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Pop Music and Commercials-Edit:Ive Changed my mind-see last post


thebes

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..well, torn to be honest. Usually, I'd simply condemn it as an abomination, the ultimate disposability of an artist's creation.Witness those poor suckers who sold their soul to the California Raisin co-op, betcha they get no sales out of their discography.

The there's the appropriation of the lyrics message. The best example probably being the Mercedes big bucks purchase of Janis Joplin's satirical little ditty about a working girl's dreams of owning a car.

Mostly I think they suck. They appropriate great music to sell a product and with gross media saturation, ruin it for that hardy band of people who live to be moved by music.

On the other hand, sometimes they tickle the cobwebs of the mind, recall anl old fave, or introduce people to something they hadn't heard, thus invigorating an artists work.

Two examples come to mind, the new commercial with that classic '20's hobo song, "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" in the background, Tthen there's Michelle Shocked's too long neglected masterpiece, "When I grow Up ( I Want to Be an Old Woman) ". Now I have no idea what these two songs are selling. Like everybody else I can turn out a commercial message on the drop of dime. However, in those cases the relentless press of gross commercialism has served a purpose of sorts, and that's reintroudcing me, and many others, to some pretty good stuff.

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Two examples come to mind, the new commercial with that classic '20's hobo song, "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" in the background,

I believe that's the version from the "O' Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. An excelent and ecclectic collection of bluegrass, spirituals, hobo shantys, and slave songs, from an equally ecclectic movie.

As to Pop in general, For pretty much my entire life I've loathed contemporary music (of course, Pop when I was a kid wasthe realm of Madonna and Michael Jackson. Then, recently, I caught myself actually enjoying the entire Top 5 At 5... All five had actual instruments, and all five had actual bridges.

I must be getting soft in my old age.

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I think commercials music has been attractive stuff for years. It has to have immediate appeal to be successful. I don't know pop music (a rather broad term), so I don't recognize non-classical tunes the way you do.

Very little commercials music is classical, or even meant to sound like a Great Master. One of the few was a Sprint ad that featured Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 from his Jazz Suite No. 2 (

). (Believe me, the only really obscure work I know!) Another ad used the
to Bach's solo cello sonata No. 1.

Otherwise, a lot of the music is simple, easily understood, attractively harmonized and orchestrated, often played mostly on guitars (may be cheaper). Cisco and Zyrtec, for example. I don't have a long list but might add to this later on.

A lot of ad music is probably created by unknown composers. It's almost impossible to find this music on Youtube, probably because the commercials industry is so proprietary.

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There is a Lincoln Towncar commercial with "Major Tom" playing..... This allowed me to rediscover that song.....

(The ad did not repeat forever either or I would have felt alienated as Thebes describes)......

Heh... My company makes the capacitive touch sensors on the glovebox release and keyless entry panel on the B pillar. Ford is branding the Lincoln line with this and other high-tech in the "rocketship" campain.

Not super-sexy, but some of the more visible product we've got currently.

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First off, ads suck. Now.....95% of the time I hate ads for overplaying songs that I normally don't have a problem with. The other times I hate ads for playing something obscure enough that I thought of as 'mine'. A 'mine' example was during the World Series, Diamondbacks beat the Yankees (2000?). Don't remember what they were selling - too blindsided by a track from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II. "Hey, that's mine!"

Every so often I've been exposed to good stuff. There was a Volkswagen commercial about 12 years ago that played Nick Drake's Pink Moon. Loved it - bought the album and it's amazing.

Tell you what should be banned from commercials, due to overuse:

-born to be wild

-magic carpet ride

-wild thing

-sweet home alabama

There is more, just can't think at midnight.

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The other day I was plagued with the Oscar Mayer hot dog theme clashing in my head with the Armour hot dog theme.

Frankly, there was no weiner!

Heh!!! Heh!!!! [Y][Y][Y]

Now that's funny!!!!

....and now I can't get the Oscar Meyer theme out of my brain!!! Not even the Black and Decker lobotomy pictures work!!! I'm doomed. I'm gonna' call my wife and have her come home for lunch..... [6]

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Sorry guys. Start a thread, then stuff intervenes, and I leave you hanging.

Great comments one and all for a subject that I think has a bigger impact on your hobby than most owuld be willing to admit. Good old craven commercialism. It seems sometimes that advertisers gave up along time ago selling the positive attributes of a product to rely primarily on various forms of subtler seduction. Music is one of the primary emotional responses of human beings so why not use it to sell stuff. I mean, aren't the musicians already seeliing something? Maybe it's their viewpoint, mood, need for fame etc.? The commercial is simply twisting things around to their view, and since the original artist/performer has readily signed off for a fistful of cash, why should we object?

(Caution: Gigantic Run-On Sentences Coming!!)

Because, any really good artist creates something better/larger than themselves, and that should be celebrated and we,not the artist,should protect it. When significant music, and yes popular music can be significant, becomes a mundanety sold alongside of toothpaste, than I do believe we are diminished., and in more than ways than I think we appreciate.

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Looking over my last post, I guess I'm not as torn on this issue as I thought it was. Still, though, got to give credit somewheres, and I have discovered unknown treats in music thanks to commercials.

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First off, ads suck. Now.....95% of the time I hate ads for overplaying songs that I normally don't have a problem with.

Same here. The vast majority of the commercials pretty much gets the business end of the "30-second skip" button on my DVR. However, I'll admit that I remember seeing a Garmin commercial during a superbowl that had a pretty kick-*** heavy metal soundtrack.

And yes, I remember back in the late 70s and early 80s those Sunbeam bread commercials. I think that ruined a whole generation of kids on that song! [:P]

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a lot of the music is simple, easily understood, attractively harmonized and orchestrated, often played mostly on guitars.

Hm, well said and very quotable...

"...Otherwise, a lot of the music is simple, easily understood, attractively harmonized and orchestrated, often played mostly on guitars (may be cheaper)."

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