In the early to mid-90s the music I listened to wasn't obscure. My tastes
were right in line with Live 105, KROQ and even MTV, or at least "120 Minutes."
Then around 1997 or so the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys hit and alternative
rock went back to actually being alternative. These days the music I listen to
is totally obscure: Scarling, the Dollyrots,
Church of Girl Radio. In
fact, there's really only one place I regularly hear music from my collection:
commercials.
Yeah, don't ask me. I think the first time I noticed this was when I had the
TV on and I heard some familiar chords and I looked up to find a commercial
for some bank or insurance company playing. What was that song? "I'm
callin' out to you..." And then I realized: it was "Ultralite." By
Spiderbait. Off the Grandslam album that wasn't even released
in the US — I had to order it from Australia. As far as I knew I was
the only person in North America who owned a copy. Except, apparently, for
some ad guy.
Recently I've repeatedly seen a commercial for Chevy trucks that uses
a song I recognized from the "Garage Girls" hour on Church of Girl. That's
right — General Motors has decided that the best way to sell the
Trailblazer is to play a song, "Bad Word for a Good Thing" by the Friggs,
about the word "fuck." This may rank with the commercials using that Iggy
Pop heroin song to advertise cruise lines and banks.
Just a few minutes ago I saw a car commercial... Audi, I think it was...
that used "Ivanka" by Imperial Teen. (Edited.) There are other examples
I could cite if I took the time to go through my catalog. I dunno. Maybe
I should've gone into advertising — at least my co-workers could give
me tips about bands I'd like. And I wonder what's next. "Band-Aid Covers
the Bullet Hole" in a Curad commercial? "Strawberry Gashes" used to sell
Dannon Frusion®? I'm not even complaining, really. After all, it was
one of Fruitopia's ad people who turned me onto the Muffs... using a song
featuring the line "I'm not advertising."
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