You've probably been annoyed on many occasions by adverts that use music you love to sell stuff you don't want. Or maybe you were happy to see a song by a beloved artist hit big BECAUSE it was used in an advert. I started thinking about it and got slightly overwhelmed.

Examples:
Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" for VW
Carly Simon's "Anticipation" for ketchup (Heinz?)
Kinks' "(So Tired of) Waiting for You" (for an internet service, I believe)
Beatles' "Revolution" for Nike

There are lots more here: http://www.adcritic.com/music/

Which can you think of, just out of curiosity? Did you like how they were used?

Disclaimer: I am not and probably never will be an employee of any advertising-related entity. :)

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Answers

Oh yeah--was going to include this one, but couldn't remember if it was Verdi or Puccini or whether it was for Taittinger's or Tott's champagne: "Oh Mio Babbino Caro", Kiri Te Kanawa singing. I know several people went and sought that out specifically because they heard it on the commercial. :)

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Kiri Te Kanawa could sell me a raincoat in The Sahara.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

It's a little on the annoying side to me that some songs will only be identified by some people as the song from the commercial ... like my brothers' referring to Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing" as the "Chips Ahoy song" argh.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

"Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" was being used to sell cars. I thought it was a little cheesy.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Burger King just has a way of taking a good song and pounding it into the ground with their commercials. I dislike songs in advertisements anyway. Oh, and how about Shania Twains makeup ads? "I feel like a woman!" Whatever!

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Two songs I didn't like before hearing them in commercials, and was even more annoyed to hear them constantly - Smashmouth's "All Star" and Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away..." not only was "All Star" in every freakin' commercial break last summer, but it was also in every freakin' summer movie...

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

This is sort of off topic, but I hate how movie previews always recycle the score from previous movies. Like, a couple years after Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves came out, the score from it was used in like a zillion previews for other movies, because THEIR scores weren't finished in time for the preview. Same with the score from Hunt for Red October, Glory, and The Usual Suspects. It happens all the time.

I just think it's totally distracting to be sitting there watching a preview for a movie and then be able to think of nothing but, "Hey! That's the music they played when the plane was landing in The Usual Suspects!"

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

I was really depressed when Mitsubishi started using The Smith's How Soon is Now for commericials. Is nothing sacred?

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

To stay off topic with Jan, I totally agree! I hate when they recycle movie music. I adore the music from The American President, and they keep reusing it. They used it for the movie about the girl who wins this shop (saw it years ago, no idea what it was called), and then again for Saving Private Ryan. Don't you think Saving Private Ryan should have it's own music? Ok, I know it does. But shouldn't that be used in advertising? Ok, maybe I'm a music snob. And an off topic music snob at that.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

I knew it was the beginning of the apocalypse when "How Soon is Now" was played as a commercial. Pack the can goods kids, the time is acoming.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Forget Burger King--McDonald's mangles good songs frequently and painfully. I hate their current jingle: "You get more for your money cuz McDonald's treats you riiiight!", sung to the classic ditty "She Works Hard for the Money." (And as if ONE slogan just isn't enough, they have to add that "Did somebody say McDonald's?" at the end. How many slogans does one company NEED?)

Just recently some asthma-medicine maker grabbed "Walking on Sunshine" as the background for their radio commercials--but had it re-sung by a very inferior cover artist. Now whenever I try to think of that song (one of my alltime faves), I hear Asthma-Girl's voice. Aaagh!

But perhaps the most annoying commercialization ever was when Domino's Pizza took Queen's "We Will Rock You" and sung these words over the chorus rhythm: "Gotta be -- gotta be -- Domino's!" The hell? That's three extra syllables, folks! I avoided the network that run those ads (Fox, I think) completely during the football season.

I can't think of any GOOD examples of commercial samplings of songs I know--except for "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto".

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Most interestingand obscurechoice of advertising music I can think of would be a campaign for Dunlop tyres using "Venus In Furs" by the Velvet Underground. Mid-90s British campaign, featured cars in freakish post-apocalyptic landscapes (according to my limited memory of it) with this weird, slashing viola/guitar music going off. An inspired choice. Think the guy who directed "American History X" was the brains behind it

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

James, I remember that ad - it was a highly unusual choice but worked very well - even if you were a fan of the song.

My current favourite is one of Guinnesses new ads - funky black and white - people coming out of the sea - set the The Jesus and Mary Chain's 'April Skies'.

So if it's done right they don't mangle a good song - unfortunately that doesn't happen very often.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

Right now every commercial shown in the UK seems obliged to use a track from Moby's Play.

Out-obscuring the use of the Velvet's "Venus in Furs" was a Calvin Klein or Armani perfume commercial last year that used this track from Oval, a German band who at that time used only the clicks and glitches from damaged CDs to make their music.

And right now there's a cider commercial that uses The Lions and the Cucumber from the soundtrack to Jess Franco's 70's "classic", Vampyros Lesbos.

Dusty Answers

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

There is a commercial for Volkswagon, I think. It has this angry guy driving his car and passing trucks and being angry.

At any rate, they use the original version of "Pictures of Matchstick Men", by Status Quo (I think).

Its great. It reminds me of first year university and driving around listening to Camper Van Beethoven.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

I only really watch the Simpsons reruns on our local fox station at 6:00 and 6:30, and I don't even watch those every day anymore. Occasionally I will watch TNBC on Saturday mornings. Yet even with that limited television watching, I seem to know so many commericals perfectly, because they seem to play the same half dozen over and over and over again. This really drove me nuts when they were playing the commercial for "Varsity Blues" and I had to repeatedly watch the scary big-forehead guy say "I don't want your life."

Point being that I completely empathize with the person who said ads can take a good song and run it into the ground.

There's also something wierd about songs you liked as a kid that couldn't get any airplay suddenly being used for COMMERCIALS. Even the hard rock station wouldn't play Ozzy before 8 p.m. when I was in elementary school, now Crazy Train is on car commercials.

I guess it means I'm old, I'm now a "target demographic."

On the other hand, I've heard that bands featured in Volkswagen ads tend to do very well for themselves.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

I can't remember which company uses it but Galaxie 500 is in some car commercial here in Canada and it makes me wonder who the car company has working for them 'cuz Galaxie have been defunct since 1993 or so...

Who the hell was it that thought The Smiths were a good way to sell a product?!? All I can think of when I hear that song is being completely drunk at some party in grade 9 in somebody's dark rec room.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

Mazda and their Reverend Horton Heat "Big Red Rocket of Love" mutation. That really frustrated me. I would hear it come on, and feel my heart do that little "Hey! We like this song!" thing. Boo.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

Dammit Andi. Me, too. On the other hand, any source of revenue for the Reverend has to be a good thing. Saw him at a show two years ago and he looked like a walking corpse.

I liked when Nissan ran the ad with Van Halen's "Girl, You Really Got Me" (or whatever the real title is) for the 300ZX using the stop animation GI Joe, Barbie and Ken. I was hung over in a laundromat, depressed, when those opening chords ripped out through the surround- sound large screen TV.

Honestly, it brightened my whole day.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

Re: Volkswagen commercial music...

I've actually discovered some new good artists through these- conveniently, they list the artist and song title from each commercial on the vw.com website. I especially liked the music from the "synchronity" commercial and the new bug "vapor" commercial. It's kind of wierd (for me, anyway) to be getting music tips from tv, but hey, good is good.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000

ooops, I forgot this one yesterday... a bit of trivia I discovered.

The "Oscar Mayer Weiner" song ("I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner, that is what I'd really like to be") is based on an old song from the Homestead Strike in the 1890s. The original words were

"Now the man that fights for honor, none can blame him. May luck attend wherever he may roam. And no son of his will ever live to shame him. Whilst Liberty and Honor rule our Home."

Well, it's just the chorus, the full song is at http://www.numachi.com/ cgi-bin/rickheit/dtrad/lookup?ti=HOMESTD

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2000

Thank you who ever said they hated Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away"! I am not the only one!

Moving on. I hate, hate, hate those damned Mountain Dew ads mangling "Bohemian Rhapsody". Yuck. However, I must admit, I do like the car commercials (I think its Nissan) using "Baba O'Riley" by the Who. I feel like such a dork, but I like the way they used it.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2000

I don't normally notice music in TV commercials but I did notice this and it cracks me up. There is a commercial (I think it is Magnavox) that plays the song "Getting better." You know.. "I've got to admit it's getting better, it's getting better all the time." Well that would be a fine song for a commercial except if you pull out your Beatles Sgt. Pepper disc you will notice that after they sing that line it goes "can't get any worse." So whenever I see that commercial, I always think of that line.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2000

There's a car ad I've seen - no idea which car - which uses The Breeders' song Cannonball (which is a great driving song). It has a long intro, and then they cut it off abruptly a few lines after the singing starts. The first time I heard it, I was puzzled that they would stop it like that - until I remembered that the next word was "Crash". Wouldn't want anyone to think that word during their car ad.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2000

I had just (tentatively) subscribed to cable again and was watching TV one night when I heard a song by Tortoise being used as he background music for Calvin Klein or Liz Taylor perfume or something. I thought that was the weirdest music to choose. Now I'm going to have to search for the Canadian Galaxie 500 commercial.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2000

I'm actually amazed that nobody has mentioned that they're "too sexy for the dry cleaning". I know it's a mangle, but the original was hilariously crappy, and this just makes it even more hilarious.

Teehee

-- Anonymous, June 30, 2000

Here in Kansas City, there's a piss poor TV station whose in-house promos really speak for themselves. They show reruns of "Frasier" every night at like 10:30, and one of the promos was a takeoff of Fatboy Slim's "The Rockefeller Skank," and it went a lil somethin' like this:

All about Niles
The funk soul brotha
Check him out now
On the funk show Frasier...

Are they reachin' or what? =)

-- Anonymous, June 30, 2000

I just loved it when Microsoft was using Mozart's Requiem in their commercials a year or two ago. As they're asking "Where do you want to go today?" the lyrics are going "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis," which loosely translates to "The condemned and accused will burn in the flames of hell." I can no longer listen to Mozart without visualizing Bill Gates on fire. Is that a bad thing?

-- Anonymous, June 30, 2000

I heard the song "angel" by massive attack done on a perfume commercial; while watching mtv. I think it's emporio armani or something. anyway, I used to like the song but now it is getting quite old. I do like the whole computer thing and all as the music plays but eh, they play it too often.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2000

eep, hearing "angel" used in a commercial made me feel a little bit funny, as that cd was for making out purposes only. As Im sure Mezzanine is with a lot of people. Anyway, it was weird, but I read that the $ is going to charity, and I barely watch tv, so I guess it's alright. In a shitty corporate fashion, though.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000

Here's an obscure one: "Textuell" from Oval on their release "SysTemisch" in an Armani commercial over the 2001 christmas holiday season... In case you don't know... Oval are considered the grandaddys of what is termed "glitch" or "microsound", a genre of electronic music which uses the anomolies of digital processing as sound sources... very out there stuff... i was amazed to hear it on a TV commercial.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2002