Friday, March 18, 2005
The Sweet Smell of Commerce in the Morning
Mixed in with the joys of being able to watch sports again are the pains of most sports having lots of commercials. I think I've mostly regained my commercial-tuning-outness. However, I feel the need to describe a bunch of commercials to you, my 15 loyal readers.
It was back in 2000 when The Onion mentioned that commercials were starting to sound, well, good (see Most Unsettling Trend That's Probably Good). I keep noticing it to, to the point where I even poked around the internet looking for music from a car commercial. However, the line between commercials and music becomes even stranger when one considers that Jay-Z has a line of basketball shoes. He does not, however, change into his Gucci flip flops after the interlude. Because it is a commercial for Reebok, or should I say, rbk, and not for Gucci. But I know he wants to be in the Gucci flip flops. After all, Jay-Z likes to mix it up. Like gin and juice.
I find the shoes strange, because Jay-Z is a rapper, and not a basketball player. However, I do have any problem with Jay-Z trying to sell me vodka. I must expect rappers to drink, not jump.
In other music/commerce related news, there's a commercial out which asks you "Why do you work?" (well, I don't). "You work to support your family, and because you enjoy working, and because you need to support your generic suburban lifestyle." The ad has some mostly generic muzak in the background, but something about the melody sounded familiar. It made me want to sing "and wasting precious time..." A quick google search revealed that this was a song I was familiar with by the Talking Heads, which is more of an indictment of suburban existance, particularly television-based, than a glorification. I might be inclined to believe that some marketing exec thought the song was actually a perfect fit for the ad, but I would prefer to think that it's some flunky assigned to get music for the ad who decided to be subversive. After all, the muzak doesn't sound at all like the Talking Heads song instrumentally, it's only the melody, and only someone familiar with the melody like I was would notice. So to you, meaningless advertising flunky at a company whose name I can't even remember (nice commercial), I raise my glass of orange beverage. I drink orange because apparently my family is Scotch-Irish, and therefore Protestant, and therefore opposed to St. Patrick's Day.
It's a good post which mentions my Protestant heritage and Flip Flop Rock in one fell swoop.
Mixed in with the joys of being able to watch sports again are the pains of most sports having lots of commercials. I think I've mostly regained my commercial-tuning-outness. However, I feel the need to describe a bunch of commercials to you, my 15 loyal readers.
It was back in 2000 when The Onion mentioned that commercials were starting to sound, well, good (see Most Unsettling Trend That's Probably Good). I keep noticing it to, to the point where I even poked around the internet looking for music from a car commercial. However, the line between commercials and music becomes even stranger when one considers that Jay-Z has a line of basketball shoes. He does not, however, change into his Gucci flip flops after the interlude. Because it is a commercial for Reebok, or should I say, rbk, and not for Gucci. But I know he wants to be in the Gucci flip flops. After all, Jay-Z likes to mix it up. Like gin and juice.
I find the shoes strange, because Jay-Z is a rapper, and not a basketball player. However, I do have any problem with Jay-Z trying to sell me vodka. I must expect rappers to drink, not jump.
In other music/commerce related news, there's a commercial out which asks you "Why do you work?" (well, I don't). "You work to support your family, and because you enjoy working, and because you need to support your generic suburban lifestyle." The ad has some mostly generic muzak in the background, but something about the melody sounded familiar. It made me want to sing "and wasting precious time..." A quick google search revealed that this was a song I was familiar with by the Talking Heads, which is more of an indictment of suburban existance, particularly television-based, than a glorification. I might be inclined to believe that some marketing exec thought the song was actually a perfect fit for the ad, but I would prefer to think that it's some flunky assigned to get music for the ad who decided to be subversive. After all, the muzak doesn't sound at all like the Talking Heads song instrumentally, it's only the melody, and only someone familiar with the melody like I was would notice. So to you, meaningless advertising flunky at a company whose name I can't even remember (nice commercial), I raise my glass of orange beverage. I drink orange because apparently my family is Scotch-Irish, and therefore Protestant, and therefore opposed to St. Patrick's Day.
It's a good post which mentions my Protestant heritage and Flip Flop Rock in one fell swoop.