NY Post reports on the most annoying commercial of the year.
OH…my…God…Becky. Guess what Target’s new theme song is?It’s none other than Sir Mix-A-Lot’s ode to big booty,” Baby Got Back,” remixed for the back-to-school crowd as “Baby Got Backpack.”
It’s ironic that a song that was once banished by MTV into the late evening because of fly girls shaking their rotund rumps now has a place on a commercial aimed at kids. It’s either deliciously offensive, or, as some experts say, brilliant marketing.
The paper also provides a list of some commercial song choices that didn’t quite make sense:
Artist: Iggy Pop
Title: “Lust for Life”
Pitching: Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
It’s really about: Shooting up heroin
Sample lyric: “Here comes Johnny Yen again/With the liquor and drugs/And the flesh machine/He’s gonna do another strip tease.”
Artist: Goldfrapp
Title: “Strict Machine”
Pitching: Nintendo Game Boy Advance
It’s really about: A sex toy
Sample lyric: “I get high on a buzz/then a rush when I’m plugged in you/When you send me a pulse/Feel a wave of new love/Through me.”
Artist: Sixpence None the Richer
Title: “There She Goes”
Pitching: Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo
It’s really about: Heroin
Sample lyric: “There she goes/there she goes again/she calls my name/pulls my train/no one else could heal my pain/and I just can’t contain this feeling that remains.”
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: “Fortunate Son”
Pitching: Wrangler jeans
It’s really about: Being anti-war, anti-government and anti-rich
Sample lyric: “Some folks are born made to wave the flag/Ooh, they’re red, white and blue/And when the band plays ‘Hail to the Chief,’/Oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord.”
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: “Mercedes-Benz”
Pitching: Mercedes-Benz
It’s really about: Poor people succumbing to capitalism and materialism via the ultimate upper class status symbol.
Sample lyric: “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?/My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.”
Can you think of others?
Previously: Target Hearts Lene Lovitch.
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I remember Aphex Twin’s “4″ was used in an anti-drug commercial. Irony not hard to detect.
No subtext in this one, but that one car company ruined Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” for everyone by playing on every commercial of theirs for around 50 years, it seemed.
Damn them. Damn them to hell.
A Pepsi ad once featured an ant singing ‘Brown Sugar’ for some reason. It didn’t run for long…
Perhaps Petsmart should use ‘Stray Cat Blues’.
How about Devo’s ironic pathos of “Beautiful World” for a Target commercial a while back.
This is the Day by The The for Dockers. A song about a mid life crisis to advertise yucky pants for middle-aged men. Brilliant.
How about this story on Johnny Cash’s classic “Ring of Fire” and hemorrhoid-relief cream…
how about the use of “New Slang” by the Shins in a McDonald’s commercial for feeding french fries to your infant? (circa 2002 Winter Olympics).
Lyrics not included in commercial: New Slang / When you notice the stripes / the dirt in your fries / Hope it’s right when you die, old and bony . . .
I couldn’t believe it when I heard Peaches “Fuck the Pain Away” used in a McDonald’s commercial.
The use of the Iron & Wine version of “Such Great Heights” in the M & M’s commercial horrifies me, as does every Old Navy commercial ever made ever (though it’s not because I’m particularly fond of the songs they’re reworking to fit khakis and hippie skirts).
I kind of like the Target commercial, and I can’t really put my finger on why.
People ALWAYS miss the point of Devo’s “Beautiful World.” (good pick btw)
I never forget Boards of Canada doing a BMW commercial a few years ago. DIY Scottish electronics vs. precise German engineering.
Remember, there was a Target commercial last year that used Cornershop’s “Good Shit”. Naturally, they changed the words to “good stuff’s around”.
Oh, I love how Wrangler took a CCR song protesting Vietnam and mindless flag waving, and made a commercial about mindless flag waving by cutting out “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no Senator’s son”.
“There She Goes” is not about drugs. Lee Mavers has always adamantly denied the connection. Besides, the line that sounds most like a drug reference is “There she goes again, pulsing through my veins”. But, repeat, this is not about drugs. Perhaps it uses drugs as an analogy, but it’s still fundamentaly about a girl, not a drug.
Sorry for the rant, I’m just a huge La’s fan…
As for cognotively dissonant commericals, I’d nominate Nissan using Air’s “Surfing on a Rocket,” because, come on, everyone knows Air drives Puegots.
Yeah, the “There She Goes” so-called drug connection seems like a stretch.
aqueduct has a song on a new jaguar commercial. no doubt jaguar trying to tap into that burgeoning indie pop kid/luxury car market.
Also, how could anyone forget the use of the Rolling Stone’s “Brown Sugar” for a Pepsi commercial (for the Superbowl, no less) featuring an animated fly sucking back Pepsi and buzzing around.
I think Keith Richard’s reaction was something to the effect of, “for a million dollars, they can think Brown Sugar’s about whatever they want.”
not an ad, but reagan using ‘born in the usa’ for his campaign in ’84 or whenever it was
I heard that Paul McCartney wrote “Got to Get You Into My Life” about LSD.
The “greatest song in the world” in the movie Airheads was a Reagan Youth song. We are Reagan Youth zieg heil!
Artist: John Lennon
Song: “Instant Karma”
Pitching: Nike shoes
It’s Really About: Cosmic payback occurring rather quickly.
Sample lyric:How in the world you gonna see/Laughin’ at fools like me/Who in the hell d’you think you are/A super star/Well, right you are.
Advertising doesn’t understand sarcasm at all.
this is a good time for me to ask – isn’t the shuggie otis track on a commercial for something? i know i’ve heard the intro in an ad.
Gummer heres your boy….this is his new one out next month – no payola just playola
Devendra Banhart – Cripple Crow
http://rapidshare.de/files/3347384/row.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/3347379/row.part2.rar.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/3364272/bdcc.part3.rar.html
pass=zades
“Got To Get You Into My Life” is about Pot, not acid, even though it was on Revolver, their “LSD album”.
Either way, it’s kind of lame in an eigth-grade “gotta get stoned every day bro!” sort of way.
nike + the stooges’ search and destroy = abject horror
also have a vague recollection of nike using william s. burroughs in a commercial a while back.
the absolute worst was an ad here in australia for a people/hello type mag aimed at bored housewives, with marvin gaye’s what’s going’ on as the accompaniment
for the love of god, stop calling him gummer
Artist: Spiritualized
Title: “Ladies and Gentlemen We’re Floating In Space”
Pitching: VW Bug
It’s really about: Trading in your heroin addiction for some good old fashioned loving.
Sample lyric: All I want in life’s a little bit of love to take the pain away
Plus of course, all The Who songs of late. But in that case the shame lies squarely on the band, given their whole anti-sellout image.
And speaking of Target, I read that Digable Planets tried to sue them for using that “Cool Like That” song.
Artist: Transplants
Song: “Diamonds and Guns”
Pitching: Garnier Fructis
It’s Really About: Stealing, Drugs, and Gangs
I know I’m going to get Shit for this cause Many of you Hate Madonna but oh well:
Artist: Madonna
Title: Ray Of Light
Pitching:Micro soft Commercial 2003-2004
It’s really about: sings here in a voice grown deeper and fuller about the emptiness of fame and pleasure … and the rewards of mystic pursuits…. [S]he peppers her songs with apocalyptic visions of death and rebirth, sin, salvation and transcendence….
Sample lyric: “Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder
Do my tears of mourning
Sink beneath the sun
She’s got herself a universe gone quickly
For the call of thunder
Threatens everyone”Faster than the speeding light she’s flying
Trying to remember where it all began
She’s got herself a little piece of heaven
Waiting for the time when earth shall be as one
Seriously, can we quit it with the “Gummer” shit?
Artist: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Song: “Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622″
Pitching: Tylenol PM
It’s Really About: Excedrin
Slate played the same game a few months back:
http://www.slate.com/id/2120229
Many of which are mentioned here as well as others,
“My favorite: The NFL’s use of Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’ in a Super Bowl ad for itself. The ad: A montage of home movies and official films shows fans enjoying the thrills of the sport with Reed’s song about heroin and suicide playing in the background.”
Artist: James
Song: “Born of Frustration”
Pitching: Hilton Hotels
It’s Really About: Political activism
Sample lyric: Show me the movie/That doesn?t deal in black and white/Stop stop talking about who?s to blame/When all that counts is how to change
Who can forget the sound of Nick Drake turning over in his grave when “Pink Moon” was used to whore VW Bugs.
i just read that slate article before i saw this post. weird. yeah the post should seriously stop ripping off other people’s material.
Artist: Nick Drake
Song: “Pink Moon”
Pitching: Volkswagens
It’s Really about: The loss of sanity to anti-depressants, by an artist who ultimately commited suicide because of said drugs. aired a couple years ago.
Re: ripping off Slate. That is such a weatherbeaten topic that to say one person stole the idea from another is ridiculous.
Besides, who cares that some bands’ trite and simpleminded political message gets appropriated to sell some products? As if the world would be at peace if James’ message on political action would just break through to the masses. These bands should just count their lucky stars that they wrote a song with a musical hook that can be taken out of context just enough to sell some sneakers.
Also, speaking for myself, I had never heard of Nick Drake before those ads, and now I love his music. Where’s the problem?
Whats with the gummer police…I consider it a term of endearment, If you have some social problems or get teased a lot I apologize….otherwise F off
> this is a good time for me to ask – isn’t
> the shuggie otis track on a commercial for
> something?
I believe it was Special K Red Berries.
At least Volkswagen (and Target usually) had the decency to make their shameless commercials good.
“Hello, Goodbye” is used in a cellphone commercial. Verizon, I think.
Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lover’s “Ice Cream Man” in a Target commercial made my head spin. It was a really cool, surreal commercial, though.
Could the NY Post be more out of touch? The “Baby Got Backpack” campaign is brilliant. It’s so squarely aimed at the 26-35 year old hipsters with school-age kids, and it hits the mark perfectly. It’s fun and surreal, and based on the number of people who have something to say about it, doing its j0b — that is, being memorable — very well.
I remember Aphex Twin’s “4″ was used in an anti-drug commercial. Irony not hard to detect.
It’s hard for me. I’m a huge aphex fan, but I don’t know what you are saying? Electronic music is for drug addicts? The number four is a favorite with coke heads? What?
I actually sometimes like it when punks, old school rockers and other alternative-style “artiste” forerunners have their songs used in corporate big-money marketing campaigns. They either sold out, or had their words turned against them by The Man. What’s more punk than that?
plus, don’t like it, blame Moby.
The moment I heard the smiths “How soon is now” being used in car commercial I thought, “I am a target market” and then I cried.
OH YEAH SCOTT it was special k. well done.
Artist: The Pointer Sisters
Song: “I’m So Excited”
Pitching: 4x4s for toddlers
It’s Really about: A chick wanting to screw some guy’s brains out.
Sample lyrics: I want to love you, feel you
Wrap myself around you
I want to squeeze you, please you
I just can?t get enough
cmon man, if yr an aphex twin fan you’ll know what the guy meant. aphex twin song name: cornish acid, album name:druqs, aphex lyric – “i would like some milk from the milkman’s wifes tits” etc…..
i dont think there is irony however in using music that sounds typically disorientated and druggy like A.T’s usually does for an anti-drug campaign. get the mood goin.
Of course, there is always the super-fun Dead Kennedys lawsuit based on Jello Biafra not wanting the Levis to use “Holiday in Cambodia” in a commercial.
apples in stereo for JC Penney a couple years ago. so weird!
Artist: Donna Summer
Title: Love to Love You Baby
Pitching: Cinnamon rolls at Burger King… I think.
Really About: Orgasms
Sample Lyrics: Do it to me again and again
you put me in such an awful spin
Revolution by the Beatles…used in a Nike commercial..thanks a fu**ing lot, Michael Jackson!!
Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand used to advertise that PSP Mobile thingy.
LUst for LIfe by Iggy Pop was also used by a car company before the resort co. used it.
I can say with 100% certainty that I am THE biggest aphex fan that has ever come to this site. First, cornish acid. Acid is a kind of music. Like the tb-303? Drukqs is just some random title that he never explained. Doesn’t mean drugs, really. “4″ was off the Richard D James Album, anyway, which was well before Drukqs. Aphex’s music isn’t disorientated. It’s very focused and intentional. He doesn’t make drug music. He makes good music.
Now, the Greatful Dead. They make drug music.
Not that I don’t like drugs. I love drugs and kids should do lots of them. I love listening to Aphex while on drugs, too.
Lest we forget when Modest Mouse licensed the same song (Gravity Rides Everything) to both Nissan (for a mini-van commercial, of all things) and Miller Genuine Draft…
Well, he makes SOME good music – no artist is flawless (no artist with more than one record, anyhow). But personally, I prefer to spend the money on drugs, and borrow his records. And somehow, I think he’d like it that way.
Meanwhile, all of you guys can remember which songs went with each product.
In Re: “Got to Get You into My Life” and Revolver as an “acid” album.
It’s not. Revolver and Rubber Soul are both pot albums. Sgt. Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour are both LSD albums. White Album and Abbey Road are both Yoko albums. Isn’t it funny how the drug albums are way better than the woman albums?
I know, it’s a small point, but I can’t remember any commercial songs and I’m a real stickler about the Beatles.
budweiser used Ramones “blitzkrieg bop” in a beer (natch) commercial … they just used they “hey ho let’s go” part and left out the “shoot’em in the back now”
***
as for Target … the original “new toy” in question was lena lovich’s vibrator
memo to stereogum – you might want to clear out the comments on the lena lovich post
Starbucks is using Gary Glitter’s “rock and roll part 2″ in recent commercials for their double-shot espresso drink, I guess voluntarily giving money to and through that associating themselves with a convicted pedophile is a small price to pay in their quest for increased profits.
Maybe for the next commercial they should use R Kelly, they could get a testimonial from him that when he golden showered an underage girl on video the urine came from drinking loads of Starbucks…
you guys are acting a little like the artists unwillingly had their songs used. these songs were licensed with the artists permission, you know.
New JC Penney ad for back to school clothing features a bunch of kids dancing around to Black Sheep’s “The Choice is Yours”. The song’s about sex…”you can get with this” (have sex w/ me) “or you can get with that” (have sex with him)
this is from about ten years ago in Canada
Artist: The Smiths
Title: How Soon is Now
Pitching: Labatt Ice (high alcohol beer)
It’s really about: feeling alienated in a crowd
Sample lyric: “There’s a club if you’d like to go, you could meet, somebody who really loves you, so you go, and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own and you go home, and you cry and you want to die”
I’m surprised that neither this post nor the Slate article mentioned the use of Nena’s “99 Luftballoons” in a JCPenny’s/Sears (can’t remember which) commercial around Christmas. Nothing like the nuclear holocaust to make you want to buy gifts for your family and friends. Of course they only used the “You and I in a little toy shop/Buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got/Set them free at the break of dawn/’Til one by one, they were gone” part.
I don’t think the ‘I Like Backpacks’ idea would go down quite so well over here in the UK – people are touchy enough at the moment about backpacks in London, especially on the subway!
Ok, I don’t know the song title… or the name of the product but, I swear that there is a Kink’s song that is hocking some kind of home photo printer. The song is about family photo’s which makes it less ironic but the two brothers that were in the Kinks were notorious for not getting along.
“The Girl You Really Got Me” tune by them has been selling discount clothing at Kohl’s as well.
It’s called Picture Book off of Village Green by the Kinks, just like the alternate one which has the cure and pictures of you.
There’s not really irony though, they are songs about pictures.
And if it’s a rerecording of a song which is mostly what the beatles ones are they don’t have to get artist permission, you just have to pay royalties.
Quote Van Halen as per Crystal Pepsi:
Guitar World: Were you criticized for “selling out” when you let Pepsi use “Right Now” for their ill-fated Crystal Pepsi advertising campaign?
VAN HALEN: Probably, but the only reason we gave them the music was because they were going to use the song anyway. They would just have recut the song with studio musicians, like they do for some TV movies when they redo an old hit because they can’t use the original. If they use the original, they’ve got to pay, but if they don’t, all they do is give credit to the artist and then pay the studio cats. Pepsi told us that they were going to do that, so we said, “Hey wait a minute, we might as well get the money.” I ain’t that proud, you know. I’m not going to say–”No, go ahead, rip us off. And keep the money too!”
The ad you’re thinking of is for HP printers, and the song is “Picture Book” by the Kinks. Actually, the lyrics are pretty twisted, and not at all as cheery as the melody would suggest . . .which puts it right in line with most of Ray Davies’ takes on family life.
Yeah the song goes something like, “pictures of your mother, pictures of your father, that prove they loved each other, a long time ago”.
Really, the lyrics sound kind of emotionally painful while tune is completely catchy.
sixpence? really?! it’s the la’s my dear.
I’m not against stuff like sir mix alot selling shit, but stuff like the Ramones, or Iggy Pop? That’s unforgivable.
but I understand that punks get old and get screwed by accountants and want to make a little money for their golden years. People change. So, I don’t know what I’d do if I were them .. Depends on how much moeny I already had, I guess.
You can see the Baby Got Back commercial over at tubespot:
http://www.tubespot.com/index.php?spot=target-babyimback&bw=hi
you don’t just pay royalties for the song. you still have to get a synchronization license for the publishing of the song, which would be from the song’s publisher; the person who writes the song gets paid, along with the publisher, but they usually have to get permission from the writer of the song for each usage, unless the writer has given some sort of blanket permission to allow any composition to be used in any instance.
The one that always stood out to me was the car commercial with the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize”. Here’s a song that has heavy emphasis on “everyone will die sometime,” then they pan to a cute laughing baby in a vehicle. I thought that was kinda fucked up.
Sort of unrelated, but about Sixpence None The Richer’s cover of “There She Goes” in the birth control commercial, I found it kind of odd, considering that Sixpence was pretty well known as a Christian band before they became known for their “Kiss Me” song. Quite an odd fit. I never followed the band closely, ever since they had gone in the secular direction, if you will, but I’d be pretty interested to find out their take on it.
I often have “what the fuck?” moments whenever there is this odd music placement in commercials, but I will admit that I had been into The Walkmen ever since “We’ve Been Had” appeared in a Saturn Ion commercial.
d, the ortho commercial uses the sixpence version, not the la’s.
Yep, I second the Do You Realize (I just posted a comment in the wrong entry)
I believe it’s for Mitsubishi (I could be wrong). The lyrics that they include are:
Do you realize
That you have the most beautiful face
Do you realize
We’re floating in space
Do you realize
That happiness makes you cry
Lyrics they omitted:
Do You Realize
That everyone you know someday will die
!!!
Thansplant’ song Diamonds and Guns on the Pantene Pro-V commercial. A song about a search for drugs, trailer trash and rehab center on a publicity for fresh, young and clean girls
NY Times is so wrong! “Lust for Life is not about heroin, you f-ing morons. It’s about getting clean, cleaning up. “I’m through with beating my brains/Beating my brains/With Liquor and drugs/With liquor and drugs/I got the lust for life…”
You can tell when middleaged fat-ass journos are trying to “get hip withhit” and make assumptions. I’ve been listening to this song for all of mjy adult life, and it’s not about heroin. Iggy rarely was pitying himself enough to write about his drug use. He left that to Lou and Bowie.
However, my favorite verse from LUST FOR LIFE is:
“Love is like hypnotizing chickens”
Also, re: use of Nick Drake song in VW commercial: that commercial resurrected Drake for an entire new generation. His record sales spiked 1000 percent after that…have any of you ever thought of THAT positive side effect??
Clinic’s “The Second Line” advertising Levi’s doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean the song’s so obviously about ‘tikki tikki teh mon eh nye’. They make no mention whatsoever of pants.
How about Randy Crawford’s “STREET LIFE”, a song about prostitution, after being in JACKIE BROWN, wound up in an ad for Verizon, or some other telephone company.
RE: “re: use of Nick Drake song in VW commercial: that commercial resurrected Drake for an entire new generation. His record sales spiked 1000 percent after that…have any of you ever thought of THAT positive side effect??”
yeah, good for him and his rotten corpse.
The b&w animations in the Target ad look a lot like something from James Paterson (http://www.presstube.com/)
the jamaica tourism board used a marley song about the horrible living conditions in Jamaica..
I’m trying to sell a script using The Talking Heads “Once in A Lifetime” for a camera ad right now. It probably won’t ever see the light of day, so don’t panic.
What’s that new JcPenney’s commercial’s song? you can deal with this, you can deal with that
The song in the JCPenney ad is “The Choice is Yours (Revisited)” by Black Sheep. It’s over ten years old. I found it on iTunes.
hi my name is poopy i like poop. hiiiiiiiii
Fuck you Nick. I hope you get cancer and die, as do your grotesque offspring. You are the enemy.
Should be: Pete. I hope you get socket-fucked.
Joe:
The black and white illustrations in the target ads *are* from James Paterson.
anyone know the song used in the NEWEST jc penney commercial? the new campaign is “cooler every day” or something like that
hey has anyone seen the new m&m’s commercial?
so u know who sings the song?
it has like a harmonika sound in the background?
if anyone finds it, can u please e-mail me ASAP!!
thanks a bunch!!!
I read your posts for quite a long time and should tell that your posts are always valuable to readers.