Thursday 26 February 2015

Everybody's Got A Thing


There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is advert music.


Believe it or not, the worst thing about adverts isn't the nauseating sentimentality. Nor is it banks pretending to be our friends. It isn't even the exploitation of human tragedy for corporate gain. The worst thing about adverts, it turns out, is the music. Here are three examples:

1. 

This VW ad embodies everything that's wrong with adverts; it's twee, it makes no sense (Woofwagen??) and it features the worst song ever written. Never before have I felt such a strong urge to beat a singing man to death with his own guitar. Me and you, just bleeding from the brain / me and you in agonising pain.

2. 

Here's my impression of a lazy advertising person: "Let's just use another soulless cover of a recognisable song *snort*." Speaking of cocaine, it's hard to miss the point of Kiss. Smirnoff, however, have managed to do so in spectacular fashion, with this hopelessly drippy cover of Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Nights; a song essentially about having crazy nights. Apparently advertising people's idea of a crazy night is sunsets and confetti. A crazy night with Kiss is more a case of: "How am I going to get home?"


3.

Using the most commercial rock band in the world to sell alcohol (or ALCOHAAAWWWWLLL as Paul Stanley would say) is one thing; exploiting '70s funk is another matter entirely. Funkadelic's I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing,  Everybody's Got a Thing is about overcoming our differences to help one another; Levi's version is about selling jeans made in sweatshops. Everybody's got a thing, and my thing is a burning desire to kill those responsible for this ad-rock cover of a song I love.