While I work on my 2k for today (first chapter coming, for what it’s worth), I have football playing on the TV. Which means I have football advertising on TV. I’ve noticed two ads for automobiles that use adaptations of Rolling Stones pieces for the music.
Both are questionable choices.
Lexus, I think it was, went with “Sympathy for the Devil”. Nothing like a song about the insidious and seductive nature of evil to sell an automobile. But perhaps this was calculated; the target demographic for that car might be looking for a little sympathy.
Ford, meanwhile, in an extend ad with a message about building the future I thought was pretty effective, underlayed the message with an instrumental version of “Paint it Black”. A song about death. The whole ad came off pretty well, and the arrangement of the music was properly atmospheric, but… it’s a song about the death of a loved one, and the borderline insanity of the bereaved. Not really fitting the message of “the future belongs to the ones who actually make things.”
Maybe it’s just that Boomers like me, while they build their retirement wealth, forget what the songs of their youth actually meant. Maybe boomers like me are just pleased to hear music we recognize — maybe we are just gullible sheep. “They’re catering to us!”
How long until “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols is in a Jaguar commercial?
I laughed repeatedly when GM (maybe GMC?) ran the Who’s “Eminence Front” in a series of ads. I devolved to giving a shout out of the refrain, /”It’s a put on!”/.
Or Iggy Pop selling a cruise line. All I could think of was Trainspotting’s “Choose Life.”
“Cruise like a Norwegian” was the tag for those ads. Which sounded like “Row! Row!”