Elson Trinidad (elson@westworld.com)
Thu, 08 Oct 1998 00:14:17 -0700
At 09:50 PM 10/7/98 -0700, Andrei Marinescu wrote:
>> Now that companies are doing the lazy thing (licensing songs), nobody's
>> writing jingles anymore.
>
>not totally true. case in point: the target commercials that hit prime
>time a few months ago.
Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating a bit. Of course there are still some jingles
out there, but you have to agree their role and prominence have diminished
considerably. Im sure in our youth we can recall popular commercial jingles
like "Coke is It" and the like, but such things are few and far between
nowadays. Instead, Microsoft
used the Rolling Stones, Nike used The Verve, Mobil Oil, United Airlines
and MCI have all used R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and Burger King used
the entire Billboard Top 40 chart from the past 30 years. I for the life of
me can't name a single original commercial jingle introduced this decade.
Aside from economics (i.e. licensing is cheaper than paying jingle
writers), I guess they're relying on the power of pop culture/nostalgia.
The same could be said for TV theme songs. Some of them too are borrowing
from old songs, though not as much. Still, the art of writing a TV theme
song is also getting lost...In the 1990s, TV theme songs were reduced to
10-second bits...The '70s sitcom "Barney Miller" and the '80s sitcom "Night
Court" all had them funky basslines in their theme songs...I remember how
bass players would impress people by pulling them out in a jam...now a '90s
sitcom like "Seinfeld" only offers a couple slap bass samples from a Roland
rack module and some popping noises from an Alesis drum machine. You call
that a theme song?
Elson
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