This is a practice that I suppose should bother me, but I just can't get worked up about. Remember when (if you're not too young)music videos first starting taking off. So many people said that it was wrong to do, because it wasn't right to dictate the images a song creates in our "mind's eye". That music videos were some sort of arbitrary way that we should interpret the song. I always thought it was just one way of seeing the message a particular song was conveying. I guess, for me, using a song for a commercial is similiar. Just like anything else, it can be done well or poorly. I thought using Carly Simon's "Anticipation" for Heinz ketchup was pretty clever. The Beatles' "Revolution" was used for some computer company, maybe Apple, was quite stylish and well done. As we baby boomers age, we carry many of these songs with us and hearing one particular song associated with a product just does not get me riled up. The "Ring of Fire" example is indeed going too far and getting into poor taste, but remember, an artist or his/her estate make the decisions as to how their songs are treated. Exceptions exist such as Michael Jackson owning much of the Beatles catalog. So, for example,if Robert Mondavi vineyards came up with a quality wine and decided to call it "Sundown" and Gord thought it was a quality product and gave a nod to use his song of the same name as part of the commercial, it wouldn't make me think less of Gord or that great classic song. Of couse with his past experience, Gord may not want to endorse a wine.
By the way, to me McDonald's pickles taste the same as store-bought ones!
|