jagger really need the money at this point?

A promo came on for Cold Case this week featuring a never-before-heard Rolling Stones’ track and I was like, do the Stones really need more promotion at this point? Doesn’t Keith own enough Jamaican hideaways? Look, I’m all for record labels promoting their catalogs, but there’s a reason unreleased singles have that never-been-heard before label. This is more about fist bumps between network execs over what they see as a brilliant integration of music and entertainment channels.

Really?

Quick, let’s scan Queen’s library and see if we can’t work a lost B-side into an episode of SVU. Get ready—you know that’s coming.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind rare tracks etc., of classic bands. Often, it gives fans a new perspective of a song they might have lived with forever. But I think it only works with alt or demo versions of classic tracks. (Beatles’ BBC sessions, et al.)

But add this to the another announcement I saw this week where Jim Beam and Kid Rock teamed up to offer a song downloads and you now see why I don’t sleep:

“These downloads, available via tear pad or on special edition gift cartons of Jim Beam and Red Stag by Jim Beam (where legal), mark the first time a spirits brand and major record label have worked together to distribute new music from an A-List artist via a non-traditional retail channel on a massive scale. ”

Come again?Music downloads now qualify as groundbreaking? Non-traditional retail channel on a massive scale from a spirits brand?

Talk about late to the party. Even Bacardi’s website, typical of brands and bands promotions, offered downloads from the bands in its music festival. Anomaly’s iTunes t-shirt slash song download at least served a greater good. Pepsi was offering under the cap (UTC) iTunes song downloads long before this. I’ll stop there off the top of my head.

Worry not, I don’t lose sleep over this stuff. But after 20 years in the business, Kid Rock’s been around long enough to come up with something more involved than this.

Maybe he could work his stuff into an episode of House. Wouldn’t that be awesome?