To Advertise Here

I was flicking through TV Channels last night when I came across (no, not literally) a somewhat Celtic arrangement of Penguin Cafe Orchestra's "Music For A Found Harmonium" used in an MFI ad. Lovely song, rubbish at selling pretty tacky-looking furniture.

The Orchestra seem to be pretty prone to use in adverts - most of you, like me, will recognise "Telephone and Rubber Band" from its use by some phone company (I can't actually remember which one - take that "The Man"!)

It got me thinking about songs in adverts. It really quite annoys me when good songs are forever slightly tainted due to their association with any kind of tat and the usually crappy ad that tries to shove it in your face. Then whenever you play the song to people and they say "Oh yeah, the song from that advert". IT DID EXIST IN ITS OWN RIGHT BEFORE THEN. Ahem. Examples of this that immediately spring to mind are War's "Low Rider" (Marmite) and Pigbag's "Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag" (Tango, I think). Having said that the first time I heard "A Glass Of Champagne" by Sailor was in a relatively tasteful M & S advert from last year and I still like that, so it's not always a bad thing.

Having said that there was that Volvo advert that featured Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields playing a really bizarre version of "The Wheels On The Bus". What the fuck was that about?