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Sell Yourselves Out

Edgy MD Jun 25 2013 04:08 PM

With Fiat adapting T-Rex's "Children of the Revolution" into their ads, a new level of irony has been hit in compromising powerful and meaningful songs to serve a purpose far removed and often contradictory to their original purposes, because in so doing, Fiat and their admen, are, quite literally, trying to fool the children of the revolution, at least to some extent. So, you're an adman. An outrageous adman. Or adwoman. What song would you adopt to a new commercial purpose, just knowing that it will drive the song's most loyal adherents to rip their hair out? Or send you straight to rock 'n' roll hell, if you believed in that sort of thing. "Heart Shaped Box" for candygrams? "Here Comes a Regular" for TGI Fridays? Which way do you go?

Ashie62 Jun 25 2013 04:30 PM Re: Sell Yourselves Out

Its funny how it can go both ways...The Smithereens and myself were happy to see GM sign "Blood and Roses" as in...."Holy Shit, we're gonna get paid!"

Fman99 Jun 25 2013 07:50 PM Re: Sell Yourselves Out

I would like to see "Dirt" by Alice in Chains used by any of the big name hardware stores, showing people buying gardening and lawn care products. Any grunge-era artist/song would be great in that sense -- those guys and their flannel based angst is hard to take so seriously, in retrospect. How about Soundgarden's "Spoonman" by Pier 19? Or, better yet, get Pearl Jam's people on the phone...

Edgy MD Jun 25 2013 08:45 PM Re: Sell Yourselves Out

Nice. Yeah, there's certainly cause for a song's early audience to let go of the rope with with which they fight the commercial system. Charles Schulz had no sympathy for folks decrying the Peanuts gang selling Ford Falcons. His position was that getting commercial work was the brass-ring goal for cartoonists. It meant you made it, in the same way getting a sneaker commercial meant you made it if you were a late-eighties basketball player.

RealityChuck Jun 26 2013 06:46 AM Re: Sell Yourselves Out

The Boomtown Rats "I Don't Like Mondays" for a radio station contest. A local station promoted it, but when the Monday came along, for some reason, the entire idea was dropped. But already someone is using Dave Mason's "Feelin' Alright?" as an upbeat ad jingle, though the left out all the lyrics but the title (the song is about an angry breakup).