Music

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club VS. Miley Cyrus

by Michael Joffe

Earlier this afternoon Black Rebel Motorcycle Club frontman Robert Levon Been posted a note to the band’s website which accuses the makers of the new Miley Cyrus flick, ‘The Last Song’ of using their song ‘Berlin’ without permission.  In actuality, Miley Cyrus has almost nothing to do with this story other than that she stars in the film, but we’re using her name for effect.The real culprit here is most likely the film’s music supervisor, Buck Damon who’s evil mind is also responsible for Garden State’s soundtrack.

The note, titled “Know Your Rights”, reads:

“We’ve been informed by our management that RCA placed a clause into our contract that if we’re not on their label anymore, and the licensing offer is ‘low enough’ then the label doesn’t need to ask our permission to use the song (it is automatIcally [sic] approved in house without the need of the bands consent).  Obviously we’re all gutted that this was snuck into the fine print of our RCA contract, however there’s really no one to blame but ourselves for not handling our business better.”

The film, which stars a 45 year old Cyrus in a role which would have starred Lindsay Lohan in a previous career, chronicles a downtrodden rebellious teenager who spends the summer with her estranged father, a concert pianist…and from the looks of the trailer also falls for a volleyball jock. Yes, volleyball jocks are officially a thing.

The story is a sobering lesson to you bands out there, indeed, know your rights, and in this case, know when to fire your  $800 an hour lawyer for allowing something like this to happen. The note continues, quite hilariously,

“The irony is that we absolutely adore Miley’s work and would’ve been more than happy to license the entire record to her for free simply for the opportunity to meet her and thank her in person for all of her inspiration over the years.  We’re not telling any of you to ban her movie though or anything like that, i’m sure that actually watching it would be punishment enough.  However since we haven’t actually seen the film, and won’t be seeing it, i can’t really judge it.”

You do have to feel bad for B.R.M.C. because, well, is there anything further from B.R.M.C. than a Miley Cyrus movie? According to Buck Damon, no.