First, the Nick Drake-esque soundtrack is by the talented José González. The song is a cover of ‘Heartbeats’ by The Knife — a band I don’t understand at all.
The second thing I want to say about the Sony ad is that it’s another entry in what has become the ‘raw economic power’ genre of ads: big-budget TV spots that only tangentially relate to the product itself. For an even-more-remarkable example, see this spot for Microsoft’s XBOX 360 (needless to say, it’s hard to find a QuickTime version). All this is to say that I hope the “a million dollars can’t be wrong” model of advertising is making investors a little uncomfortable. After all, what happened to the “you won’t believe how incredible this product is… look!” model? When did you see that last?
Has anyone seen the new nickels? Apparently the ‘Bison’ nickel at left came out this spring (I just saw it) and the second is already out.
Anyway, on a related topic, the Phoenix recently drew my attention to this recording of the band Nickelback’s two top-10 hits. ‘How You Remind Me’ in the right channel, ‘Someday’ in the left. The fact that these songs fit together so perfectly, all the way through, is either evidence that these are the same song, or perhaps it’s an extremely sinister plot.
So take a listen–the song is way better than the sum of its parts. And hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In fact, I recommend they record three more hits and market the five-song set as an incentive to wire your system for 5.1 channel surround sound. Just a thought.
Listen: How You Remind Me of Somewhere
Update 7/1: I can’t find the mp3 anywhere, but this page gets the job done in terms of making the case. If, for some twisted reason, you must have the mp3, contact me.
This is a lovely, classic video that perfectly fits the song composition. My understanding is that he made it himself using a crappy cell phone camera. What he achieves here is remarkable.
The Boston Phoenix: “It sounds like Mutt Lange, Andrew W.K., and the Darkness got together and decided to make the Donnas into megastars, but it’s all done by four kids from Waltham.” Listen to Out Here All Night and Frustrated Unnoticed.
Charmingly, CMJ writes that guitarist Dave Pino wrote these songs “in an attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend’s affection.” From the band’s EPK: “She was really friggin’ hot, dude,” says Dave. “Anybody woulda written 80 songs for her.”
“…Dave was basically a 16-year-old girl when he was 18 years old,” [lead-singer Noelle] likes to say, at least in part because it makes Dave mad. “I can relate to these songs a lot.”
Incidentally, the editors are just about as excited as they can get about the forthcoming album by Ok Go. The forthcoming album which comes out in four short days.
Great new song & ‘backyard dancing’ video on their website.
Notably, this is the first music video Ok Go (or any other Capitol Records band I’ve seen) has released encoded with QuickTime.
Why’s that important? Well, it means you can make an mp3 out of it.
Download it (right-click this link and ‘save target as…’),
drag it into iTunes, and
hit ‘Convert Selection to mp3.’
Update 8/10/2005 You snooze, you lose. You don’t read this blog on time, well, you sort of lose. Or maybe not. ANYWAY: their homepage is different now.
Update 8/17/2005 The QuickTime is back, and IN EVEN HIGHER RESOLUTION. Take advantage and add this track to your library. Now. That’s a direct order.
