I’ve written about commercial music every so often on this blog over the past 5 years. I’ve got a small list of recent sightings I thought I’d publish in addition to a commercial music mystery solved.
Talk about blast from the past. This track was a hit when I was in grade school. The commercial that is currently using it for Visa and features all these old school breakdancers locking and popping all over some stylized shop that fits the music theme.
Microsoft is using a pair of tracks I’ve been listening to in their Zune commercials.
This Zune commercial features a hipster male who is “tripping” through some psychedelic dream.
This Zune commercial begin with a female at a a rather French looking covered sidewalk cafe where its pouring rain just beyond her table. A similar trippy dream sequence ensues to this track.
Postal Service - Such Great Heights
UPS is running a series of “whiteboard” commercial that features a male actor explain some innovative service the company offers while illustrating his point on — whiteboard! The airy synth droplets and mechanized drum you hear in the background are from the open of this track.
The New Pornographers - The Bleeding Hearts Show
This track is being used for some time in commercials for the University of Phoenix that shows flashes of people in different walks of life working towards a better life. At least that is the impression I get. The clip used from this track supports that notion well. I can’t help to raise an eyebrow to a virtual university though. This is a great track though an interest thing to be associated with. The blogs have spoken.
In other commercial music news, I solved the mystery of a track I heard in a commercial years ago. I can’t recall the car other then it was a luxury sedan in black where the camera pans over slowly from different angle. It was a jazzy rhythmic piece with a bit of sax and a female voice saying “how do I look?” sampled in. Some time after I saw that commercial, I was sitting in Bard’o in Manhattan’s West Village when I heard what sounded like that track. I asked the DJ and she told me it was the theme from The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Thing was that album that. What I found out recently was that Dmitri from Paris featured it on SacreBleu in a track called “Une Very Stylish Fille.” (It was this track that I had heard in the commercial which explains why what I heard in the cocktail bar didn’t quite seem the same.) Further, the actual The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. theme was featured on a few somewhat obscure compilations that have been released including one called Expresso Expresso by a favorite of mine — The Karminsky Experience. (That disc is also out of print and a bit hard to find. I’m still trying to find a reasonably priced one or a sugar daddy to buy it for me.)
Oh and that female voice Dimitri from Paris used? That would be Audrey Hepburn from a movie called Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (argh!) I should have picked up on that sooner.
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