If you are the sort of person who believes that it would be nice if musical artists would not always become paid shills for various brands—and you're probably not, judging by the world we live in today—you will not want to hear this.

Yeah yeah, the whole concept of "selling out" is dead and gone and millennials are FINE with their most treasured artists also moonlighting as candy corporation spokespersons—WE KNOW. Cool kids love sellouts now! Good for them! Time marches on! And the widespread attitude of blase acceptance of musicians in advertising has now been taken to its logical conclusion, with a new formal partnership between ad giant Havas and music giant Universal, designed to "create new revenue streams by mining the data provided by consumer behavior around Universal's artists." Cool. Congratulations, American music fans—this is what you wanted! Total synergy between art and advertising! Musicians and corporate behemoths melding into one! The complete subsumption of art by the capitalist machine! The destruction of any end whatsoever except "to sell!" This Ad Age story should be printed out one million times and used to wallpaper the Coca-Cola PepsiCo Halliburton Kraft Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame and Cafe.

Universal Music is the world's biggest music producer, with artists including Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Adele, BB King, Cher, Elton John, Katy Perry, Pearl Jam, and U2.

Mr. Grainge said in a statement, "We want to continue to find new revenue and marketing opportunities for all of our artists by …supercharging our efforts to realize previously untapped revenues from consumer brands and other new business partners."

Let us celebrate the fact that the dream of musicians from Robert Johnson to Miles Davis to Odetta to Bob Marley to Sade to Tom Waits has finally come true: the dream of realizing previously untapped revenues from consumer brands.

It only gets more like this from here on out.

[Pic via]