A Ponderance

[gnomi]

Why does it rankle me that Wendy's is using Blister in the Sun as the background music for the commercial I just saw?

And why is it that Blister in the Sun has popped up in three different contexts recently?

::defiantly hums "American Music"::

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I lurve your icon!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Because Blister In The Sun is NOT ABOUT CHEESEBURGERS. Neither was "I Melt With You." And "How Soon Is Now" is not about driving a Nissan.

:P on advertisers.

and while we're at it...

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

nor is "hey ho let's go" about pay-as-you-go cellphones.

and "start!" is MOST CERTAINLY NOT about driving a chrysler, even if it DOES have a spiffy Bose sound system.

grrr.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Heee! Thanks! It was made by the lovely and immensely talented lanning.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

:-P indeed.

I keep hearing more and more music in commercials that I never thought I'd hear in such contexts.

Re: and while we're at it...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Grrr, indeed.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Eighties music, I have realized, has come to occupy the same place in the public soundscape that fifties music did when we were children.

I am really not okay with that.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

i take it as a sign that the marketing execs finally think we-whose-music-it-is are finally old enough (and far enough along in our careers) to be buying Things.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

My favourite inappropriate choice of advertising song was Wrangler's use of out-of-context lines from "Fortunate Son".

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

I once dated a guy (yes, a guy, shush) who had a theory about threes. He said that everything happens in threes. It was a long, complicated, wine-laden conversation but that was the gyst of what he was trying to say. So... three times is perfectly natural.

He also had a theory he called ripples, in which once something unusual comes to your attention (like being irked at Wendy's using Blister...) then suddenly you become hyper aware of that thing and you start seeing it all over the place.

Either theory seems to hold in this case. :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I've experienced the second one firsthand on numerous occasions with various phrases. I mean, you hear a phrase that sounds odd to your ear, and then suddenly you're hearing it everywhere.

As for threes, I can't say he's right or wrong, but he may be on to something.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I think I [luckily] missed that commercial.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

I'm with rikibeth. What makes it so hugely annoying for me is that advertisers use songs completely out of context and tarnish them forever. Like Mercedes-Benz using "Mercedes-Benz" to advertise their cars. So glad Janis isn't around to see that! Or Jeep using Sheryl Crow's "You're an Original" to prove how unique their vehicles are, completely ignoring the fact that it's a song about how unoriginal most self-proclaimed "individuals" are. And Cingular using "The Weight"? I mean, what the...? That doesn't make sense on any level! Grrr.

Although, since your post ends "::defiantly hums 'American Music'::" I'm going to guess that part of what rankles you is the over-saturation of "Blister in the Sun" to the exclusion of all other Violent Femmes songs. Kind of like how I get so irritated by the radio station in town that, of all the They Might Be Giants songs ever, will only play "Don't Let's Start" but uses the fact that they play TMBG as a selling point for their station.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't like the inappropriate appropriation of music for commercials.

And I think you're right about my annoyance at the popularity of certain songs over others. I agree with you on TMBG, though I hear "Birdhouse in Your Soul" about as often as I hear "Don't Let's Start" (and my regular radio station actually plays other TMBG a lot).