John Lewis has done it again. The retail company’s festive advert has become the unofficial klaxon that starts the countdown to Christmas. 2015’s interpretation is titled ‘The Man on the Moon’, and features a young girl looking out into space and happening upon, you guessed it, a man on the moon. The rest of the advert shows the girl’s attempts to contact the man on the moon, eventually succeeding in sending him a telescope so that he knows he is not alone at Christmas. Truly heartwarming stuff.

The legacy of the John Lewis Christmas advert has always been musical. From Ellie Goulding’s cover of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ in 2010, to Lily Allen’s take on Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ in 2013, it seems that a prerequisite for a successful festive advert is a soppy, folksy, minor-key cover of a celebrated track. This year’s offering sees Aurora, a little-known 19 year old from Norway, cover Oasis’ ‘Half the World Away’. For Aurora, the advert offers an immense opportunity. Lily Allen topped the charts in 2013, while Tom Odell reached number 7 last year. Indeed, at the time of writing, ‘Half the World Away’ is nestled at number 5 on the iTunes chart, a position from which it is sure to rise over the coming weeks.

However as the consumer and music fan that I am, I can’t help but view John Lewis’ latest offering with cynicism. Personally, I find it utterly depressing that a song created with little purpose other than to manipulate middle-class mothers into purchasing over-priced crockery is year-in, year-out achieving such huge commercial success. I suppose the main reason for this is because music in this day and age is inextricably linked with consumerism, branding and, above all else, money. All of this begs the question: Has the music industry become too cosy with the corporate world?

Corporate sponsorships are fast becoming the backbone of artists’ revenue, outgrowing the dwindling revenues offered by record and merchandise sales. One need only look at the rampant recent commercialisation of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas to see the industry’s emphasis shifting away from providing a spotlight for burgeoning artists, towards providing a platform for showcasing big brands. Perhaps the most pertinent example of this came in 2014, when Lady Gaga performed on a stage sponsored by Doritos, dwarfed by a three-story high fake vending machine packed with human-sized bags of Doritos.

The story is similar in England. The annual British Summer Time series of concerts in Hyde Park (or should I say ‘Barclaycard presents British Summer Time’) caused me great personal upset when I worked all day to earn a ticket to see Arcade Fire perform in 2014, only to be told thereafter that the event’s corporate sponsors had all received tickets for free.

The consequences for the music industry are profound. Increasingly at gigs, avid fans eager to see their favourite acts are replaced by men in suits, only present because their boss has given them a freebie. On the more commercial side of things, the consumer is being shafted. Commercial streaming services like Apple Music and Tidal are shelling out huge amounts of money to guarantee exclusive content from artists like Drake or Pharrell Williams, meaning that the average fan must fork out ever more money to stay in touch. Sadly this process looks to be speeding up rather than slowing down. Artist-brand partnerships are now commonplace; the music industry is quickly turning into a fiefdom of the corporate world. So congratulations, John Lewis, for cementing the link between commercialisation and music – you’ve done it again.