So I'm in a band and we got asked to do a song for an advert for a new start up company. We did it, getting a deal that allowed us to record 2 of our own songs in a nice studio in exchange for recording one of theirs.

I used to think I was all Henry Rollins and anti-corporate etc. but I was surprised how easily I didn't care once we were offered the deal. We had to write them a song which they completely own now, and they heavily edited all the lyrics, directed us musically, but I just saw it as doing something bad for a while to get a lot of good.

What did get to me was that the actual writing of the song was horrible, all of us hated having someone else tell us what to play, putting in crap lyrics in place of all right ones. I guess this was what the 'selling out' part actually meant, just being used as music tools rather than fancy 'artists'. Anyway we did it and got our stuff done which we're happy with, and we can just forget about it, assuming we'll never see the advert anyway.

So, have any dissers done this? I assume a few of the people here do the opposite and have to commission stuff from bands. Is it selling out? Are we now not allowed to play punk gigs? Or is this rational business for an unsigned band in the modern age? Tell me what to think DiS.