Classic Rock Songs Ruined in Commercials

[Maui Tom]

Carly Simon's "Anticipation"...all I can picture is someone trying to get ketchup out of a bottle.

No LIE!

[Vladan]

Nevermind songs killed by adverts, I'm more concerned about actual artists selling themselves out to adverts.
Here in England (and possibly the rest of the UK) Alice Cooper was in a national insurance advert and Iggy Pop was in a finance advert.
Worst, and most hilarious of all, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was recently in a butter commerical. I am totally serious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY

Well there you have it - classic example

Now one thing is for certain, that once a song is used for a commercial, that there is a clear sign, how cheap it is to actually use that song, and right then and there "that song" has been cheapened and the artist/s of that song is living in desperate times, and so now the song holds about as much weight as a crappy TV commercial about Asbestos removal...

Take a look at what most of the people here are saying, the songs now remind them of TV ads.

[SherriBerry]

Nevermind songs killed by adverts, I'm more concerned about actual artists selling themselves out to adverts.
Here in England (and possibly the rest of the UK) Alice Cooper was in a national insurance advert and Iggy Pop was in a finance advert.
Worst, and most hilarious of all, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was recently in a butter commerical. I am totally serious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY

Well there you have it - classic example

Now one thing is for certain, that once a song is used for a commercial, that there is a clear sign, how cheap it is to actually use that song, and right then and there "that song" has been cheapened and the artist/s of that song is living in desperate times, and so now the song holds about as much weight as a crappy TV commercial about Asbestos removal...

Take a look at what most of the people here are saying, the songs now remind them of TV ads.

Exactly! I could see a songwriter like Diane Warren who isn't a performer being more willing to authorize the use of songs for a commercial - they basically sell their songs to other artists who promote their own image like a product. But when an artist puts everything into a song -writes it, performs it and pours out every emotion on stage, it seems unbelievable that they would let that song be used to promote hot dogs or ketchup. Instead of that song being associated with the artist, it becomes associated with a TV ad.

Perhaps after decades, some artists lose the feeling they had for the song or just need the money badly enough. If they didn't write it they have no control over how it's used, but artists like Carly Simon or Journey write their own songs. SP refused to let DSB be used in the final episode of 'The Sopranos' (a huge TV moment) unless he knew 100% that it would not be used inappropriately - that demonstrates quite a dedication to the legacy of Journey's music.

[WiseOldTabbyCat]

The day I hear Don't Stop Believin' in any ad, of any sort, will be a very sad day indeed.

[Jubilee]

The day I hear Don't Stop Believin' in any ad, of any sort, will be a very sad day indeed.

DSB in an ad? Yeah, after they pry it from SMFP's cold dead hands.

[WiseOldTabbyCat]

The day I hear Don't Stop Believin' in any ad, of any sort, will be a very sad day indeed.

DSB in an ad? Yeah, after they pry it from SMFP's cold dead hands.

They got DSB in on an episode of Family Guy, that's just as bad as any advert, in my opinion.

[tammy]

You mean like this commercial?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk9JwV8s ... re=related

Yeah, I hate when commercials ruin a song for me...I absolutely always get the image of ketchup with "Anticipation" One of the things I am grateful for is that SP kept this from happening with Journey music...I think the songs for car commercials are okay as long as they are done tastefully because the product is really more about the idea of "freedom", "escape", "adventure", etc.
It definitely 'cheapens' a song for me when it is used in a goofy or lame way. I'm not opposed to artists having their songs placed in commercials, but good lord, why would they want them placed in dog food or floor cleaning commercials?? That hard up for money? I have come across some commercials that had a catchy song that I really wanted to know what it was, like Ingrid Michaelson's song in an Old Navy commercial...she was unknown until the commercial put her on the map. And, Nick Drake's song, "Pink Moon" found an audience when it was used in a VW commercial. So, it can be a good thing....but, the day I see/hear a Journey song with some lame household product...ugh, SHUDDER!

[tammy]

OH, NO! I just heard "Hello its me" (Todd Rundgren song) on the t.v. and looked to see it was an awful TUMS commercial! Crap. This is getting out of hand...go back to jingle writers for cryinoutloud.

[journel]

How to Calculate Musical Sellouts
As Rockers Cash In, The Moby Quotient Helps to Determine The Shilling Effect

By Bill Wyman
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page M01

A commercial during "The Colbert Report" recently featured a happy family shopping in Circuit City for back-to-school technology for their comely daughter. She's a big fan of the bubblegum punk group Fall Out Boy, and while the band's fabulous song "Thnks fr th Mmrs" plays, she imagines all the exciting Fall Out Boy-related things she could do with many different amazing Circuit City products.

As the happy family leaves the store, Dad hands her a new cellphone and says, smiling, "You can take a study break with Fall Out Boy!"

The kid is tickled pink.

Right after that came a Nissan commercial, which wanted consumers to understand that, if you owned an SUV, you could drive places. To underline the point, the commercial broke into the Ramones, who sang, "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" That's the famous break from the punk rockers' "Blitzkrieg Bop," a heartfelt ode to pogoing to the beat of a Nazi military assault.

Well, at least it wasn't a Volkswagen ad.

It seems as if every commercial these days has a rock band in it. What was once the mark of utter uncoolness, a veritable byword of selling out, has become the norm. More than a decade ago we became inured to the most unlikely parings. Led Zeppelin in a Cadillac ad. The Clash shilling for Jaguar. Bob Dylan warbling for an accounting firm, or Victoria's Secret. An Iggy Pop song about a heroin-soaked demimonde accompanying scenes of blissful vacationers on a Caribbean cruise ship.

There is no longer even a debate, let alone a stigma. "If you did an advert, you were a sellout," notes Billboard Executive Editor Tamara Conniff. "The Rolling Stones broke that when they allowed the use of 'Start Me Up' for the Windows campaign. Though there was an initial backlash, it suddenly made it okay for bands of integrity to do commercials. Now, it's almost as if as an artist you don't have a corporate partner [or] commercial, you've not really arrived."

Indeed, in the late 1990s, the techno artist Moby, as hip as they come, openly boasted of having sold every track of his breakthrough album "Play" to an advertiser, or to a film or TV soundtrack. The album should perhaps have been called "Pay."

So we submit: The battle has been lost. But that doesn't make it right. There are even some who disagree.

"People say making money is making money, but there's a difference," says Bill Brown, a onetime rock critic who now works in the New York publishing world. He examines the implications of this new age in rock commercialism at great length and no little erudition on his Web site, Notbored.org. "If you're in a band, you want to be paid, definitely, but the music is for people to use and enjoy. The problem with branding yourself and selling your songs to commercials is the music is no longer for the listener.

"Instead, the ad is signaling that, 'This company is cool, and we've gotten this band to sell us some of their music.' It's the difference between selling to me, and something else: Pete Townshend sold a song to Hummer!"

Clearly, what we need is an objective formula for determining just how offensive a particular rock-based advertisement is. I am proud to announce that this lack has been righted.

I recently enlisted the aid of Jim Anderson, a senior lecturer in mathematics at England's University of Southampton. An expert on hyperbolic geometry, he embarked on this task with tongue firmly in cheek, and developed a formula that can be used to process the ethical and aesthetic implications of any one instance of the pervasive blurring of the lines between rock and advertising.

The formula kicks out a number that could be used to determine just how much of a sellout is a particular artist.

We are pleased to call this number the Moby Quotient and to assign the Greek letter "mu," to designate it.

The equation is designed to put things in perspective. If Kelly Clarkson sings for Ford, where, in the end, is the harm? Negligible artists singing on subjects that can be of less-than-pressing social import advertising silly products. One does not look to Disney pop culture puppets or artists given an imprimatur by the viewers of a Fox TV show for artistic integrity. Ms. Clarkson can sing for her supper anywhere she wants, and the world sits solidly on its foundations.

However. If you are an artist who traffics in -- or has trafficked in -- your outsider status; if you were a punk or a rebel or a beast whose rude yawp emerged from the underground and you are now hawking your anthems of defiance as ear candy to further the sales of a crummy telecom company, a new line of SUVs or the marvelous things General Electric is doing, well then, sir or madam artiste, expect your Moby Quotient to be somewhat higher.

The formula sits proudly on this very page, along with a few examples of the sorts of Moby Quotients certain artists earn. We have to be realistic: This tide of greed will never slide back out. Indeed, it can only get worse, since new generations of rock fans have grown up with the practice and apparently see nothing wrong with it.

Our one hope is that what greed created, greed may eventually eliminate -- in other words, that younger artists will view Moby's career as a cautionary tale. The jut-jawed vegan still makes a good living touring and doing film soundtracks and the like. But it's also true that commercially and artistically, his recorded work since "Play" has been on a downward spiral. Let the sellouts beware.

Bill Wyman, the former arts editor of National Public Radio, writes the blog "Hitsville" athttp://hitsville.org.

The calculator:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2007/sellout-songs/

bill wyman...lol...namesake of rolling stones bassist...talking about songs used for ads...a bunch of beatles songs made it and so did the stones and here's one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JurHXyReJA

[Blueskies]

OH, NO! I just heard "Hello its me" (Todd Rundgren song) on the t.v. and looked to see it was an awful TUMS commercial! Crap. This is getting out of hand...go back to jingle writers for cryinoutloud.

Agreed! Jingles for commercials, not classic music.

[hoagiepete]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

[Don]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

You actually switched to Bud Light? From what?

[stevew2]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

You actually switched to Bud Light? From what?

piss,Bud light is one step above it

[steveo777]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

You actually switched to Bud Light? From what?

piss,Bud light is one step above it

Dude, in the end it's all piss

[walkslikealady]

Yes, please, go back to writing jingles for commercials!

I don't mind hearing old favorites done in a tasteful manner in TV or movies. Just heard a old Poco song I loved on a rerun of "Bones"; however, I don't want to hear a favorite song played during a murder or rape scene.

[tammy]

OH, NO! I just heard "Hello its me" (Todd Rundgren song) on the t.v. and looked to see it was an awful TUMS commercial! Crap. This is getting out of hand...go back to jingle writers for cryinoutloud.

Agreed! Jingles for commercials, not classic music.

I love the 'classic' jingles from commercials...does anyone remember Salerno Butter cookies? I can still remember the song, "you can looky, looky, looky, but you'll never find a cookie, like Salerno Butter Cookies." I wonder if I can find it on youtube!

edit: darn, can't find it...but, I found the Fig Newton : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46 ... re=related

[stevew2]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

You actually switched to Bud Light? From what?

piss,Bud light is one step above it

Dude, in the end it's all piss

Good point, I just like the piss goin out not in

[Blueskies]

OH, NO! I just heard "Hello its me" (Todd Rundgren song) on the t.v. and looked to see it was an awful TUMS commercial! Crap. This is getting out of hand...go back to jingle writers for cryinoutloud.

Agreed! Jingles for commercials, not classic music.

I love the 'classic' jingles from commercials...does anyone remember Salerno Butter cookies? I can still remember the song, "you can looky, looky, looky, but you'll never find a cookie, like Salerno Butter Cookies." I wonder if I can find it on youtube!

edit: darn, can't find it...but, I found the Fig Newton : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46 ... re=related

I remember that. The first classic commercials that come to mind for me are Coke..

Mean Joe Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8

I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU

[tammy]

OH, NO! I just heard "Hello its me" (Todd Rundgren song) on the t.v. and looked to see it was an awful TUMS commercial! Crap. This is getting out of hand...go back to jingle writers for cryinoutloud.

Agreed! Jingles for commercials, not classic music.

I love the 'classic' jingles from commercials...does anyone remember Salerno Butter cookies? I can still remember the song, "you can looky, looky, looky, but you'll never find a cookie, like Salerno Butter Cookies." I wonder if I can find it on youtube!

edit: darn, can't find it...but, I found the Fig Newton : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46 ... re=related

I remember that. The first classic commercials that come to mind for me are Coke..

Mean Joe Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8

I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU

Neat. I just started a thread for the old jingles so lets put them there.

[Blueskies]

OH, NO! I just heard "Hello its me" (Todd Rundgren song) on the t.v. and looked to see it was an awful TUMS commercial! Crap. This is getting out of hand...go back to jingle writers for cryinoutloud.

Agreed! Jingles for commercials, not classic music.

I love the 'classic' jingles from commercials...does anyone remember Salerno Butter cookies? I can still remember the song, "you can looky, looky, looky, but you'll never find a cookie, like Salerno Butter Cookies." I wonder if I can find it on youtube!

edit: darn, can't find it...but, I found the Fig Newton : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46 ... re=related

I remember that. The first classic commercials that come to mind for me are Coke..

Mean Joe Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8

I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU

Neat. I just started a thread for the old jingles so lets put them there.

OK! I'll repeat my post!

[Blueskies]

This guy thinks using songs in commercials is a good idea when the song fits...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsP9DUmIIdM

[hoagiepete]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

You actually switched to Bud Light? From what?

I hate to admit it...but Coors. Coors was huge here in the Midwest. Now, for obvious reasons can't drink it.

[stevew2]

Not to screw up the thread, but an effective use of classic rock, which did not involve the actual songs, was Bud Light commerical with the guys walking down the fairway playing golf discussing classic rock favs. That ad had a part in me switching to Bud Light. No shit.

You actually switched to Bud Light? From what?

I hate to admit it...but Coors. Coors was huge here in the Midwest. Now, for obvious reasons can't drink it.

Thats even worse, it taste like it is skunked

[SherriBerry]

This guy thinks using songs in commercials is a good idea when the song fits...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsP9DUmIIdM

I almost choked on my Pepsi when he suggested REO Speedwagon's song 'Take It On the Run' for a herpes ad

[Blueskies]

This guy thinks using songs in commercials is a good idea when the song fits...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsP9DUmIIdM

I almost choked on my Pepsi when he suggested REO Speedwagon's song 'Take It On the Run' for a herpes ad

I like his little Immodium dance

[TRAGChick]

The day I hear Don't Stop Believin' in any ad, of any sort, will be a very sad day indeed.

Um.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvB7jTG6oQ

[SherriBerry]

The day I hear Don't Stop Believin' in any ad, of any sort, will be a very sad day indeed.

Um.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvB7jTG6oQ

Does anyone else feel cold? I think Hell just froze over!! At least it was used in the context of being identified as a "Famous Pop Song" for 4 seconds and not the theme for a Viagra commercial, but still. I'm thinking of it and right now rather than associate the song with FedEx, I'm associating it with a groin kick Hey..."Pop" song?!

The Sopranos finale, a SuperBowl commercial, Baseketball, Monster - is this a smart move in keeping the song and Journey current in the collective psyche or dangerously bordering on overexposure?

[Vladan]

Nevermind songs killed by adverts, I'm more concerned about actual artists selling themselves out to adverts.
Here in England (and possibly the rest of the UK) Alice Cooper was in a national insurance advert and Iggy Pop was in a finance advert.
Worst, and most hilarious of all, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was recently in a butter commerical. I am totally serious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY

Well there you have it - classic example

Now one thing is for certain, that once a song is used for a commercial, that there is a clear sign, how cheap it is to actually use that song, and right then and there "that song" has been cheapened and the artist/s of that song is living in desperate times, and so now the song holds about as much weight as a crappy TV commercial about Asbestos removal...

Take a look at what most of the people here are saying, the songs now remind them of TV ads.

Exactly! I could see a songwriter like Diane Warren who isn't a performer being more willing to authorize the use of songs for a commercial - they basically sell their songs to other artists who promote their own image like a product. But when an artist puts everything into a song -writes it, performs it and pours out every emotion on stage, it seems unbelievable that they would let that song be used to promote hot dogs or ketchup. Instead of that song being associated with the artist, it becomes associated with a TV ad.

Perhaps after decades, some artists lose the feeling they had for the song or just need the money badly enough. If they didn't write it they have no control over how it's used, but artists like Carly Simon or Journey write their own songs. SP refused to let DSB be used in the final episode of 'The Sopranos' (a huge TV moment) unless he knew 100% that it would not be used inappropriately - that demonstrates quite a dedication to the legacy of Journey's music.

Yeah, agreed. It's crazy stuff indeed isn't it. Didn't Journey do that? I sure hope not.

[TRAGChick]

Here's a new commercial for Dr. Pepper, featuring Gene Simmons(!!) in full KISS-Regalia....

....and the song? "Dr. Love"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb9sVU0oK2Q