More ad weirdness

What is it with ad agencies and their music selections? Major League Baseball is apparently playing catch up with the NFL when it comes to worst song to grab a line from and represent their product. While the NFL likened their game to the apocalypse (although a nice one as only Morissey can), MLB has chosen to give us the warm fuzzies of being executed. I have seen the ad on the MLB channel and they have just enough time to use "...and touch the green, green grass of home." A nice enough line on it's own, but of course there is a context. The song's narrator is singing about being buried back home after being executed. The only version I have ever heard was by Johnny Cash, Im sure there are others.

Green, Green Grass Of Home - Johnny Cash

As unfortunate as that choice may be, it doesn't really compete with this next one as far as sheer uncomfortableness goes. Sir Mix A-Lot's "I Like Big Butts" is of course a classic. On it's own, it is a rather forthright ode to his favorite attribute on a woman. Burger King has tied this classic in with a spongebob square pants promotion. I don't know if it's the women dancing with square butts that is so disturbing, or the use of a very adult theme tied in with a kids character, but the result is unwatchable. BK isn't doing anything to make me want to come to their restaurant.

Modern rock

One of my favorite games to play when I'm listening to music is to imagine what Janis Joplin, Pete Townsend, or even Mick Jagger circa 1967 would think of the music I was listening to. Inevitably, any rock that I listen to would probably be recognizable to those folks back then. There is the same 4/4 time, blues based progressions, electric guitars, choruses, verses, etc. In some ways, it's kind of sad how little has changed. Even songs like Franz Ferdinand's "Jacqueline" could be figured out. They would be amused at the use of surf guitar and really heavy bass lines, but they could "get" it.

Jacqueline - Franz Ferdinand

I think the first band to come along that really changed the basic structure of rock music was the Pixies. Instead of adopting a verse, chorus, verse structure with orderly chord changes, the Pixies adapted a style that could best be described as soft/loud. The guitar was mostly used for texture, and there were no choruses. It was still most definitely rock music, but the stuff on Surfer Rosa and before were truly a break from the past. The folks from '67 would be lost, they would have some serious difficulty making any sense out of it at all.

How about something more recent? I submit this song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. "10x10" could best be described as epic, especially when Karen O goes into her "10x10, 3x3..." while the guitar is stuttering and soaring above her about two thirds of the way through the song. This is more apparent in the studio version, but this live version is it's own kind of awesome. See it here.


I do think that my folks from the past could eventually get their heads around this, but I'm willing to be that the first time they heard this would involve quite a bit of mouth hanging open-ness. Some of that would no doubt be Karen O's demonstration of what could only be her fellatio ability or her fondness of ball gags. I gotta say that my favorite rock these days is more like the pixies and less like reworked blues songs. Luckily, the internet is a wonderful way to get a hold of this stuff. I'll try to post more as I find the time...