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I know you can jump the shark, but can you throw someone over the shark?
Have seen this new Fruit of the Loom commercial? It is a dead-on parady of the band Cold Play. It's a music video for a song called "Blue" and the Fruit of the Loom guys sing it while walking in slo-mo down the sidewalk etc. It's a funny commercial, really well executed, the song is great, too.
But it kind of brings me down. I mean, I'm not a huge Coldplay fan or anything, but I don't have anything against them. I like the songs I hear. I think they do good work. I know that's not too hip to say but, well, I never much cared about hipness.
People have a problem with Coldplay presumably because it seems like they took the formula from some of Radiohead's original hits (Creep, High and Dry, and Fake Plastic Trees) and just stuck with that formula. These days, it's hard to tell Coldplay from U2 sometimes, as well. I don't know, maybe that's why people are down on them, and when I say people, I mean the tiny percent of the population that thinks about popular music in more than a passing way. Certainly Coldplay is not in want of more fans. They are huge.
Maybe these people are down on them simply because they are so popular. I'm not sure. Anyway. The thing is, this Fruit of the Loom commercial may very well throw Coldplay over the shark, if you know what I mean.
Once someone has pointed out the formula behind a band's music like that, it seems that fans might suddenly be able to break it down too. That kind of saddens me, this commercial might be taking away this music which moves many people...and just in order to sell blue underwear.
So what? You may say. Go ahead. Say it.
The thing is, imagine placing one of the songs that you hold as precious in place of the Coldplay song. What if they were playing on "Imagine" or "Pink Moon" or "After the Gold Rush" or whatever. Wouldn't it bum you out?
On the other hand, it's a funny commercial.
I don't know what to think.
2 comments:
Oh God, absolutely. It makes beautiful music sound trashy. And Coldplay is the only pop band I like currently. It's bad, I agree. Art should be more sacred than that!
I don't know Coldplay (surprise) and I don't watch TV (double surprise), so I see no commercials. BUT they did use "Pink Moon" some years ago when I did watch TV, I think to sell VWs. And I actually think it had the effect of getting more people to buy Nick Drake records. But that's using a much lesser known artist's song and introducing it to a much bigger audience, so that's different.
My feeling is: you love something forever or you don't. And if you don't, you eventually figure out or develop reasons why it doesn't work for you anymore. So this commercial just moves things along for some people. Lots of the music I love hs been spoofed all kinds of ways, but I still love it. And then there's music that I "outgrew" without it ever being used in a commercial (I don't know if this last part is really true, but it sounds good!).
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