commercials ruining songs for you
The_Hook_Up
8,182 Posts
ok, believe it or not I have been on the lookout for a mint ass copy of the common ass 45 The Capitols "Cool Jerk"...every copy I have ever found in the field have been beat, since Im sure it was the party record of the day...I know I could have got a minty one on ebay, but I refuse to buy some things off of ebay, like really common records. Anyway I finally found a mint/possibly unplayed copy for the price of a dollar(my maximun I was willing to pay for this record) Since I dont listen to oldies radio that much, I dont hear the "cool jerk" that often..but its a song I love...I drop the needle getting ready for 2 minutes of enjoyment...BUT ALL I COULD Frickin' HEAR WAS THAT GODDAMN COOL WHIP COMMERCIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dang!
Comments
Ernie K Doe - Here Come The Girls....
oh rotation like a mutherfucker on the boots commercial....
The song was the Band's "The Weight," and I sure as hell wished they'd have used something else.
These days when I hear cool songs in commercials, I mute the TV.
Mentioned it last week - Iggy's Lust for Life for a resort get-away.
Rare Earth's Celebrate for soup.
Screamin Jay's I Put a Spell for...shit, I don't really know cause I always switched the channels right away. Fast food or gum or something.
CCR's Fortunate Son for jeans.
Nick Drake's Pink Moon for cars.
Bowie's Heroes for computers.
Bill Withers' Lovely Day for crap preppy clothes.
Never really a fan so don't care one way or another, but damn, Le Tigre sold that song to everyone - I'm hearing it in make-up ads now.
"have you driven a Fooooord lately"
Yeah, I agree. As a young youth that was my first real exposure to that song. That was just my age and bad timing.
Not so much a commercial ruining a song, but rather a commercial gratuitously bringing a shitty song into my house, is any of the 18 ads that used that goddamn "feel the rain on your skin" song. That was a perfectly forgettable, mediocre song until it was in every ad targeted toward women and I had to hear the shit every commercial break. If that shit comes on and no one mutes the TV, I get very angry.
sorry. rant over.
That is an actual song?
I guess the flip is there's a lot of real songs used that folks think are jingles/written for the ad.
Not only is it an actual song, but it was a successful song before it started turning up on all kinds of commercials. The song is "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. It hit #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2005, most notably. It also hit really high on a variety of other Billboard charts that really aren't as well-know such as Hot Digital Songs, Pop 100, Pop 100 Airplay, Top 40 Mainstream, Adult Contemporary, etc, etc.
I was never a fan of the song but I certainly heard it various places like satellite radio, terrestrial radio when I occasionally flipped around, things like that. I didn't know who the song was by for a long time but I was quite familiar with the song itself. It never seemed much more than ordinary to me which is why it's perfect for commercials, because its milquetoast qualities will make it appeal to a wide swath of potential buyers.
My first thought as well. I do wish I could hear that song without reference to this horrible commercial:
remember back around '92 when etta james' "trust in me" was used for a tampon commercial?
nah but I remember Aretha's You Make Me Feel (Like A Natural Woman) for a bra commercial or something in the 80's.
sorta ruins that song for me actually because when the commercial aired I was *really* into it (teenage kid-related) and really that's all I can think of now when I hear the song.
"sounds to me like a simple case of... WHO dunnit" (cue YEAAAAARRRGGGGG screm)
It's just a loop though, and the song is still not ruined for me.
The Dap-Kings "Pick It Up and Lay It In The Cut" in a Kraft Mayo commercial. Nothing could ruin that song for me though.
This is used in a Sex and the City trailer here in Sweden. H&M got a commercial using Minnies "Les fleur" too. It pissed me off, but it's still the greatest song ever. Hopefully a few indierockist swedes will hear it and open their minds a little bit.
it would only bother me if the commercial itself was tacky
besides, some of the examples in this thread are rerecorded versions
It's worth noting that Pink Moon sold the same number of records the first week the VW ad aaired that it had previously sold in it's entire existence. I think it was at 8,000 copies in total sales from it's original release up until the commercial aired. It then sold 8,000 copies that same week.
I read an article about it awhile back. It does make me wonder how 8,000 copies were in existence at the time of the ad, if there had only been 8000 sold prior. Maybe they anticipated sales from the ad. Maybe that article was wrong. Either way, I think it did a lot for his career, even if he wasn't around for it.
Yes, I noticed that. And Telia used "It's A New Day" by The Skullsnaps for one of their recent commercials.
These things don't bother me, though. I usually avoid TV and radio stations with commercial breaks.
I can't believe how big that song's been in the US. When you see black girls singing it in their "American Idol" auditions, you know it's hittin'. It's in a bunch of ads over here, too, and was a big pop hit. It's a perfect fit for ad agencies that are looking for something which ticks the box marked "inspirational and appealing to independently-minded women in the 18-35 demographic".