How about Bob Dylan lookin dirty-old-man pervy on that Victoria's Secret commercial...double fuck.
- Abraham Kalashnikov 7-21-2004 10:24 am

this subject was recently touched on here. most of them agree with you but i have different feelings about what is actually at stake. number one we are talking about POP music. pop being short for popular and all that that implies. i also think that anyone who has ripped off the artist by downloading something for any reason which did not belong to them has no right to make any complaints about songs being ruined by commercial recycling, its part of the cultural price (the terms of the milieu), like having to sit through the commercials on commercial radio or tv. (im not implying that you have downloaded anything by the way- its just part of my feelings on the subject.) the shelf life of any paticular commercial is relatively short compared to the life of a tune. i agree that saturation overexposure of a tune can ruin it and that would be a mistake. In the above case i feel that you are standing on especially sandy ground since we are talking about a tune from a movie soundtrack written by two commercial hitman tunesmiths. cummon, its pop music bouncing around in pop culture. you can find the song in the (commercial free) fmu archives with an advanced search. just dont forget to send in your pledge donation.
- bill 7-23-2004 5:40 pm

I didn't know you were such a purist that spreading artists' music around through home recording was "ripping them off"! Anyway, the viral spread of music memes by nice, everyday people is quantitatively and quantitatively different from what commercial-makers do. The latter are toxic intellectual junk food pushers, who don't play fair but just push consumers' buttons with every trick in the behaviorist psych book. Not all commercials are bad, but most of them are.

Also, have you seen Popeye, Punch Drunk Love, or the commercial in question? With all due respect, you really have to in order to appreciate the special obnoxiousness of this situation. There is a difference between what "hitman tunesmiths" (Van Dyke Parks?--ouch) do for movies, which theoretically have other reasons to exist than product placement, and what they do for commercials.

I didn't know until I read the FMU board that Pete Townsend had such a high degree of cynical self-loathing (e.g., the use of "Bargain"). Guess I should watch more TV. And yet Townsend wouldn't sell "Won't Get Fooled Again" to Michael Moore to help stop a warmongering government? Artists are certainly free to destroy (or protect) their legacies as they see fit (or are economically able), but we're also free to call them pitiful.

- tom moody 7-23-2004 6:36 pm

I revel in the overlay of pop media and pop art. i love tv. i like commercials. i like down loading. i like commercial theme songs like the rockford files, ban deodorant, the seven-up the uncola campaign. i also like donavan, bacharach, carole king, carly simon, nick drake, iggy POP and the beachboys. VDP is great. I like (hit-men) dylan and danko's wheels of fire number on ab-fab. i like the sopranos theme, enrico moricone big time, and the james bond theme. and I am totally into the new "auto zone" commercial:

if you want it. or you need it.
then just ask us, and we'll get it.
Step into the Zone. AU-TO-ZOOOOOONE

seen the movie popeye (on tv w/ commercials) but not PDL. I have also heard HNM on commerical free/free-form wfmu radio. so do, color me guilty of a partial pre-review.


I dont think we should partition off too much area within the popularly cultural context for a musical or artisticly pure experience. its seems to me "cherry picking" and an artificial set of boundaries.
- bill 7-23-2004 7:20 pm

It's true I don't like ads that much, but I'm not the rule man. I don't think having a strong gut reaction to the misuse of a song constitutes "partitioning [it] off." PT Anderson recontexualized "HNM" successfully, the ad in question shat all over it. See it, see PDL, then we'll talk.
- tom moody 7-23-2004 7:30 pm

interesting to see where you draw the line.


- bill 7-23-2004 7:32 pm

What's with this line-drawing? The commercial blows beets.
- tom moody 7-23-2004 7:37 pm

i know that your post started off focused on the commercial, but it ended with a much broader indictment.

btw, rip jerry goldsmith
- bill 7-23-2004 9:29 pm

"Fucking hell, fucking marketing culture, it wrecks everything it touches" is a broad indictment, but generally true. I don't have a large home library of commercial jingles, and neither do you. What I have is a library of songs being changed from their original meaning to a different, more insipid meaning, so Pete Townsend can continue to go to the best restaurants. I do think original intent and aura are important in evaluating songs. Your embrace of all things commercial is very Warholian but he didn't really love everything.
- tom moody 7-23-2004 9:53 pm

but i do, without irony too.


- bill 7-23-2004 9:58 pm

I'll be watching closely for signs of critical discernment.
- tom moody 7-23-2004 10:00 pm

ok, not everything
mayo not miracle whip
coke not pepsi
burger king not mcdonalds
goldsmith not williams
etc etc


- bill 7-23-2004 10:03 pm

off topic....abuse of power comes as no surprise but Pete Townsend one my heroes, is really acting like such a dork. I can only laugh.
- sally mckay 7-24-2004 12:16 am

I agree with bill that even the lamest commercial slogans and jingles can be oddly appealing, but I do feel Tom's pain - when a song you like gets used by a commercial it can totally spoil it. Your favorite song becomes one you don't want to hear again. This brings up the importance of context: things have appeal for us for more reasons than just their intrinsic value.

And I've gotta give props to miracle whip over mayo. Unfortunately I don't keep either in the house as my girlfriend is absolutely repulsed either of them!
- adrien (guest) 7-24-2004 1:45 am

Bill’s a pantheist, while Tom believes in one god. It’s the traditional religious issue of pollution: the idea that something can be corrupted by contact with the unclean. Like if Osama Bin Laden saw another man’s wife without a veil, he’d have to go purify himself. This suggests that the solution may be a matter of ritual. If the capitalists have ruined a favorite song of yours, you must take a shopping bag from an expensive store and sing the song into the bag 777 times. Exhale the last verse into the bag as you scrunch it closed. Then pop the bag, making a loud noise, which will scare away the bad vibes. Then wait seven years before listening to the song again. At that point you’ll love it just as much as ever.
Works every time.
- alex 7-24-2004 2:24 am

First I'm a canon-protector, now I'm a monotheist. One pays a high price for expressing a strong opinion around here. But I will try the bag ritual.

Seriously, we are talking about Seinfeld-like nuances here. There's a reason "HNM" wasn't used in a commercial before 2004: Shelley Duvall's singing is kind of crappy. It was good-crappy in Popeye, appealing to FMU hipster types who like the Shaggs (I guess that includes me) or who at least appreciate the play between Duvall's "kid singing the star spangled banner" voice, Nilsson's almost maniacally singsong tune, and Parks' confident jaunty arrangement. The marketeers value professionalism above all else: one could imagine a cigar chomping suit saying "lose the singer." Then PT Anderson finds the perfect, sensitive use for the song: a movie about a child-man prone to psychotic destructive rampages, who takes off for Hawaii to meet a child-woman who has similar romantic notions but who should be very, very afraid of the Adam character. Essentially a strong leader type like PTA tells the suits it's OK to like the song, even with the "sloppy" voice. And they don't even wait a respectable beat to start milking it. The sheer mediocrity of corporate decisionmaking on display irks me as much as the misuse of the song.

Welcome, adrien!
- tom moody 7-24-2004 3:55 am

rest assured this is not a dead thread.

"The sheer mediocrity of corporate decisionmaking on display irks me as much as the misuse of the song."

of course the issue is specific to each individual and each song. I guess my question is what is it that is making every one irked and using terms like misuse when songs they like are featured in commercials. above tom states that (in this case) it is 50/50 : "mediocrity of corporate decisionmaking" and "misuse" (use). would it have been better or worse (or not mattter) if the commercial "didnt "blow beets"? is it resentment of change? protection of the pure against pollution as alex mentioned? loss of exclusivity ? too much distance from the original reception mode? justified corporation hating ? and is it inevitable when corporations make decisions based on fiduciary responsibility to share holders?
- bill 7-26-2004 8:59 pm

20/80 : "mediocrity of corporate decisionmaking" and "misuse" (insensitive to the relationship of the music and the material; insensitive to the peculiar history of this song; mercenary, lazy).

would it have been better or worse (or not matter) if the commercial "didnt "blow beets"? of course!

is it resentment of change? oh, yeah, you know me, always trying to turn the clock back.

protection of the pure against pollution as alex mentioned? no

loss of exclusivity? no

too much distance from the original reception mode? no

justified corporation hating? partly --see "mediocrity of corporate decisionmaking" above and notes on corporate bigness below

and is it inevitable when corporations make decisions based on fiduciary responsibility to shareholders? no, there are all kinds of corporate responsibility models out there. the music world used to be thousands of small businesses, but it's telescoping into conglomerates, like farms into factory farms. the big boys buy old songs because they lack the creativity to make new songs.

- tom moody 7-26-2004 10:02 pm

before i respond, are those your final answers ?


- bill 7-26-2004 11:14 pm

No, my final answer is: see Popeye again, see Punch Drunk Love, see the commercial, if you feel no pain then we inhabit different aesthetic universes. Trying to chalk my pain up to conservatism just compounds the aggravation.
- tom moody 7-26-2004 11:29 pm

alright tom has killed the thread until PDL hits cable and he remembers what the hell brand product they were trying to sell in the commercial. must have been traumatic. i still see a larger issue looming, but ok.


- bill 7-27-2004 12:19 am

I know what the brand is (by googling), I'm just not going to spread their dumb meme by name.
- tom moody 7-27-2004 1:04 am

Oh come on now, tell us. Just do, um, it.
- mark 7-27-2004 1:11 am

ah..."the name that may not be spoken"...

- alex 7-27-2004 1:14 am