picmr - it does count, so!
He sung the thing on the main TV ‘pop music’ shows, did the whole media circus and built his next album around it. What does he need to do to qualify - sing in tune ?
I don’t like ‘Stairway’ that much, either (ok, the guitar break…) but the way he did it was akin to torture with a dentist drill, piano wire and a rusty bread knife, all slowly and variously applied to one’s nether regions.
Not nice.
I don’t know if this one counts as abusing a song necessarily, but for a while, Motorola’s theme song was “You can’t always get what you want”
I have trouble imagining the chain of stupidity that let this go on the air.
Surprised no one has mentioned Tom Jones’s rendition of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House”, sung in duet with that chick from The Cardigans. Am I the only one who’s seen this?
Tom looks positively scary in that video.
Cat Steven’s “The Wind” being used in not one, but two, different commercials. One is for Timberland; I can’t think of the other one offhand.
That Pepsi girl singing Aretha Frankin stinks.
What a waste. And just because A.F. is in the audience, it’s supposed to be okay? No.
Duran Duran also covered Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” and Iggy Pop’s “Success” (along with a whole bunch of other really good songs on a “tribute album” to bands that inspired them) and killed them.
Well, I’m glad this one hasn’t been mentioned yet so I can come in with something original for once.
I really, really despise the fact that they used Jimi Hendrix’ version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” for a frigging Pop-Tarts commercial.
Of course, I’ve also discovered that the words to both SSB and the old Soviet national anthem fit wonderfully well to the tune of Irish Washerwoman so I probably shouldn’t kvetch too loudly.
How about Cher’s remake of “Love Hurts”? The part that cracks me up is the line she changed from, “Love is like a flame, it burns you when it’s hot”, to “Love is like a Stove, it burns you when it’s hot”. Excuse me… A STOVE? Who was the genius who decided THAT line needed changing?
Someone needs to go back to metaphor 101.
SAM,
I can’t stand Cher, but I’ll defend that line change. The original is pretty stupid as it stands. When the hell is a flame NOT hot?
Jumping in here to complain about something.
A re-write of Bohemian Rhapsody to sell Mountain Dew.
Seismologists report an estimated rotational speed in excess of 1500 rpm in Freddy Mercury’s grave.
And don’t get me started on the whoremongers who have been abusing John Lennon’s songs for commercials. (I’m now older than he ever got to be. There is no justice in this world.)
Ahhhhhhh! I know this one, I just heard it on Sunday for the first time, and I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I think those guys thought it would be cool/funny/different to cover that song, but they got it all wrong.
I just saw the commercial for a long distance phone company (MCI?) with Michael Jordan and Tweety Bird. Now, Looney Tunes tend to drive me crazy anyway, but when Tweety sings “What’s new Pussycat” into the phone to MJ, my ears begin to bleed. Not that I liked that song to begin with, but they way Tweety is saying it is like nails on a chalkboard.
American Pie by Madonna was pretty bad, but I have to say that Sheryl Crow’s Sweet Child of Mine is just worse.
I’d like to add the techno-remix-dance beat-version of both “My Heart Will Go On” and that one Shania Twain song “Youre Still the One”. I did not particulary enjoy these songs to begin with, so hearing these new versions made me pretty much want to pitch the radio right out the car window.
Yeah, i just hear what she did to it, and i get all upset about how tortured it sounds. That and madonna’s remake of american pie.
Is McDonalds really using Sham 69’s classic “If the Kids Are United” to sell hamburgers? Don’t they realize that McDonalds has been the target of punk outcry for nearly two decades from bands like Crass, Conflict, Aus-Rotten, and most notably MDC, with the vitriolic “Corporate Deathburger”? A song about the youth joining together in the face of the establishment used to promote a corporate monolith? That’s hard to swallow but nonetheless believeable.
And while we’re hijacking, my vote for worst butchering of a rock song goes to Metallica for their drawing and quartering of The Misfits opus “Last Caress”. How Glenn Danzig can sleep at night is a mystery to me.
Also, the Braids did a remake of the song, leaving out the part that was magled in the Mountain Dew commercial. It was atrocious. Just leave Queen alone. It’s good unless they start to fuck with it. That goes for most songs. There are exceptions there somewhere.
I will admit, I haven’t heard most of these songs, being only 14 years old, but I have heard “Getting better” and I will admit that a) Using it to sell new technology is not such a bad idea, but b) the way they sing the song, it reeks, and c) play more than the first 2 sentences of the chorus for once!
I think the use of Bobby McFaren’s “Don’t worry, be happy” in the car rental commercial is terrible (Don’t worry, drive happy). If that is the best that ad firm could come up with, they are in the wrong line of work.
Madonna’s American Pie
Sounds like elevator muzak.
Bit of a hijack here, but just wanted to mention that the original version of “Love Hurts” had the line “Love is like a stove/burns you when it’s hot.” When Nazareth covered it they changed it to “…like a flame” (Which I agree is silly and redundant) and I guess Cher wanted to be uh, historically correct or something by keeping the original line. There, didn’t that just make your day? Nah, didn’t think so either. 
No question: using Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for the frickin’ STARZ commercial!
And the lyrics are so creative: “Movies, movies, movies, movies,…”
I’d like to lower the idiots who thought of this and approved it inch by inch into a pool filled with hungry piranhas.
I would have to say “Who Are You” in those Gateway ads. My friend suggested that their new slogan should be “Gateway - Who the fuck are you?”.