Call of Duty: Black Ops has made good use of the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter for its ads and trailers. The exposure has meant that sales for the song have jumped from 2,000 copies the week of October 31 to 11,000 for the week ending Nov. 14, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Tim Riley, Activision VP of music affairs, indicates that licensing Gimme Shelter was not trivial. ABKCO Music & Records holds the rights to the songs and requested (and was granted) a preview of an early edit of the ad and they flew a copy out to New York rather than risk it being picked up by digital transmission.
“It’s such a big deal, such a serious song and such a big band . . . we had to fly out for it,” said Riley. “They certainly say ‘no’ more than they say ‘yes.’ It’s the Rolling Stones. It’s not like they need the money.”
Riley notes that this is the first time in Activision history that the publisher allowed another company to make edits to the ad itself, in order to meet the approval of the Rolling Stones. Sympathy for the Devil also was licensed as background music for a scene inside Call of Duty: Black Ops (that song’s weekly sales grew to nearly 5,000 for the week of November 14). Something else for the band will be used for a future element of the game, though it wasn’t confirmed whether it was an ad or not.
Source: Billboard.com
