Celebrity Sell Out

Lets face it if you’re young (and fairly good-looking) it’s possible to pull anything off with a sense of grace. This is never truer than when it comes to selling out. Look at Girls Aloud or the Pussy Catdolls, who can mindlessly set themselves to flogging anything from chocolate, to hair products to greasy burgers. Lets face it, it’s their job – the record stuff is just a hobby on the side. However, now the oldies are getting in on the act. Here we’re talking about people who, in more respectable times spent their days mindlessly drinking themselves to the edge of oblivion (and sometimes into it), wrecking hotels and blowing up drum kits and driving cars into swimming pools. But, barring the odd indescretion with a Mars Bar, they never ever went so far as to endorse a brand. That has now changed. The old’uns have decided to get in on the act by the bucket load. Rockers such as Iggy Pop and Johny Rotten are now shocking us by selling errrr...car insurance and dairy products. Maybe insurance is the new rock 'n' roll as Ringo Starr (best known as the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine) and Alice Cooper have teamed up for an Aviva insurance ad. Two rock stars get together to sell insurance? Hmmm. To make matters worse, Iron Maiden the band who recorded songs such as The Number of the Beast and Prayer for the Dying are set to launch their own hotel… in trendy Soho. However, in a slight nod to the past the band has said the receptionist will be wearing black and the bar will be open all night. While the bar will be open late this is not a hotel to smash up - so maybe when our aging rockers are back from flogging us some more financial services they can retire to the bar and sip their ill gotten gains.