Ads that murder a good song...

...while I was disappointed to see Tears for Fears or their record company lend 'Sowing the Seeds of Love' to Volvic, I was very upset to see Homebase use the classic dance anthem 'Sweet Harmony' by the Beloved. Why can't they leave good songs alone and not spoil them. I'm still recovering from Centra ripping off Bread's 'Guitar Man' about 15 years back.

BuffyBot

I was very upset to see Homebase use the classic dance anthem 'Sweet Harmony' by the Beloved.

Please tell me this is an April Fool's joke..

No, heard it this morning on the telly. Disappointed, but Jon Marsh must be sick.

Atrocity

Something that annoys me: the lotto ads, where they have some cheap cover of "Don't Worry, Be Happy"

Would it really have cost that much more to get the original, instead of having some cod-jamaican man trying to recreate it? And when he says "that's a lot of money" it's just ridiculous.

Wertz

I actually liked HardFi's Living for the Weekend, until lifestyle sports decided to murder it for one line...
They did the same to My Brightside and Crystal as well, but for the Killers it probably sold a fair few albums in this neck of the woods.

Not advert specific but I HATE the way RTÉ's music department get a hold of Orbital's stuff and use it for anything and everything...it's laughable the amount of dance music they'll use in promo fillers yet they wouldn't dream of giving the actual tracks daytime airplay.

Nick_oliveri

That insurance song that rips off "minnie the moocher". Bastards.

limerick_man

I like the lotto ads! The Jamacan guy is cool, leave him alone.
HATE THE 'GET A NUMBER, GET A GAFF' ads, uh.. they bug me!

SprostonGreen

Some cosmetic ads, I think it was Laboratoire Garnier, they used butcher all sorts of songs, by changing it slightly.

The only one I remember is George Michaels Too Funky, but they had a scatter of others.

Zeppie

limerick_man wrote:

HATE THE 'GET A NUMBER, GET A GAFF' ads, uh.. they bug me!

The directory enquires one!! ...shíte ad!

SprostonGreen

limerick_man wrote:

HATE THE 'GET A NUMBER, GET A GAFF' ads, uh.. they bug me!

They bug everyone!!

Photi

Man Of the World by Fleetwood Mac

And there's no one I'd rather be.......*smash*

Saintly

An American company tried to get the rights to 'Ring of Fire' to advertise some constipation cream (or its like). Thankfully, the Cash/Carter kids stepped in and blocked the ad, so the public were spared that one.

If memory serves correctly, the Beatles were very protective of their material - I seem to remember Paul McCartney expressing his disgust when Michael Jackson gave Nike rights to use some Beatle tracks. It must be sickening to hear something you wrote selling some crappy product and know there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Saintly.

Mossy Monk

those animated ads for Nat West i think it is where they take songs and change the lyrics

byte

Are you thinking of Halifax? If not, these ads tend to travel a similar vein. They used to have some black guy, but now it's an animation of the black guy, singing reworded songs.

Mossy Monk

yes, thats the one. got my banks mixed up

spacetweek

Photi wrote:

Man Of the World by Fleetwood Mac

And there's no one I'd rather be.......*smash*

I was so upset when that ad appeared. I had loved that song for years and now I can't listen to it. And anytime I try putting it on everyone goes "That's that awful car crash song." I presume they mean the car crash was awful, not the song itself.

Cream's 'I Feel Free' was used for some car in the 80s...:mad:

On the other hand, Telecom Eireann single handedly revived Dusty Springfield's career with their use of 'I Only Wanna Be With You' 20 years back. Pet Shop Bys tried to take all the credit...

J.R.HARTLEY

Saintly wrote:

An American company tried to get the rights to 'Ring of Fire' to advertise some constipation cream (or its like). Thankfully, the Cash/Carter kids stepped in and blocked the ad, so the public were spared that one.

the song was used though for a humorous levis ad where they explained that they took out the crotch stud years ago, it consisted of a cowboy hunched by a fire for a little too long, and the ensuing trouble caused by the warming of his crotch stud in his jeans


not strictly a remix but that fake swing ad for aa drives me mad, 617 double 9 5 oh, AA direct to you.
absolute ****e. and i like that muscial genre just massivey iritating and annoying ad (and for anyone who says that it worked cause i remembered the ad or number i want to say i will never call AA because of that ad)

jor el

Eircom's crucifiction of 'Don't stop me now' last summer, with a Beachboys style remixm was absolutely the worst thing ever. I was never a big fan of Queen but that just shouldn't have been allowed. Even the actual Queen version that's on all their ads now is bad enough. The song gets stuck in my head for hours every time I see one of their damn ads.

Sleepy

spacetweek wrote:

I was so upset when that ad appeared. I had loved that song for years and now I can't listen to it. And anytime I try putting it on everyone goes "That's that awful car crash song." I presume they mean the car crash was awful, not the song itself.

Yep, definitely the one that came to mind when I saw the thread title. How they allowed such a beautiful song to become associated with a little boy being mashed by a car is beyond me!

jor el

jor el wrote:

Eircom's crucifiction of 'Don't stop me now' last summer, with a Beachboys style remixm was absolutely the worst thing ever.

Think Club Orange used the same song about 15 years back, a campaign set in a school.

Brock

I hate that stupid maxwell house ad with the firemen singing, i dont really like that song its just a annoying ad. Also that stupid ****ing pick me up magazine ad with the big man with the deep voice

bishop brennan

Brock wrote:

I hate that stupid maxwell house ad with the firemen singing, i dont really like that song its just a annoying ad. Also that stupid ****ing pick me up magazine ad with the big man with the deep voice

Couldnt agree more about the Maxwell House ad Brock.
I have to change the channel when it comes on as i cringe at just how terrible it
is!

missingtime

The ads for the GAA coverage aren't too bad. They had The Go! Team and The Polyphonic Spree for two of them.
Also the sony add with Jose Gonzalez - i find the song is better watching that add.

emeraldstar

Brock wrote:

I hate that stupid maxwell house ad with the firemen singing, i dont really like that song its just a annoying ad. Also that stupid ****ing pick me up magazine ad with the big man with the deep voice

this is a long shot, but does anybody know if the fire station in that ad is the one on Nutgrove Avenue in Churchtown?! I lived across the road from it last year and am convinced it's one and the same...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

I switched from Vodafone after they started using Bohemian Like you.

gustavo

What about Heineken i think it was using "Love will tear us apart" about 4 years ago , I remember attending a Sociology lecture in NUI Maynooth around the time and it was the music module and the lecturer was absolutely livid about it , quite rightly so!

grumpytrousers

I'd love to be able to blame "The Man" for a lot of these cases where a cracking tune is used to flog tampons/runners/booze or something, but there's nobody else to blame in a large number of cases except the writers themselves.

Assuming they own the publishing, then they control how the music is broadcast, so they can tell Mr Halifax "Oi, no - tell your animated Brummie slaphead to bog off and bother somebody else with a request for their universally loved and terribly hummable tune; this one's staying put"

thing is - they rarely do. There's plenty o'money in having your tune on an ad just like there is in having it feature in a TV show. Think repeat rates.

O'course you have the likes of Paul McCartney who has a justifiable complaint insofar as the beatles publishing is owned by Michael "black or white" Jackson, and all he can do is carp from the sidelines. On another matter, Sir Rabbitface of Liverpool happens to own the publishing rights to, among others, the back catalogue of Buddy Holly and would, off the top of my head, seem to be pretty careful about iffy licensing of same. I'm not sure when he bought them. I do recall, however, there being a scotch video tape (remember video tapes kids - you don't, ask your parents...) ad years ago with a skeleton singing "re-record not fade away" which was a take on 'not fade away' which was a holly tune..

anyway - on to me point. Was it a BAD FCUCKING DREAM or did i hear Blue Monday being used to advertise something recently...

SprostonGreen

grumpytrousers wrote:

anyway - on to me point. Was it a BAD FCUCKING DREAM or did i hear Blue Monday being used to advertise something recently...

Yes, Mars.

But its about time they made instead of losing money from that song.

grumpytrousers

SprostonGreen wrote:

Yes, Mars.

But its about time they made instead of losing money from that song.

Surely they've always as writers/performers made money from it. Perhaps not so much from the publishing; Definitely they lost a few bob when it actually sold as at 12" (but that was their own stupid fault...well - them and tony wilson at Factory, right?)

SprostonGreen

grumpytrousers wrote:

Surely they've always as writers/performers made money from it. Perhaps not so much from the publishing; Definitely they lost a few bob when it actually sold as at 12" (but that was their own stupid fault...well - them and tony wilson at Factory, right?)

Not sure on the ins and outs of it, but the story is as you know, they lost money on it as a 12", then it became the best ever selling 12".

RobertFoster

Nike have an ad out at the moment with "Hurt" sung by Johnny Cash

Bastards.

Miguel_Sanchez

SprostonGreen wrote:

Yes, Mars.

But its about time they made instead of losing money from that song.

Well I think you'll find they recorded a version for Sunkist in the 80's.

"How does it feel/When you're drinking in the sun?"

Although I'm not sure if it ever was used.

MoominPapa

Vashti Bunyan's Diamond Day in a T-mobile ad, I actually feel like throwing up just thinking about it. Jello Biafra was right, never trust a hippy

cashback

Yeah I was a bit shocked when I heard Blue Monday in the Mars ad. Don't know why really. Wasn't it used in an American Express ad six or seven years ago?
Hurt on the Nike ad also annoys me. Especially on the shorter version of the ad.
I did use to like Bohemian Like You until I heard it every five minutes!
Don't forget Moby. I think that Play album would have been good but I never felt the need to buy it. Maybe in a few years I'll consider it.

emeraldstar

RobertFoster wrote:

Nike have an ad out at the moment with "Hurt" sung by Johnny Cash

Bastards.

yea and it was also on a TV3 ad for All Saints and i think i heard it the other day on an ad for some programme on RTE2... wish they wouldn't

iFight

Any song in a Lifestyle Sports ad really, Mr. Brightside especially!!

looksee

I have to turn off the 'How do you like your eggs in the morning' ad, dont know if its a separate song tho.

Cactus Col

cashback wrote:

Don't forget Moby. I think that Play album would have been good but I never felt the need to buy it. Maybe in a few years I'll consider it.

That's right, the music from Play was all over the place. But, Moby was quite happy about that, he made the point that he wanted as many people as possible to hear his music. (or something along those lines).

It's a great album.