“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible”. So said Frank Zappa, perhaps one of our most progressive and deviational musicians. On the whole I like Frank’s approach to new things, particularly when it comes to music, yet recently the idea of progress caught me in a less charitable mood, coming as it did with a dose of Schadenfreude.

It all came about with the recent decision by two football clubs to sell a previously unthought-of preface to the names of their stadium. Thus, Newcastle United now plays at sportdirect.com@St James’ Park, whilst Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge is set to take offers.

You could call it fundraising, or asset maximisation, but mostly it has been bemoaned as progress. Compared to Kari Smith, selling tattooed advertising space on her forehead, it seems small beer on the moral slide. Yet people have been discussing the business of football and using words like “heart” and “soul” and “corrupt”, and I have been reading about their dilemma with little sympathy. So long as it’s not music, as far as I’m concerned the new ground that replaces White Hart Lane can be called anything it likes.

My mistake, though, was that I was convinced my own love was of superior substance. Not music, I thought, not her. She is a chaste and pure mistress, an artist not a business. There is no question over her soul (what’s left of it at least).

Yet then I started to doubt her, a nagging doubt that kept returning to question my surety. How could I be so confident progress wouldn’t come to visit our house and tempt her away?

Take my friend Nerina, for example. Maybe I shouldn’t, because I’m not for a moment suggesting she is a candidate for having her head turned. Let’s agree then that this is an example only. Nerina is a singer and songwriter. She had a couple of records out on major record labels and built a fan base. The fan base wasn’t big enough so the figures didn’t work for the investors, who released her from their contracts. Nerina, though, had music still to make. Thankfully she had desire too, and she re-mortgaged her house to fund her ambition. Now she’s recorded her third studio album and has released it on her own label.

In a position such as Nerina’s, or many other artists with entrepreneurial leanings who invest their livelihood in their talent, it’s often the little things that have a decisive impact. The difference between numbers 41 and 40 on the album charts, for example, while only a handful of sales, is huge in terms of airplay and coverage, the difference between major retail outlets stocking the product or not. Such trivialities may not concern a band with the resources of say Radiohead, but these sorts of worries are part of many label-running musicians’ lives.

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Radiohead: House Of Cards

So I don’t think it would apply to Nerina, or Radiohead, or David Sylvian or many many others in their position, but I can imagine such pressure becoming too much to bear for someone some day. And just then a phone call might come. Perhaps its Boots, maybe Ferrari, could even be Subway sandwiches – doesn’t matter. They see this particular artist’s work as a great opportunity to “unite two innovative and creative products”. At the heart of it is this: we have a little corner of the cover art for your album where we can put our logo, and in return we will give you the money towards running your fledgling business. It’s a smaller version of a record deal, only done with different investors.

The question I ask is this; how long can it be until such an alliance is made? Because, let’s face it, the record labels are hardly running the smoothest of business models. Music is no longer an industry that will go unchallenged. Most companies are failing to find innovative ways to compete with their main rival – online music. Some are lucky enough to be bankrolled by other arms of the business. A very select few are keeping it going, although every release costs money to create and so it needs to be a good one, a profitable one, as Nerina found out.

So let’s suppose any one of these companies, successful or otherwise, receives a phone call. Imagine it’s the bank that credits the business loan, or the retail outlet who buys the product. They see a great opportunity to “bring together two brands with the same passion for creativity and innovation” – an ally in the battle of commerce. What they really mean is, give us some advertising space on the product and we’ll cut you a deal on rates. If I was an artist signed to a deal on that label, I wonder what say they’d give me on the matter? The same as the players at Newcastle United I imagine, but okay, I won’t stand in the way of progress. At least it’s only an album cover; advertising won’t get onto the real product, the music.

Oh, unrelenting progress! Where do you end? For Spotify (the current future of music consumption) is full of adverts. Well at least it’s free, I mean that’s the deal after all – free stuff in exchange for adverts. But how long until the costly stuff struggles, and can’t keep up with the free stuff? There’s a great new release, but the money isn’t there to promote it. Record sales are still potentially in their hundreds of thousands, which is a big market for anyone wanting airtime, but the costs of making and promoting a record are huge for an industry in decline. So a deal is made, just a tiny jingle perhaps, one to open the album (brought to you by…) and one to close the album (brought to you by…).

When that happens we will be as football has been these last weeks. Disenchantment as Jay-Z issues The Blueprint 4, bought to you by Xerox, followed by dismay as M&S proudly sponsors S&M by Lady Gaga.

Being the kind-hearted souls we are, finally we will rest on reluctant acceptance. Once the self-released title and major label issue are sold, all the players in between are safe from the brunt of the backlash, and one by one they will be free to sell and flog, barter and deal, until every track has become indented with a snippet of retail advice, every video aided by commerce and cover art has become a joint business venture.

It’s a bleak vision and I would love to think music was different; that the home of payola, global corporations, mergers, acquisitions and at times the mafia, would decline such sordid offers of sponsorship. I hope musicians are able to ride above the premise to all this – money. But if this is progress, music is not immune. Nothing is.