You know how in 2000, it seems like Song 2 from Blur (the “Woo-hoo Song”, as it’s otherwise known) was used as the background music in what seemed like every commercial?
Well, now, during practically EVERY commercial break on television, I hear the “Feel the rain on your skin” song at least once, if not more, in ads for any number of products and services. Drives me nuts.
What are other songs that seem to be used in commercials a bit too much?
Ode to Joy. I was griping in the pit mini-rants about it being used to promote the most recent Die Hard movie (Die Hard: Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?). The lyrics and intent of the song really do not fit with a shoot 'em action movie, nor with paper towels and any of the other numerous other things it’s been used to sell.
Right now there’s a Vonage commercial on that is using that Woo-Hoo song from Kill Bill. That song shows up in tons of commercials.
If you mute or fast-forward, you never hear commercials at all and this problem never arises.
Highlly recommended by five out of every four television viewers!
“It’s a Beautiful Morning” by The Rascals seems to have had its run and then some in the advertising world. The only example I can think of off the top of my head, though, is Days Inn Hotels.
The cover of “There She Goes” by Sixpence None The Richer is heard in numerous birth control or feminine hygiene product commercials. Don’t they know that song is about heroin?
I recall an Entertainment Weekly article on this song where the songwriter specifically stated that the song wasn’t about heroin. Then again, songs are open to interpretation by different people, like when Paul McCartney said that the whole “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” thing was intentional years after John Lennon said it was a coincidence.
I don’t know who sings it (google tells me a “KT Tunstall”), but I seem to hear that Suddenly I See song all the time, and I’m assuming commercials are as guilty a culprit as any.
Mr. Blue Sky is another song that gets used a lot.
I had a thread here several months ago-my #1 choice was the Romantics’ “What I Like About You” which I’ve been hearing on commercials more or less steadily ever since its original release in the early 80’s.
Motown stuff, 60’s baby boomer stuff.
Since that stupid Dr. Pepper commercial, everyone’s using “Manuh Manuh.”
It Had To Be You is used in bland mass-market tv ads (most recently for cat food) every few years. I would complain, except that:
a) it is pretty much the last pre-rock pop song still used in tv ads not specifically targeted at senior citizens, and
b) it is also the last song anybody still recognizes by Isham Jones, once a household name and undoubtedly one of the best big band era leaders.
Then again, a liner note I once read said that Isham Jones “looked like the kind of man who would sell cat food to an orphanage,” so maybe there’s a weird kind of karma being played out here.