Advertising has the power to launch (or re-launch) a band's career by featuring their music in high-profile ad campaigns. Kevin Courtneylooks at the acts now soundtracking the catchiest commercials and asks if rock'n'roll has sold its soul
A MAN walks into a record store and says to the geek behind the counter: "I'll have a bottle of Bulmers, a Ballygowan, a Big Mac, a yogurt, a Cadbury's bar, a Magnum and a box of Ariel washing powder. Oh, and a new Nissan." The geek doesn't bat a bespectacled eyelid, but goes out the back of the store and returns with a pile of CDs containing songs by, respectively, Donovan, Stellarsound featuring Paula Flynn, Johnny Logan, James Brown, Phil Collins, Yma Sumac, Kool & the Gang and Julie London.
These are the songs that go with the ads, the theme tunes for the top products, the soundtracks to our consumer lives. Each time we hear one of these tunes, or so the advertisers hope, we will have a Pavlovian response and dash straight to the closest supermarket or department store.
Increasingly, however, it's the other way round: when we see the ad, we want to rush straight down to our local record store and snap up the hot new tune.
Pop music and advertising have always made uneasy bedfellows, but these days they're only too happy to jump into the sack and make beautiful music together. Bands who before wouldn't want their music associated with a household product now happily hand over their best tunes to promote everything from dog food to toilet cleaner. The Who lampooned the advertising world on their 1967 album, The Who Sell Out, but before that they had been commissioned to write and record jingles for radio stations and car sales firms.
Pop and advertising were properly wed in 1971, when The New Seekers topped the charts with the Coca-Cola jingle, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing. Now, go to any wedding disco and you're likely to be bombarded with ad tunes such as Guaglione (Guinness); Simply the Best (RTÉ Guide) and Bohemian Like You (Vodafone).
Off Your Box, a new double CD on EMI, packs 37 recent ad tunes into one long commercial break, including Nina Simone's Ain't Got No . . . I Got Life (Müller yogurt), Thunderclap Newman's Something in the Air (Carphone Warehouse), and The Wannadies' You & Me Song (Volvic water).
Off Your Box also features Irish-made ads, including Vodafone (Jerry Fish & the Mudbug Club), MacDonald's (with Johnny Logan singing Hold Me Now) and Ballygowan (Stellarsound featuring Paula Flynn covering Bowie's Let's Dance). This scooped three gongs in the ad industry's Shark Awards and made student Paula Flynn a minor star - proving that, when it comes to getting your music on TV, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
THE AD:Surf Small and Mighty
THE TUNE:Dreamer's Bay by Patience and Prudence
THE ARTISTS:In 1956, Mark McIntyre decided he was going to make stars out of his daughters, aged 11 and 14. So he marched them down to Liberty studios in Los Angeles, where they cut a demo of Tonight You Belong to Me. This was no Shaggs-type tale of a deluded dad and his outsider music offspring. Patience and Prudence McIntyre were perfectly pitched for the times, and Liberty snapped them up right away. Tonight You Belong to Me hit No 4 in the Billboard charts, and another song, Gonna Get Along Without You Now, reached No 11.
THE PITCH:Fifty years later, Unilever chose the McIntyres' Dreamer's Bay to soundtrack the Surf ad. Well, if you want to denote old-fashioned flannel freshness, you can't get much more squeaky clean than Patience and Prudence. Another of their songs, A Smile and a Ribbon, was used in the UK National Lottery ad in 2006.
THE AD:Bulmers
THE TUNE:Sunshine Superman by Donovan
THE ARTIST:Scottish troubadour Donovan Leitch began as a Dylan acolyte, reverently covering Bob's songs and dreaming of the day when he, too, would be hailed a folk hero. He became a star in his own right when he started writing his own hippy dippy tunes, such as Mellow Yellow and Hurdy Gurdy Man. Sunshine Superman is Donovan's finest pop moment, a groovy tune that boogies along on a nifty bassline, flirty lyrics and snappy guitar licks.
THE PITCH:Bulmers had already used The Rolling Stones' Time Is on My Side to languid effect, but there's no denying that Sunshine Superman puts a little more fizz into the cider campaign.
THE AD:Discover Ireland
THE TUNE:Highs and Lows by The Laundry Shop
THE ARTISTS:The laundry room in Stephen Robinson's rented flat isn't one of Ireland's top tourist attractions, but it's here that Robinson and bandmates Denise Roxenhamn and Col Keegan put together the tune that soundtracked last summer's Discover Ireland TV campaign. Highs and Lows hangs on a tightly wound, Pixies-style modulating verse, then drops a killer Hüsker Dü-style chorus.
THE PITCH:Nice that Fáilte Ireland avoided Corrs-Enya-U2 cliches for something closer to the sound of young Ireland.
THE AD:Cadburys Dairy Milk
THE TUNE:In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins
THE ARTIST:Course he is
THE PITCH:Close-up of a gorilla's face. He looks deep in concentration, perhaps psyching himself up for a good chest-beating, or wondering who stole his banana. The familiar Phil Collins hit from 1980 begins its gradual build-up, and the camera pulls back slowly to reveal that the gorilla is actually sitting behind a drum kit. At the precise moment the drums kick in, our hairy friend bashes the skins with virtuoso skill, synchronising perfectly with Phil's paradiddles. Animal from The Muppet Show retires in shame.
THE AD:Sony Bravia
THE TUNE:She's a Rainbow by Rolling Stones
THE ARTISTS:In a bid to catch the wave of psychedelia and do their own Sgt Pepper, the Rolling Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1968, a sort of tragical mystery tour to hell and back. Flower power didn't suit the Stones, however; much of Satanic Majesties is best forgotten.
THE PITCH:She's a Rainbow, however, has been resurrected as the new Sony Bravia ad, the one featuring the multicoloured Play-Doh bunnies running riot and reproducing all over town.
Sony made a star out of Swedish singer-songwriter José Gonzalez when his cover of The Knife's Heartbeats soundtracked the Bravia bouncing ball ad. Whether you prefer hopping bunnies or bouncing balls, you have to admire Sony's colour co-ordination.
THE AD:Sony Blu-Ray
THE TUNE:Primavera by Ludovico Einaudi
THE PITCH:A bunch of stock cars fall out of the sky. When Sony went looking for a suitably textured composition to soundtrack the ad for its new high-definition DVD, it wisely went for a piece by Milan-born composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi.
THE ARTIST:Einaudi's works blend classical styles with ambient minimalism and a dash of electronica, allowing for deceptively simple layers and moods within a single musical piece. Primavera is a prime example of Einaudi's spacious, well-proportioned music, and provides an evocative backing to Blu-Ray's dark, surreal ad.
THE AD:Audi R8
THE TUNE:The Beep Beep Song by Simone White
THE ARTIST:Born in Hawaii to artist parents, Simone White probably never imagined she'd be soundtracking an ad for a big ol' sophisticated automobile. "I didn't have shoes until I was four," she says. "I spent all my time in the woods or hiding under the table listening to philosophies."
THE PITCH:Fast forward to 2007, and Audi UK has a few million to spend on the ad for its new R8 model. The concept is simple: film the car being built from scratch and then condense that into 90 seconds. The music is a gently tootling tune from White's new album, I Am the Man. The ad should ensure that White's career goes up a gear or two.
THE AD:iPod Nano
THE TUNE:1234 by Feist
THE ARTIST:For the worldwide launch of the new iPod Nano video, Apple chose Canadian singer Lesley Feist to provide the soundtrack. It's a no-brainer, really: the tune is as simple as the product, but the chorus opens out into a panoply of sound, just like your eyes presumably widen at the beauty of this tiny video screen that sits in the palm of your hand.
THE PITCH:The ad sees a stack of Nanos being picked up one after the other in perfectly aligned succession, but the commercial can't compete with the beautiful symmetry of 1234's award-winning video. Starring Feist and a troupe of colour-coordinated dancers, and filmed in one single take, the video's breathtaking choreography combines the complexity of Busby Berkeley with the joie de vivre of the Torrance Community Dance Group.
