This Ad's For You
published in Stuffing No.2, Melbourne, 1989
Seen the latest video by Neil Young for his song This Note's
For You (1988)? It's a savage attack on the corporate sponsorship
of rock performers, sending up figures like Michael Jackson
and Whitney Houston. The video pulls no punches and drips
with sarcasm while carrying the biting intensity of Young's
lyrics. This song expresses sentiments many of us have perhaps
been feeling for some time now, as rock and pop seem to
be continually and endlessly sold, re-sold and sold-out
for a mindless consumer society. Worst of all, the music
and the songs are being tarnished beyond recognition as
sponsors, companies and advertisers infect known songs and
identities by association with trivial and irrelevant products,
most of which have no relation whatsoever to the attached
songs. This Note's For You has - not suprisingly - run into
problems with being aired on MTV in the States, which surely
testifies to the uncompromising position Young's song (and
video) take on the commercialization of rock and pop.
OK
- let's get straight. The above paragraph you just read
is total bullshit. It's an amalgam of just about everything
I've read or heard said about rock sponsorship, rock jingles,
rock advertising, rock videos and rock consumerism over
the past year and a half 1. Now, I don't wish
to `set matters right' by pointing out that rock (and its
schizoid sister-city, pop) are entertainment industries
largely controlled by corporate recording companies; that
they purvey commercially viable music for consumption in
a variety of modes across a number of mainstreams, undergrounds,
niche markets and collectors' crevices; and that they exist
within a complex network of economical, political and cultural
matrices which can only be best understood and addressed
by accepting the often frustrating problematics of their
formation, manifestation and generation. In fact, there
is little value to be gained from proposing this to those
who treat rock and pop as some awesome set of conditional
beliefs and philosophies : those who `believe' in rock and
claim it has a direction and purpose beyond its material
existence. These people (let's sink the boot in) are best
left in their religious grottos, huddled in front of their
`definitive/classic/ultimate' record collections (mainstream,
underground - the difference is the same) in a halycon daze
of days well gone, with their senses conditioned to tune
out the present and its ad hoc flows and transiences.
What
I do want to do here is acknowledge the issue of rock and
pop jingles (the practice of reworking/revamping/re-using
known songs to sell products other than records) as the
tip of an iceberg whose hidden bulk and submerged mass belies
both the ignorance toward rock and pop's contemporary cultural
territorialization, and the ties between music commodification
and `commodity musicalization' which have conflated to form
the domain of rock and pop today. My main points are (a)
pro-rock ideologies and anti-advertising sloganeering are
too often politically more biased, inflated and reactionary
than all the incidents and artifacts they attack; and (b)
their celebrated attacks, critiques, refutations and withdrawls
which purportedly chisel away at the rock/advertising infrastructure
are often naive, superficial and deluded.
So
let's start again with Neil Young's This Note's For You.
In a sense, it's not suprising that Young ends up being
the first to be so vocal about rock's internal politics
and economic contentions. In his field of rock (that is,
the realm of white, folksy, serious, committed and respected
singer-songwriters) Young has earned the position of a personage
: a figure whose past and present is founded on a series
of evolutions and revolutions determined by his contextual
self-development. His career is acknowledged for both its
successes and failures, picturing him as `the living artist'
coming to terms with personal reflections of his working
surroundings. This is all very well, but that field which
posits him in this light is but one privileged out of many
(eg. black hip hop, European heavy metal or English gothic
punk probably couldn't give a damn about Young). As true,
solid and thoughtful as Young undoubtedly is, his domain
is spherical : effecting a wholeness and totality by being
enclosed, encased and ensured by its own projected limitations
and limited projections. His voice - any single, individual
voice - is far from capable of (let alone admirable in)
covering the totality of rock culture and all its summits,
recluses and ghettos, most of which have little historical
relationship to the sixties `Us Generation' which helped
angle the sociological bearing of Young's career and work.
Surely
it then follows that his commentary on the larger machinations
of rock production (industry advertising, corporate sponsorship
and video promotion which are concerned with, determined
by and dependent upon a multiple and contradictory network
of exploitable markets) could only constitute a fragmented,
thin perspective on rock's economic and cultural spread
of denominations and dominions. The kind of advertising
Young attacks is part of the state of rock today - in fact,
it is a sure sign of where rock has ended up. It's a tough
cliche : the times never stopped a-changing. Not that Young
doesn't know it (he did admire Devo's work enough to borrow
their phrase "rust never sleeps" for the title of his 1979
documentary 2) but he's obviously having difficulty
in coming to terms with still more changed times. It's as
though Young hasn't yet acclimatized to contemporary conditions,
leaving him beached and bleached in the brightness of pop
markets' eclipse of rock traditions. While Young perceives
that `his' rock has `ended up' here on the beach with Jackson's
Pepsi-dyed skin tan, many `other' rocks and pops have been
incubating, growing and developing under the same irritating
light which force Young into wearing shades.
But
what's to despair? This situation generates the fuel that
singer-songwriters (beloved by gonzo/beat rock journals
like Rolling Stone) run on. This Note's For You is another
self-exorcism for a market attracted to its own emotional,
psychological and personal ruminations. It's `you' is as
much a market as the `you' to whom the Budweiser beer commercials
are directed : this Bud's for you ; this Young's for you.
If anything, This Note's For You is less an attack on the
rock industry than a celebration of certain rock views (from
that realm of serious, respected, committed music) whose
artistic and critical position in the eighties has been
severely shocked by contemporary developments in rock and
pop. Reflecting Young's `spherical' condition, his video's
line of communication goes inward toward its silent supporters
(estranged in these noisy times) rather than outward to
the `state of affairs' it highlights. In the video, Young
thus becomes the figurehead and mouthpiece for a clump of
neuroses and paranoias affecting rock purists and idealists
in the current climate of mutation and amorality. This body
of purists and idealists are no less self-centered than
any cultural stream in rock, because while they mourn the
malignment of music in general, they are more specifically
moaning about their own state of affairs, their own sphere
of existence from which the outside world of rock and pop
prepossessingly looks dismal. Young wails the `Us' lamentations
for them.
CORRECT
TEXT HERE
her
sad nor tragic. It isn't even pathetic. The pseudo-politics
Young's (and others') sentiments cluster are easily evoked
by the skeletal, discursive demarcations of their argument,
ie. that the mode of selling in the rock industry is a matter
of principles and ethics measurable by standards and degrees.
In other words, the cheap and popular rhetoric of claiming
the a priori existence of some gloriously `truthful' framework
to which all socio-cultural occurrences must relate in order
for their ideological and artistic assessment. I'm not simply
stating the obvious (selling is selling so why split moral
fibres?) but rather the `struggle of beliefs' to which Young's
daring video testifies is politically impotent because it
can be easily incorporated into the industrial machinations
it supposedly irritates. Really, it's a no-match. Young's
video gets banned by MTV America - an industrial action
which clarifies the focus of Young's critical act - but
is reported on the same network as a controversial news
item. It's a collapse of power effects in the event of their
display - ie. both parties posit themselves as sides, but
play out their conflict in a site drained of any power that
could seriously damage either of them (indeed both benefit
from their`conflict'). It's not staged as much as it is
prepared. Further to this and away from the central territorial
power base Young attacks (the American market network tied
into MTV's cable advertisers), both the European and Australasian
MTV franchises present the news item complete with the unedited
video. We are thus twice removed from the power play and
its stage, and in a position to more severely mark Young's
`spherical' mode of address.
But
the collusions and co-options don't start and end on the
lines drawn up by the prepared power play. The power or
energy which drives Young's message home is of course the
power of video clip communication - a language appropriated
by and through television advertising's lineage of visual
massaging, and a system of visual reference empowered and
energized by the abject visuality and semiological manipulation
in which today's consumer market is well-versed. Be this
intentionally ironic or not on the part of Young, the point
is that this clip sells its message to its market just as
well (and just as ambiguously and surreptitiously) as most
other video clips do to theirs, and that the power of the
medium while engulfing and muffling Young's essential political
stance allows him to locate and define the latest step in
his `personage'. Simply, it is a great video because of
how it has been designed to exist both within and without
the power controls of its presentation 3. But
- don't many videos (critical and non-critical) do this
in one way or another through the limits of taste, commericialism,
avant-gardeism, entertainment or social commentary whose
borders they flirt with? And don't many people take videos
- and advertising in general - precisely in this way, acknowledging
that much advertising stands in for its own critical implosion?
In the end, Young wins as much as he loses. Most people
enjoy the clip for its pisstakes, and even those to whom
Young is immaterial might even half-support his attack on
the endless ephemera of aggravating advertising, while the
clip certainly rings a rousing cheer from its more `politically
engaged' viewers. But the predominantly detached way in
which many people consume video clips also demonstrates
that the issue of this video's absence or presence doesn't
amount to much at all, because its anti-advertising sentiments
are already richly latent in most current advertising anyway.
Its simultaneous inclusion and exclusion within the industry
indicates that all consequences are inconsequential in the
continual production of today's rock and pop, because (a)
rock and pop are quite likely starting to lose the grip
on those socio-cultural territories they have drawn up over
the last forty years, and (b) rock and pop industries are
knowingly and publicly marketing the produce, products and
productions across and throughout all past territorial divisions
and markers.
This
is precisely why so many facets and factors of production
and modes and codes of address are currently so interchangeable
in rock and pop culture. Anything can be accomodated; anything
can be transformed; anything can be appropriated; anything
can be reformed - ultimately rendering such operations meaningless.
These are the climatic conditions which shape the rock/advertising
iceberg, where `music' and `commodity' are phenomenologically
and materially dispossessed of their essences and repossesssed
by demographic data. Any song or performer can thus be homogenized
or `heterogenized' by market measures ranging from the reverse
to the perverse. Such is rock and pop's environment : the
way things are in terms of their power to condition and
effect situations and contexts. In a sense, it's almost
as if there is a logic at work here for the time being,
in that there are perceiveable and manifest forces which
shape all the current rock/pop mergers and mutations. Sure,
these forces can be criticized, but that criticism in no
way guarantees let alone deserves repayment of socio-artistic
change in the industry. To put it more bluntly, a thousand
rock journalist editorials condemning rock-in-advertising
won't affect the industrial machinations they address unless
out of those editorials a stance with substance emergers
which record companies can divine as exploitable material
for an unearthed market. You know the cycle : people whinge
about synthesizers, record companies sign up a guitar band.
Market diversification for diverse marketing. Am I saying
that politics are cheap in this climate? Yes - but by `cheap'
I don't mean `fake or insincere' but `economically viable'.
And the cheapest sentiments are those with the most overt
(and obvious) political content.
It's
no suprise, then, as markets appear to develop more and
more along lines of overt and obvious signification and
interpretation, the issues which irritate those markets
are equally overt and obvious. This is why rock-in-advertising
currently gets all the shit from the fan. But on the other
hand, one wonders how closely people are looking at such
`overt and obvious' occurrences. To close this article,
I've listed as comprehensively as possible all the rock
and pop songs I've heard transformed into jingles over the
past five years or so (plus some which have resided dimly
in my memory since I was a kid). It's not a definitive list
by any means, but it's useful as a way of reflecting on
not the `state of affairs' which governs the rock-in-advertising
`predicament', but the environment in which rock and pop
culture currently develops.
I
suppose I can't help it, but when I hear The Spencer Davis'
Group Keep On Running used for an Andrex toilet paper ad
(1988) where a young labrador grabs the end of a roll of
toilet paper in its mouth and `keeps on running' I just
crack up. I mean, come on! The ad is either incredibly dumb
or incredibly cynical - and we'll mostlikely never know
which is the case. Others are so pathetic they make me choke
: Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters for
Red Cross or Stevie Wonder's I Just Called To Say I Love
You for Telecom phone service. And some are so close to
having an adverse effect on their product you wonder if
that's perhaps how advertising sometimes works : an American
chocolate biscuit company using Bob Marley's Stir It Up
or (wait for it) the Australian Army reworking U2's Sunday
Bloody Sunday! Really I could go on and on : the point is
that each use of a song in an ad is generally quite specific,
and tells us a lot about how rock and pop exists within
streams of (for example) nostalgia, wonder, fun, concern,
desire, romance, irony, stupidity, and so on.
All
in all, most usages conform in their ability to evoke an
isolated time-continuum (an era, an epoch, a generation,
a flash, a vision) where time is either too far gone (The
Platters' Only You for Wendys hamburgers) or too fast in
happening (Donna Summer's She Works Hard For The Money for
Del Monte canned vegies). This `time' in which the ads are
cocooned nutures and promotes the environment in which their
consumption thrives, affording the consumer a state of consumption
which (through the part-emotional/part-cynical association
with song) gives the predictable product and the act of
its inevitable purchase a `new' dimension. This sounds like
a wash of ad-man newspeak, but known songs can trigger a
whole range of psycho-cerebal experiences which familiar
visuals cannot - especially in a technological environment
which has been accenting audio/aural/acoustic/sonic production
and reproduction for the past decade (over optical/visual
progress, I would argue). This is something that post-McCluhan
(and I'm not talking about postmodernism) advertising knows
only too well, and which McLuhan and Baudrillard academics
just can't cotton on to.
Perhaps
what is most interesting about rock and pop songs and music
used in ads is the noticable generational split which has
developed throughout the eighties. On the one side, there
is the trumped-up early seventies nostalgia which runs synchronous
with the American radio formatting of `classic rock' and
`easy listening rock' (mixing artists like Whitney Houston,
Billy Joel, Lionel Ritchie, Elton John, Cliff Richard, Queen,
Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, The Moody Blues, etc.).
This stream of artists are aligned with a market that appears
to have once prided its youthfulness and has now transformed
its past into a `transitory phase' which has helped shape
its current `full identity'. In other words, boring farts
with comfortable lifestyles and contemporary yet conservative
tastes. (The artists with which this market identifies also
take themselves in a similar way, ie. whimsically reflecting
on their lost youth while admitting that their current success
in this domain is well-earned and deserved, suggesting that,
yes, there is meaning in life after 35 - most of it monetary.
Check out the definitive Once Upon A Time by the reformed
Moody Blues.) This burgeoning market (a whole nation of
`what-ever-became-of' bodies and roles from the sixties
and the seventies) comprises some of the most relaxed and
affluent of consumer family-units to which the bulk of family
commodities and items are directed.
Running
parallel to this bulky mass of tastefulness are a variety
of short-term, fashion-conscious streams of marketing. Products
here are more associated with youth-oriented consumption
(clothes, music, hi-fi, snacks, etc.) and play a tricky
game of trying to appear specific while remaining anonymous.
In fact, three clearly interrelated movements can be charted
here : new wave, ska and rap - not just as musical styles,
but also carrying all the subcultural paraphernalia and
signification which advertising reinterprets as `marketable
lifestyles'. New wave intially cropped up in any ad with
crazy haircuts, retro-fashion and weird body jewellery.
In Australia, punkiness in early eighties ads (Polywaffle,
Lee Cooper, Twisties, etc.) mainly relied on non-musical
cues like affected cockney accents, bleached hair and urban
night-life sets 4. Most interestingly, no identifiable
punk or new wave songs were incorporated because the deliberately
irritated and irritating sound of the music quite obviously
went against the psychological grain of jingle phonematics
and neumatics (the evocative qualities of sung speech).
Ska - or rather, Madness and nothing but Madness - had a
cleaner and clearer musical substance which allowed the
ska beat and clipped vocals to commandeer many ads. These
ads (often centered around school brat identities with flat-tops)
used the music and its visual trappings to convey a cocky,
spriteful tone, and as such also bled over into ads which
used Ian Dury and Trio songs. The third and still current
movement - rap - is perhaps the most rampant of all, mainly
because it builds upon the monotone brashness of new wave
nasality and ska syllabism to produce a pseudo-rap based
more on military precision and literality than funky flow
and movement. Hundreds of current ads employ this Anglocized
delivery of spat-out rhyme without, once again, having to
refer directly to any known songs. My point in briefly highlighting
these three youth-oriented marketing trends is to illustrate
that through specifying style while refraining from direct
quotation, they incorporate rock and pop as much as their
parent brigade.
A
final note on this list. It was originally compiled as part
of the EEEK! radio show which Bruce Milne and I hosted during
1985/86, and thankfully many people wrote into the show
to add to the growing list. I've been keeping the list going
since (and 1987/88 certainly was a peak period) and Bruce
has corrected its latest version. Most of the companies
and products listed are Australian companies, but as is
not well known, most Australian ads ripp-off wholesale overseas
ads (mainly from Great Britain), so any overseas readers
might recognize a song used in an ad which here is listed
as being for a different company's product. All the question
marks that remain are details I just couldn't find out.
If anyone can correct or supplement this list, please email
me.
Note:
* indicates the song was eventually released as a record;
# indicates not the original artist, but the artist who
popularized the song further, and whose version the jingle
is based on.
PARTIAL
QUOTATIONS & REWORKINGS
ORIGINAL
ARTIST - SONG - PRODUCT
Art
Of Noise - Diversion I - DRIVE detergent
David
Bowie - Let's Dance & Fashion - KALUHA liquer
Duran
Duran - Girls On Film - SUN HOME SHOW
Herbie
Hancock - Earth Beat - WEST COAST FBI jeans
Ike
& Tina - River Deep Mountain High - COKE
Michael
Jackson - Thriller - TOYOTA
Grace
Jones - The Fashion Show - ROAD TRAFFIC AUTHORITY
Madness
- Baggy Trousers - CHEAP JEANS
George
Michael - Faith - KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN
Moody
Blues - Knights In White Satin - YARDLEY `White Satin' perfume
Sinaid
O'Connor - My Body - ESTREL fruit juice
Police
- Every Breath You Take - BON BONS shoes
Prince
- 1999 - HOLDEN `Gemini'
Rolling
Stones - umping Jack Flash - EAST COAST jeans
Diana
Ross/Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go - COKE
Sade
- The Sweetest Taboo - FM flavoured milk
Scritti
Politti - Wood Beez - NISSAN
Style
Council - You're The Best Thing - KELLOGS `Special K'
Vito/Salutations
- Unchained Melody - CRAZY EDDIE discounts
U2
- Sunday Bloody Sunday - AUSTRALIAN ARMY
UK
Squeeze - Cool For Cats - BRIDGESTONE tyres
Tom
Waits - Down Town Trains - SARINA cosmetics
Wham!
- Wake Me Up - RITZ sunglasses
Marie
Wilson - Just What I Always Wanted - McDONALDS hamburgers
Stevie
Wonder - Master Blaster - ULTIMATE gymnasiums
Z
Z Top - Legs - AGREE Shampoo
COVER
VERSIONS
ORIGINAL
ARTIST - SONG - PRODUCT
ABC
- Look Of Love - SPORTSGIRL fashion stores
The
Ad Libs - The Boy From New York City - BRASHES hi-fi
Paul
Anka - Put Your Head On My Shoulders - HEAD & SHOULDERS
shampoo
Bachman
Turner Overdrive - Takin' Care Of Business - CANNON copiers
Bangles
- Walk Like An Egyptian - VASELINE hand lotion
The
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations - SUNKIST orange juice
?
- Help Me Rhonda - HONDA bikes
The
Beach Boys - Surfin' USA - LIFESAVERS sweets
The
Beach Boys - Surfin' USA - BLUEHAVEN swim pools
The
Beach Boys - California Girls - VICTORIAN EGG BOARD
The
Beach Boys - California Girls - LINCRAFT fabrics
The
Beach Boys - Beach Baby - CAREFREE tampons
The
Beach Boys - I Get Around - BEGA cheese
The
Beach Boys - Do It Again - HAMILTON ISLAND tourism
The
Beatles - Twist & Shout # - VICTORIAN DAIRY ind.
The
Beatles - All You Need Is Love - PATTONS wool
The
Beatles - Help - LINCOLN-MERCURY cars
Bee
Gees - Stayin' Alive - VOLVO cars
The
Bellamy Brothers - Let Your Love Flow - CARLTON `Light'
beer
The
Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace - FANTA soft drink
David
Bowie - Modern Love - NATIONAL COFFEE assoc.
Laura
Branigan - Gloria # - ? `Cordia'
James
Brown - It's A Man's World - TENNETS larger
James
Brown - It's A Man's World - SWAN beer
Glen
Campbell - Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout Me - MITSUBISHI `Colt'
The
Cars - Drive - NISSAN `TRX'
Gene
Chandler - Duke Of Earl - DECORE hair shampoo
Ray
Charles - Hit The Road Jack - JAYCO caravans
Charlene
- I've Been To Paradise - SAFEWAY supermarkets
Chubby
Checker - Let's Twist Again - EAST COAST jeans
Dave
Clark Five - Catch Us If You Can - NISSAN `Pulsar'
Eddie
Cochran - Summertime Blues - M-NETWORK computer games
Eddie
Cochran - Summertime Blues - MALIBU liquer
Joe
Cocker - You Are So Beautiful # - TASMIANIAN tourism
Sam
Cooke - Wonderful World - TOYOTA `Hatch'
Alice
Cooper - Department Of Youth - VENTURE kids' clothes
Creedence
Clearwater Revival - Proud Mary - LINCOLN-MERCURY `Cougar'
Creedence
Clearwater Revival - Who'll Stop The Rain? - WITCHERY fashion
stores
Jim
Croce - Time In A Bottle - MATEUS wines
Daddy
Cool - Eagle Rock - LEVI jeans
Bobby
Darin - Splish Splash # - FORD `Meteor'
Bobby
Darin - Multiplication - HUNGRY JACKS hamburgers
Devo
- Whip It - ? diet company
Dire
Straits - Makin' Movies - POLLY HIGHLIGHTS hair dye
Fats
Domino - Ain't That A Shame - BLACK & DECKER cosmetics
Fats
Domino - Blueberry Hill - SNUGGLES nappies
Lonnie
Donnegan - My Old Man's A Dustman - WILLOW rubbish bins
Donovan
- Colours - WHISKERS cat food
David
Dundas - Blue Jeans - ? jeans
Ian
Dury/Blockheads - I Wanna Be Straight - BOND T-shirts
Ian
Dury/Blockheads - Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3 - KELLOGGS
`Corn Flakes' cereal
Ian
Dury/Blockheads - Billerickie Dickie - SPRAY & WIPE
cleaner
Bob
Dylan- It's All Over Now Baby Blue - INSIGNIA aftershave
Easybeats
- Money # - CHANNEL 9 news
Easybeats
- Good Time - BUNDERBURG rum
Eurythmics
- Cool Blue - TAUBMANS Paints
Eurythmics
- Sweet Dreams - KELLY GIRLS secretarial
John
Farnham - The Voice - TELECOM telephone service
The
5th Dimension - Up Up & Away - TAA airlines
Billy
Fields - Bad Habit - GREAT WESTERN champagne
Roberta
Flack - The First Time Ever I Saw Your face - OIL OF ULAN
moisteriser
The
Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup - WESTERN STAR butter
Frankie
Goes To Hollywood - Relax - OMBRE SOLERE suntan oil
Aretha
Franklin - Freeway Of Love - COKE
Aretha
Franklin - A Natural Woman - AWON clothes
Glen
Frey - The Heat Is On - BRASHES audio/visual
Marvin
Gaye - How Sweet It Is - GOLDEN crumpets
Marvin
Gaye - Ain't No Mountain High Enough - LINCOLN-MERCURY cars
Marvin
Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine - COKE
Bill
Haley/Comets - Rock Around The Clock - 7-11 food stores
Bill
Haley/Comets - Razzle Dazzle - COLES/NEW WORLD s/markets
Buddy
Holly - It's So Easy To Fall In Love - TAB betting agencies
Buddy
Holly - Rave On - FORD `Lazer'
Buddy
Holly - Roller Coaster - VASELINE hand lotion
Hush
- Get Rocked - COLONIAL Jeans
Ike
& Tina - Ain't No Mountain High Enough - DHL express
couriers
Michael
Jackson - Billy Jean - PEPSI
Etta
James - I'm A W.O.M.A.N. - ANGALI perfume
Billy
Joel - That Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady - NIVEA hand lotion
Elton
John - Sorry Seems To Be The etc. - BRITISH RAIL
Elton
John - Sorry Seems To Be The etc. - AUSTRALIA POST
Elton
John - Philadelphia Freedom - PHILADELPHIA Cheese
Elton
John - Crystal - CRESTA blinds
Keith
- 98.6 - DATSUN cars
Nick
Kershaw - Wide Boy - CHRISTIAN TELEVISION asc.
The
King Brothers - Standing On The Corner - FORD cars
The
Knack - My Sharona - DIHATSU `Feroza'
Labelle
- Voulez Vous Couchez Avec Moi - NESTLES ice cream
Cindy
Lauper - Time After Time - M-WATCH watches
Cindy
Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - CAREFREE tampons
Jerry
Lee Lewis - Great Balls Of Fire - ANZ banks
Julian
Lennon - Too Late For Goodbyes - ? ice cream
Little
Richard - Tutti Frutti - McDONALDS hamburgers
Little
Richard - Tutti Frutti - HUNGRY JACKS hamburgers
Little
Richard - Keep A Knocking - HBA health insurance
M
- Pop Muzik - BUBBLE YUM gum
Clyde
McPhatter - Oh What A Night - GOLD CREST muesli bars
Madness
- Baggy Trousers - KELLOGGS `Short Cuts'
Madonna
- Like A Prayer - PEPSI
Manfred
Mann - Doo Wah Diddy Diddy - PRAISE mayonaise
The
Marcels - Blue Moon # - MALIBU liquer
?
- Summertime - PICK-A-PART car parts
?
- Summertime - McDONALDS hamburgers
Masters'
Apprrentices - Do What You Wanna Do - LEE jeans
Bob
Marley - Stir It Up - ? chocolate biscuits
The
Monotones - Book Of Love - PEPSODENT toothpaste
The
New Seekers - I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing - COKE
*
The
Newbeats - Bread & Butter - SUNICRUST bread
Randy
Newman - I Love L.A - NIKE sportwear
Phil
Oakey/Moroder - Electric Dreams - MYER stores
Olivia
Newton John - Let's Get Physical - ENO antacid
Johnny
O'Keefe - Shout! # - HOLDEN cars
Johnny
O'Keefe - Shout! # - CHANNEL 9 television
Roy
Orbison - Crying - KLEENEX tissues
Paris
Sisters - I Love How You Love Me - PALMOLIVE hair shampoo
Ray
Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters - GOLD MEDAL soft drinks
Wilson
Pickett - What Is Soul? - COMFORT fabric softener
Pink
Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall - CONTROL DATA INSTITUTE
The
Platters - Only You - WENDY'S hamburgers
Pointer
Sisters - Jump - BOUNCE fabric softener
Pointer
Sisters - I'm So Excited - TOYOTA
Police
- Every Breath You Take - BRITISH RAIL
Elvis
Presley - Rock-A-Hula - KOOLA KOOL soft drink
Eddie
Rabbit - I Love A Rainy Night - MILLER beer
Otis
Redding - Dock Of The Bay - PIMMS drink
The
Rolling Stones - Paint It Black - MAZDA cars
The
Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want - ANZ
bank
The
Rolling Stones - Start Me Up - MICROSOFT Windows 95 computer
software
Linda
Ronstadt - Get Closer - CLOSE-UP toothpaste
The
Rooftop Singers - Walk Right In - Step Right Up - SPEED
shoes
Rose
Tattoo - We Can't Be Beaten - BRASHES audio/visual
Roxy
Music - Avalon - GUINESS beer
Sailor
- Girls Girls Girls - TOYOTA `Hatch Back'
John
Sebastian - Welcome Back - PIZZA HUT pizzas
The
Shadows - Apache - TANGO soft drink
The
Shangri-Las - Leader Of The Pack - McDONALDS hamburgers
The
Shirelles - Dedicated To The One I Love - ? cereal
Carly
Simon - Anticipation - HEINZ ketchup
Simon
& Garfunkle - Bridge Over Troubled Waters - RED CROSS
Frank
Sinatra - Love & Marriage - KRAFT cheese
Nancy
Sinatra/Hazelwood - Summer Wine - ORLANDO `Summer Wine'
Nancy
Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walking - SUBARU cars
Sister
Sledge - We Are Family - PEPSI
The
Smiths - How Soon Is Now? - PEPE jeans
Sparks
- When I'm With You - FORD `Corolla'
Spencer
Davis Group - Keep On Running - ANDREX tissue paper
Splodgeness
Abounds - Two Pints Of Larger & A Packet Of Crisps -
SMITHS crisps
Dusty
Springfield - I Only Want To Be With You - FLAG motels
The
Stranglers - Golden Brown - BREVILLE toasters
Barbara
Streisand - Memories - TELECOM telephones
Barbara
Streisand - Touch Me In The Morning - PALMOLIVE soap
Donna
Summer - She Works Hard For The Money - COKE
Donna
Summer - She Works Hard For The Money - DEL MONTE canned
vegies
Billy
Swan - I Can Help - BRITISH RAIL
T-Bones
- Whatever Shape Your Stomach Is In - ALKA SELTZER antacid
*
The
Temptations - My Girl - LEVIS `501' jeans
Jackie
Trent/Tony Hatch - The Two Of Us - MY DOG pet food
T-Rex
- Get It On - SHARP hi-fi
T-Rex
- Get It On - CANNON colour copiers
Trio
- Da Da Da - LOIS Jeans
Trio
- Da Da Da - VICKS throat drops
Trio
- Da Da Da - SPEEDS shoes
Bobby
Vee - Rubber Ball - BUTTERBALL chickens
Kim
Wilde - Chequered Love - AMF bowling alleys
Maurice
Williams/Zodiacs - Stay - HAMILTON ISLAND tourism
Bill
Withers - Ain't No Sunshine - POLLY HIGHLIGHTS hairdye
Bill
Withers - Lean On Me - ? cat food
Stevie
Wonder - I Just Called To Say I Love You - SPRINT telephone
service
Stevie
Wonder - I Just Called To Say I Love You - TELECOM telephone
service
World
Party - Ship Of Fools - GREENPEACE
Yello
- Call It Love - TIA MARIA liquer
?
- Gotta Get Away (?) - MAZDA cars
?
- There's No Stopping Us Now - PHILLIPS CDs
?
- You Don't Love Me Anymore (?) - LE SHIRT shirts
?
- I Wanna Be Bobby's Girl - SMITHS `Jacket Crisps'
?
- Just One Look - DANORE yoghurt
NOTES
1
You should have by now encountered the negative views in
one way or another in just about every name rock magazine
or newspaper. For a balanced view of the pros and cons in
corporate sponsorship see Robert Sandall's "Watch This Space"
in Q, October 1988. Some positive arguments are my own in
six articles on rock & pop video clips written over
1985 and 1986 for WAVES magazine (all reprinted in RESTUFF
No.2).
2
Apparently Devo took the phrase "rust never sleeps" from
an American TV advertisment.
3
Young's actually plugged into an existing `McLuhanesque'
subgenre here : see his previous video (the title escapes
me : it's the one with only one unedited video hand-held
shot where Young plays a Live Eye TV reporter at the scene
of a fatal crash) plus : The The's Graduation Day, Tom Petty
& The Heartbreakers' Take It Back, Time Zone's World
Destruction, David Bowie's Fashion, Devo's Freedom Of Choice,
Satisfaction, Beautiful World and Are You Experienced?,
Michael Jackson's Leave Me Alone, David Lee Roth's Just
A Giggolo, Talking Head's Wild Life, Hunters & Collectors'
Is There Anybody In There?, the Howard Jones' clip (another
title escapes me) which most televsion programmes refused
to play because it too closely resembled a package of other
programmes, complete with transmission breakdowns), Paul
Simon's You Can Call Me Al (the original version with deliberate
transmission drop-outs which MTV refused to play, hence
the Chevy Chase pisstake/re-take on star personnae lip-synching),
and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes (which was deliberately
designed to receive requests for re-editing). They all attack
the notion of selling and selling-out, and/or the role that
television advertising, news coverage, media manipulation
and broadcast transmission play in shaping rock and pop
culture. The best one, though, has to be Public Enemy's
Night Of The Living Baseheads. When you see it you'll hear
why : it basically destroys the song it is meant to be selling.
4
The representation of punk in film, television and advertising
is virtually uncharted yet overwhelmingly large. A round
up of examples, incidents and developments has yet to be
presented (my listings-in-progress tallies 80 films, 30
TV shows and 28 ads which use the image of a punk for one
reason or another). In the mean time, see Dick Hebdige's
chapter on the commodification of punk in Subculture : The
Meaning Of Style, Methuen 1979, and his collection of essays
on culture, identity and music Hiding In The Light, Comedia
1988.
