I’ve gotten about 6-7 new songs on my iPod just from watching a commercial. The first one was way back in 1993, when Volkwagen used a Clannad song for the Passat. Back then I had to call to find out what the song is.
My latest is from the Apple iPhone ad, Come Along by Cosmo Sheldrake. It was much easier to Google that one.
Anyone else discover a new tune from a commercial?
I do that quite often. One of my favorite discoveries is “Have Love Will Travel” by the Sonics. It was on a car commercial a few years ago. I can’t even remember what car it was advertising. I had never heard the song or the group. I had to look it up. It’s one of my favorites now.
A lot of the time I’ll hear a song on a commercial that I know but never cared that much about when it was popular. For some reason hearing it on a commercial gives it new life and I find myself really liking it. “America” by Simon & Garfunkel is a good example of that.
The first one for me was Let Me Be Myself, Geico caveman ad.
Oh, yes, my iTunes has several songs I bought after first hearing them in commercials. In a weird meta- aspect, a few of them were first heard on Apple commercials for iPods. Car commercials also tend to yield up good tunes.
The fact that advertisers occasionally use good songs doesn’t surprise me - they are trying to attract my attention, after all. But I am sometimes surprised by the songs they choose. Viz:
Ford Transit Van: Disseminated by Soul Coughing. Go (as they say) figure. First time I had ever heard anything by Soul Coughing. So, thanks.
Hyundai: I’m Sticking With You by The Velvet Underground. A little oddity sung by Mo Tucker that I had not previously heard.
Other songs that I know well but was still surprised by:
Another Girl Another Planet by The Only Ones was used by Vodaphone
Reptilia by the Strokes is being used currently, I think for a holiday company.
j
With the decline in record sales and radio going by the wayside, getting your track in a commercial or in a TV show or movie is a huge thing for artists now! The labels or even better yet the independent artists’ managers are pushing these relationships.
It’s super great for the artists when people buy music they hear on commercials. Go you guys!
I actually can’t think of anything I’ve bought after hearing it in a commercial. Usually the stuff that catches my ear are songs I already own and I’m like “hey cool, Lizzo got another check!”
I do quite often find new music by hearing the artist perform it on a talk show. So there’s that. The Colbert Report was great for exposing me to new bands.
I go the other way and find a snappy new song and then, a week later, hear it in a commercial. Then I need to fight the hipster-lizard part of my brain telling me that the song is ruined 'cause now everyone is hearing it. Fortunately, age has taught me that no one except me gives a shit what I’m listening to anyway.
I have a positive association with Portugal the Man’s Feel It Still, because I liked the commercial with Aaron Paul dancing on a treadmill.
Then there was another commercial with people discussing the song, so I was able to identify it. Unfortunately for those folks, I can’t identify what the ad was for.
I still haven’t heard the song in it’s entirety, but that’s okay. For a hidebound old lady like me, just recognizing a “new” song is unusual.
Budweiser used a lovely version of Stand by Me for their Super Bowl commercial. I grabbed that one too.
You’re probably thinking of the latest TUI ad, in which case it’s “Sometimes” by The Strokes.
The one I remember first hearing in an ad is “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros used in a Peugeot ad. There have been others, and luckily there are web sites that list ads and the songs used in them, otherwise I’m sure I’d never have identified half of them.
I discovred betty who thanks to shoe dazzle
Sure. I’ve listened very little to radio or radio-equivelent services for more than 15 years, so hearing songs in the background of commercials/movies/TV shows is where pretty much all of my exposure to new (and “new to me”) music comes from. Two songs that immediately come to mind that I picked up from commercials are Beep! Beep! (car commercial) and Forever Young (don’t remember.)
Odetta - Hit or Miss
I first heard it in a… Smirnoff? commercial. (barrel bodied middle-age guy in a speedo walking down a beach with zero-Fs given.)
I love the song but can’t get into her other stuff.
Oh yes, all the time. Some semi-recent examples:
Suit by Boom! Bap! Pow!
Can’t Get it Right Today by Joe Purdy
Je Ne Te Connais Pas by The Prototypes
Aha - you’re right. I stand corrected.
j
It’s from 1997, so not “new,” but new in the sense that I discovered the song from the commercial! Da Da Da by Trio in the Volkswagen commercial
Yes, but I’m too embarrassed to admit it.
A few years back some video game (maybe Call of Duty?) commercial used a remake of “Mad World” that was haunting instead of the pop sounding Tears For Fears version. I tracked it down and it is now my preferred version.
Yes, back in the early 2000s, Breathe by Telepopmusik was used in a car commercial. I latched onto it pretty quickly.
2008 Brandi Carlile: The Story GM Olympics commericial: - YouTube