randy (lilbro@groundzero.net)
Thu, 08 Oct 1998 10:08:57 -0700
Just wanted to drop my 2 cents here,
Coming at this from an "ad guy" perspective, (I am a production artist
at an ad agency) I think the jingle in the traditional sense has faded
in popularity because its no longer "hip" to have a jingle in an ad.
What (good) ad agencies are looking for now is a soundtrack to a spot,
rather than a jingle. The problem is, before you can find someone to
write that soundtrack, you need to somehow describe to the songwriters
what you want. The easiest way to do this is to play for them something
that you've already heard. The sound company then ends up doing some
sort of "knockoff" and you get something that is pretty close to your
original idea. Where I work is pretty low budget, but I'm assuming that
if we had the money to use, we would much rather use the original rather
than a knockoff for the spot. Sometimes we don't have a selection in
mind, and in that case, we have the sound designers/songwriters take a
crack at it and describe to them generally what we are looking for.
Its a whole lot easier if you find something that fits from the start
rather than having a soundtrack/jingle made. I just think the song
selection on alot of the ads on TV is bad taste. The Burger King ads
offend me. Now when I hear those songs I can only see burgers. The ad
agency that made those ads needs to get some style. The Gap commercials
don't bother me as much, seeing as they use current artists, at least
I'm hearing something fresh rather than attaching a hamburger or a pair
of pants to a song already embedded in my mind. The artists who agree
to be used in those spots ARE selling out though (or buying in,
depending on which side of THE COIN you are looking at). The VW spots
are a little more creative in both their execution and song selection,
but same case as the GAP, I lose a little respect for the artist when I
hear their songs on a spot. This gets worse for me when a song I really
like is being used. For example, theres a European SAAB spot we watched
on a directors reel that was sent to us that has Modulor by AIR as the
soundtrack. Now that shit pissed me off, cause I dig that tune. But I
guess its all part of the game of making money, just like adding vocals
to Les Proffessionels for Moon Safari to make it more "commercial
friendly".
As an underground DJ, future record producer, and ad agency employee, I
see it from both sides. All I know is that, if I really dig something,
I definitely don't want to see it in an ad, it somehow taints the purity
of the song to me. I have nothing against people making music
specifically for ads, just don't take a song made for some other
purpose, and cash in on an ad agency wanting to use it, because the
original vision of little fluffy clouds that you wanted to appear in
peoples minds as they listened to your song might just be replaced by a
new vision of multicolored german passenger cars, and for alot of
people, myself included, those clouds will never come back.
for what its worth,
randy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 08 1998 - 19:10:55 MET DST