Commercial songs
 

I'm reasonably sure we've all done it. You're watching television when a commercial comes on with a song in the background that drops your jaw. I recently did it with a commercial for the Volkswagen Touareg playing a song called "Ariel Ramirez" by Richard Buckner. The song just drops my jaw. Before that, it was yet another VW commercial, this time for the Cabrio, and the song was Nick Drake's "Pink Moon". So I guess what I'm asking is, has this ever happened to you, and if so, what song was it from what commercial?

The Mercedes ad some time ago with Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game' - soft-focus images and sounds intertwined seamlessly to create something romantic and aspirational. Sorry, ad-speak coming in there a bit. This website might help if you want to trace music used in UK commercials http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk/ - I'm sure there will be a US equiavalent (just can't be bothered to check my lists right now).

Chips Ahoy did it for me a few years ago when they first used Sing Sing Sing in their commercial with the cookies dancing around and all before their recent ad atrocity. My parents would play that one a lot while I was growing up and I was all kinds of excited to hear it in the commercial. Good ol' Benny Goodman and his Orchestra.

Back in the day we basically played the crap out of Yello's "Oh Yeah" on my college radio station. This came out in 1984 and we played it in 1985. Two-three years later it would appear in a John Hughes film and then be "discovered" by the world's advertisers as one of the first modern electronica songs to gain wide appeal. By the time it was used to sell Twix, it was all over.

VW, who was astonishingly good at this in the 90s, also trotted out "Da Da Da" about a decade after it came out, and like "Pink Moon", it still seemed modern.

I'm rather fond of the VW commercial that uses Mr. Roboto ...

And the Coke song is catchy ...

Oh, wait, are you saying that there are tunes that SHOULDN'T be used for commercials?

Thank Nike commercial with The Beatle's Revolution really pissed me off, but that's about it.

And the use of the Who's Baba O'Riley for CSI:NY bothers the hell out of me, along with the eBay 'interpretations' of Sinatra classics. What I really wanted to talk about is "finding" a song through a commercial. Having never heard a song before the commercial came out, then realizing that it's quite an amazing tune. This happens to me all the time, for some reason

"Da Da Da" was that for me. I actually bought the Trio CD just for that song and discovered I liked 2 or 3 songs.

My favorite commercials are the DQ blizzard one where the guy gets his tongue stuck in the hand mixer, and the "Kung Fu Fighting" Geico commercial.

ooooooooooooh gotta see, gotta know right now.....
I helped my neighbor find that one. He heard it coming from my place after his very long unfruitful search. After he burned it he seemed like a man who had just reached the summit of a tall peak! The car commercial indie rock song seemed to have really gotten to him.
The jaw really drops when you find the song at random from unexepected places.

Music from TV commercials (north America) :3eye:

Mercedes using Joplin's "Mercedes Benz" straight up was pretty nervy.

pink moon made my best of cd.

cadillac's usage of 'rock-n-roll' by led zeppelin is insulting to me.

i always liked that willie nelson taco bell commercial...something about a rose tattoo.

All of the songs of my youth are now finding their way into crass, mass-consumption marketing schemes, and it makes me feel *old*.

I wonder if my grandparents felt the same way when Glenn Miller tunes found their way into ads?

ok, this is some useless info i didn't retain. i don't remember the product, but recently someone used a Morphine song in their ad. i was surprised. but not surprised enough to retain any more info than that.

Jack & Bobby
 

I heard a snippet of one of the previews for the new WB show "Jack and Bobby" and really liked it. The way the song overlayed with the images from the show was just really amazing.

The song was Tom McCrae's "Stronger than Dirt" from his Just Like Blood import album.

I think that the Apple iPod commercials are great for helping you discover new music. I would have never heard the band Jet if it weren't for the iPod commerical that they had last year.