TV Tunes

 
Music in advertising is a topic I’ve written about before on InsideCM. It’s a given that the right track can make or break an ad and in this, the day of peer-to-peer file sharing, ad revenues are a vital source of income and exposure to artists and music labels alike.
Previously, if you asked me how I discover new music, I would have told you via friends and through mass media appearances on television. Gone for me are the days of discovery on broadcast radio; when I’m not listening to my iPod, I’m usually tuned in to satellite radio, mostly for talk and retro tunes. But while I was watching basketball this weekend, I caught myself intently listening to the music in an ad and thinking, “I wonder if that is a real song, because I would probably buy that. I need to find out who that is and see what they are about.” The song was, “I Love the Rain” by The Real Tuesday Weld, featured in the Chevrolet Traverse ad, and if you watched any basketball, you probably heard it too. As I was searching on Shazam to find out what the song was, it occurred to me that I really find a lot of new music this way, so I thought I’d do a quick Top Five list of my favorite songs/bands that made it to my iPod only because of their advertising tie-in.
5. Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap – When I saw this Diet Coke spot, the song struck me because it sounded like something from a modern-day John Hughes soundtrack; the kind of song Molly Ringwald would fall in love to.
4. Flathead by The Fratellis – This upbeat rocker made me want to go out and buy yet another iPod. The gang at TBWA/Chiat/Day know how to pick music, because for a while every iPod ad had me researching a new band, like Feist and The Apples in Stereo.
3. Up on the Housetop by Pomplamoose – I actually wasn’t a huge fan of this song (I’m a notorious hater of Christmas songs) but I liked the band and found that they do a lot of covers, including one of my all-time favorite songs, Earth Wind & Fire’s “September,” and all of their stuff has that same experimental, homemade feel.
2. Generator ^ First Floor by Freelance Whales – Several friends have tried to turn me on to this band before and for some reason it never sunk in until I saw this Starbucks commercial. Now I’m a convert.
1. There Goes My Love by The Blue Van – Another Apple ad, this one for the iPad. I wore this song out last year and with Apple picking great new music for pretty much every ad the produce, I’m sure I’m destined to upgrade ipods again before long.