Referring to Real Life Music in a Story

[Liosse de Velishaf]

Originally Posted by miss marisa

Characterization isn't achieved through name-dropping. It's up to the author whether or not they want to reference a band or song that's popular during that time. As I said, writers of the past have done it. I'm not a big fan of obscure name-dropping because that comes off as pretentious in writing. For me, it doesn't add to a story. Mentioning a band like One Direction isn't going to make me go, "That band's popular right now, I can totally relate to this story! This environment is so realistic." It may just be personal preference, but that's how I feel.

I'm not sure what's pretentious about being specific. It's not "name-dropping". It's a detail about a character that says something about them. I'm not saying some authors don't name-drop. But calling any author who mentions a specific band/song/product/game/book/novel a "name-dropper" is kind of insulting.

[Stiger05]

Along the same lines, a question popped up while I was writing a particular scene.

The MC and LI bond a little when they discover they have the same taste in music when the MC starts singing part of a particular song. I inserted this song because the lyrics allude to what's really going on in the story.

My question is this: What are the "rules" regarding including song lyrics in a book? The MC sings four lines out loud. Is this something I would have to seek permission to do down the road? Based on this thread, I waffled a bit on citing the specific song, but I think it adds to the scene. Thoughts?

[KateSmash]

If it's a song not in the public domain, and you go to have it published, your publisher will likely have to seek licensing from the record label of the audience to use it. Which will cost the publisher money that they might not want to spend for four lines of lyrics. And certain record labels are notorious for charging an arm and a leg for even the slightest use of their music. Most likely an editor would ask you to cut it.

If you self-publish, you'd have to seek licensing yourself. Or put it in and face a lawsuit if someone finds it. Titles might not be copyrighted, but the lyrics and music itself sure as hell are. In which case, you might be better off just mentioning the band name or the song title.

If it's a work in the public domain or the artist has given it the Creative Commons license, go hog wild.

[Liosse de Velishaf]

Originally Posted by KateSmash

If it's a song not in the public domain, and you go to have it published, your publisher will likely have to seek licensing from the record label of the audience to use it. Which will cost the publisher money that they might not want to spend for four lines of lyrics. And certain record labels are notorious for charging an arm and a leg for even the slightest use of their music. Most likely an editor would ask you to cut it.

If you self-publish, you'd have to seek licensing yourself. Or put it in and face a lawsuit if someone finds it. Titles might not be copyrighted, but the lyrics and music itself sure as hell are. In which case, you might be better off just mentioning the band name or the song title.

If it's a work in the public domain or the artist has given it the Creative Commons license, go hog wild.

^There's a practical reason for not citing specific real songs.

[InsanitySquares]

Originally Posted by Becca C.;7450696

I like it when a book introduces me to a band I've never heard of. I discovered Neutral Milk Hotel from reading [I

Will Grayson, Will Grayson[/I], and I'm forever grateful.

That's a real band? I thought it was a fictional band that they made up for the book.

Originally Posted by Yeasayer

I find it a bit jarring when an author refers to fake bands, songs, movies, books, etc. when everything else about the book seems so realistic. It comes off kind of cheesy to me and takes me out of the story's world.

Sometimes there's a reason to it.

Two of my stories involve bands. One of them has to be fictional as a plot point, as it explores part of the family background of one of the members. The other I wrote fictional as I didn't want to date the book by using a popular band of the moment and then have the band break up in between signing a contract and it getting published should I ever get that far. The MC and her two best friends are typical teenage girls, liking popular music of the moment, but I also didn't want mentioning a real life band to be off-putting to readers who don't like that band or genre of music. I toyed with using a relatively unknown real band but given I wanted them to be big enough to play huge arena gigs it just wasn't going to work unless I made the band up.

If all you want is 'Jane turned up her favourite Coldplay song as it came on in the car and sang along', using a real band works fine. If you want 'Jane was so excited to have won the competition to meet the lead singer of her favourite band', it might be better to use a fake band, unless your story is specific to a certain year. The band might have split by the time you publish, or the lead singer jailed for doing drugs, or they were all killed in a plane crash. There's also legal implications on using real people in books, especially if you want to go on to say how her idol was actually a bit of a jerk in real life.