Driving mix: songs from car commercials

Last night I went out for ice cream with some friends, and the driver played a mix CD featuring that “zoom zoom” song. I hate that song, but it gave me an idea for a mix CD of my own – a CD of songs from car commercials!

Of course there have been a huge number of songs used in car commercials, so I turn to the SDMB to help me pick out the best ones to put onto CD. I need the song title and artist, and would like to have the name of the car as well.

The recent Pit thread about a Mitsubishi commercial already has Mitsubishi’s “20th Century Boy” (T-Rex) and “Lust for Life” (Iggy Pop) commercials in my mind. I’m definately including those, 'cause they’re great songs. And I simply must include Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz”, since Mercedes finally did go crazy and use it in one of their ads.

Days Go By by Dirty Vegas.

Parsec by Stereolab.

Those are the only songs I can think of that I like that are used in car commercials (although I hate it when a song I like is used in a commercial…).

I would include:

Barenaked Ladies - One Week

Great song IMO - love the rapping…

More commercial songs than you can shake a stick at.

my friend has a cd (i forget the name of it) with songs from commercials. They are not all from car commercials–but many of them are. My favorite is the volkswagen commercial (for a Cabriolet?) where there are four people driving to a party. The moon is out and it’s a perfect night, so when they get to the loud party they decide to just keep on driving. The song is Pink Moon by Nick Drake.

Awww rats! I wanted to be the one to mention Nick Drake! Nice work, Tangent.

VW uses lots of great songs in their ads. Try Sorry Again, by Velocity Girl. Fantastic driving song.

(Would anyone happen to know the name of the song in the Noah’s Ark Mercedes commercial?)

The earliest ones I can recall are “You’re Sixteen” for the Mustang II and “Volare” for the…well…Volare.

“I Love Myself Today” by Bif Naked is in a GM commercial now.

“Start the Commotion” by The Wiseguys was play in, IIRC, the original sing-along-in-the-Mitsubishi commercial.

I barely bothered to open this thread because I was sure my suggestion would already have been suggested: “Whoever You Are” by Geggy Tah. It’s even about cars.

Great idea, Lamia. Will you be posting a playlist when you work out the final selections? It’d be cool if you did.

Another one from the Mitsubishi ads: New Radicals “You Get What You Give”. This was the first sing-along Mitsubishi ad in Australia.

An Elvis song, “King of the Road” featured in a few Mercedez-Benz ads.

Don’t forget “London Calling” by The Clash. And there’s a song called “Jung at Heart” by Master Cylinder that was used in Jetta Commercials, which I really like.

What Do I Get by the Buzzcocks. I didn’t remember which car it was for, but according to the previously mentioned song title link, its the Toyota Rav4.

My first choice would be Da Da Da I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me Aha Aha Aha by Trio. It was featured in a memorable ad for the 1997 Volkswagen Golf. You might not be able to fit the title onto a jewel case though.

“Bohemian Like You” by the Dandy Warhols is featured in a commercial, I think for Ford. And the rest of their songs are featured is commercials for cell phones, light beer, and movies!

The funny thing about the Ford commercial is the brutal editing of the song for obvious reasons. The original goes “You’ve got a great car (which is in the commercial), yeah what’s wrong with it today? (which isn’t)”

Then straight to the “I like you I like you I like you…”

My favorite is Luxury by Fantastic Plastic Machine. (It was the ad with the guy driving from LA to San Francisco for a date.) It somehow manages to make it onto every mix CD I make.

Another good one is Une Very Stylish Fille by Dmitri from Paris. (“How do I look?” “Very good, I must say I’m amazed.”)

Stone Temple Pilots “Wicked Garden” and Styx “Mr. Roboto” have both been used in car commercials. So has Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick (Edit #1)”

Right now my favorite music-used-in-TV-ad is the Overture from the Who’s Tommy, used in the Clarinex commercial. For some amazing reason, I haven’t gotten sick of that one yet…

I’m surprised no one has mentioned…“Like A Rock” by Ann Arbor’s own Bob Seger. I think Chevrolet has been using this song in their pickup truck ads for at least a couple of decades or so.

It’s called As Seen On TV. Among others, it has Trio’s “Da Da Da,” the Buzzcocks’ “What Do I Get,” Groove Armada’s “I See You Baby” and Styx’s “Mr. Roboto.”

The Smithereens’ “Blood and Roses” was used in a Nissan commercial.