I know a thread like this has been around before, but I haven’t seen one in a while. What brings it up (aside from being bored at work), is that the new Outback Steakhouse TV and radio ads around here feature a new jingle. It is based on the Of Montreal tune “Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and Other Games)” off of the Sunlandic Twins album. The Of Montreal lyrics are “Let’s pretend we don’t exist/Let’s pretend we’re in Antarctica” which has been mangled by Outback into something advertising their faux-Aussie marginal quality steakhouse.
(As an aside, the last time I ate at Outback I ordered a steak medium rare. It was first brought to me with the instructions by the server to make sure it was cooked OK – it was beyond well done with no pink let alone warm red. I wasn’t going to send it back, I’m not that picky, but the server insisted. He brought back another steak that wasn’t even rare, with the same instructions. I didn’t even have a chance to say anything, he whisked it back to the kitchen as soon as I cut into it. The third one was right, though. That was a mildly scary experience to have at a steakhouse.)
The other bizarre music choice that stands out in my mind is the song “One Small Step” by Stereolab in a Volvo commercial (“From the sky would fall an incessant rain of bombs/we had nowhere to go but retreat underground”).
Another more notable ones would include “Fortunate Son” used by numerous patriotic ads, last I think, by Tommy Hilfiger.
Sara Lee has a company-wide campaign featuring smiling people holding food. The jingle is Happy Happy Joy Joy, which was written for The Ren & Stimpy Show. Seeing as the lyrics consist of only two words- “happy” and “joy”- it isn’t really a bad choice for a commercial based on said emotions, but it is kind of bizarre if you think about the fact that the song is self-parodic in nature, and that during the spoken parts in between each verse (which, of course, aren’t used in the ad), the singer threatens to teach the listener’s grandmother to suck eggs and makes strange statements such as the Burl Ives-inspired "I told you I’d shoot- but you didn’t believe me! WHY DIDN’T YOU BELIEVE ME?!
I am intrigued by the weird music in the Quaker oatmeal bars commercials,
where the Quaker Oats guy is a statue proffering bars in various unlikely
settings. I can’t describe the music. It’s just…odd. But I have to stop
and listen whenever they come on.
When the people creating the ad don’t speak the language used in the background music, you’re pretty much guaranteed that things are going to turn out weird sometimes. Usually it’s just completely unrelated to the product or situation (Like Fuji TV using Elvis Costello’s Veronica to open their morning news program, or another channel’s weekend news starting with Reel Big Fish’s I Want Your Girfriend To Be My Girlfriend Too)
Some of the good ones have been the Toyota SUV ad using Emerson Lake and Palmer’s 21st Century Schizoid Man. The guitar riff is pretty good, but they then go on to include the lyrics “Blood-black barbed wire / A politican’s funeral pyre”. At least they end it before the next line, “Innocence raped with napalm fire,” although that could be fitting for Mitsubishi Motors.
Another car ad had a men’s chorus singing “Always look on the bright side of life / :whistling: / Always look on the right side of life…”
My favorite, though, was Nippon TV’s ad for their new season of programs. Probably somebody said they needed a song that was fast and fun-sounding, and that mentioned the days of the week. The result was the NTV logo bouncing around the screen to the tune of a scratchy, high-pitched voice singing:
Ooooonnnn Monday she’s a bitch,
on Tuesday she’s a bitch,
on Wednesday and Thursday she’s a bitch!
Beautiful.
And finally, there’s the series of ads currently running for Fire coffee. I realise the lyrics aren’t the same, but tell me you aren’t thinking the same thing as me when you hear the music. (warning: video file with sound)
I’m fairly certain this was written in response to the original Carnival Cruise Line ad that used “Lust for Life”…but man, does that commercial really date all the way back to early '01?
This is Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The film is about a character who is born on the same day as Jesus and is mistaken for the Messiah, this song is sung at the end of the film when he is crucified (Brian, not Jesus- although his life pretty much ended the same way).
This one is Kyle’s Mom is a Big Fat Bitch in D Minor by the fictional character Eric Cartman of South Park.
It’s hard to hear the lyrics, since the man speaking in Japanese is louder than them. Is what you were thinking that the song almost sounds like 76 Trombones?
Actually, I knew what both of these were, I just assumed that everyone else did, too (The Life of Brian song wouldn’t have been bizarre if I didn’t know the context).
It’s Sing us a Song, which is probably better known to Python fans as the tune to Sit on My Face.
Toyota’s been using Feeling Stronger Every Day by Chicago in their ads. They only use the “Feeling stronger every day” part of the song, and not the rest of the lyrics, some of which I don’t think would inspire confidence in Toyota:
Obviously, that relationship has/had some “issues.”
Similarly to Sublight’s hilarious news about NTV’s ident, it was reported by Nury Vittachi in the South China Morning Post that he’d gone into a very posh clothes store in Hong Kong to hear Thank you for fucking at the fucking shop! over the in-store sound system.
(And when we were in China last year, my wife saw a cute old lady hobbling down the street with a t-shirt that read, on the front: “FUCK YOU” and on the back: “YOU FUCKING FUCK”.)
There’s a hysterical clip on ebaum’s world of a happy European family riding around in their car singing along to a song who’s lyrics seem to consist solely of the word “Fuck.” At the end of the clip, there’s a “Need to learn English?” tagline.
Most have already been mentioned, but my contribution is How Soon is Now? in a car commericial… yeah, let’s use a song about quintessential lonliness and inescapable angst in conjunction with happy people driving cars!
As I recall the actual phrase was “I want to fuck you in the ass” with smiling Mom, Dad, and two HitlerJungen in the back all nodding their heads happily to the bouncy tune.
I’m still trying to figure out what genius decided to use “All You Need is Love” (thankfully not the original recording) to advertise Chase credit cards.
If love is really all you need, then… oh, never mind.