Erik Gaderlund (erikg@macconnect.com)
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 13:49:19 -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
> - 30 -
Hmm, The X-Files, Millenium, and other Mark Snow, stuff, Simpsons, and
such by Danny Elfman (orig. Oingo Boingo). You could also stretch it for
the Ally McBeal theme sung by the singer at the bar in the show. Or, shows
like Buffy the Vampire Slayer that occasionaly has musicans 'guest' at the
club that's apart of the show, Pitzcatto Five was one. And, I was going to
mention VIP the Pamela Anderson show, because of the beats, (though the
show is rather amusing), but, that there is usually a beat of somekind on
the soundtrack, drum'n'bass, trip-hop, don't remember any big beat, hip
hop, dub or regae, but, its not anything I recognize.
But, the use of hip in commericalism does keep our traingspotting habits in
good practice.
erik g
p.s. and the only real alternative is to be a hermit in a cave and I don't
think andybody is ready to do that.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 08 1998 - 22:53:52 MET DST