Are the reasons for using licensed songs within a contemporary feature film soundtrack principally commercial?

The first 200 words of this essay...

In 1975 Irwin Bazelon wrote, "By using instantly acceptable music, already packaged and pre-sold in the pop culture, the film-makers display an adroit awareness of their audience's fashionable taste buds, and this audience, in turn, is a sitting duck for the industry's sales psychology."

ARE THE REASONS FOR USING LICENSED SONGS WITHIN

A CONTEMPORARY FEATURE FILM SOUNDTRACK

PRINCIPALLY COMMERCIAL?

The relationship between film and popular music has been a very successful one for over a hundred years: From musical accompaniment in silent films to short film clips of musical performances to the Hollywood musical and finally to the importance of popular music on TV and in films from the 50s, Hollywood has always taken advantage of music to sell films and films on the contrary became a useful tool for selling music. Thus the idea of using popular music rather than newly composed scores for the big screen probably even came from the silent film era where musicians often played popular tunes to the picture to satisfy the audience's demand1. Later in the 1930s, at the time of the Hollywood musical, the use of popular music on screen started to be the real