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It's official - I'm cool, OR, when TV uses tracks from semi-obscure albums you own (1 Viewer)

Leo Hinze

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Jan 15, 1999
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So I'm watching one of my favorite TV shows, Six Feet Under, and in the background in one scene, I hear a song that I identify as Sparks by Royksopp. They are a Norwegian duo who plays some groovy downtempo stuff. That the director/producer of the show would choose non-mainstream music that I find groovy as the background music in their show just proves that I am cooler than all the rest of you:)
I am actually happy that music is such an important part of shows these days. Off the top of my head, I can think of three bands/artists I was introduced to from TV shows/movies that I otherwise probably never would have heard of:
Dido - Sliding Doors
Over The Rhine - Third Watch
Cibo Matto - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
 

Ike

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Jan 14, 2000
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Anybody else notice Gravity Rides Everything by Modest Mouse in the Miller Beer Commercial? Not super obscure, of course, but weird none-the-less.

I don't like this practice, personally, but that's just me.
 

John Garcia

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Last year they were talking about Moby's Play being the most licenced album ever. I think there are 18 tracks, no less than 10 of which had been used in some sort of advertisement. After I bought the album, which I really like, I started noticing it everywhere. Although the album is not obscure, many of the songs used have not seen radio play, and that is not so common.
 

Vince Maskeeper

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Jan 18, 1999
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Wow, I never heard the Modest Mouse song in a beer commercial... I think I'd probably have a stroke.

I did about fall out of my seat years ago when Miller Ice (or some such thing) used a song from the under appreciated Jesus and Mary Chain album "Honey's Dead."

Oddly, I read years later that Miller didn't have permission to use the song so the ads were pulled, which I find hard to believe given the climate of Corporate Culture- I would assume that it would be impossible for a beer company to accidentally include an unlicensed piece of music in a commercial...

I was also kinda weirded out when I heard bis do the powerpuff girls opening. Also, sometimes they used Fugazi as bumper music on the Jim Rome show (??). I also heard a sunny day real estate song over the credits of some movie on the Oxygen network the other night (and I have heard SDRE was used on an NBC TV series once).

Still waiting to see Jawbox's SAVORY pop up in a film, as it is very well fitted to be "opening credit" music... maybe David Fincher will discover Jawbox and use them like he did the pixies at the end of fight club.

Weird.

-Vince
 

Ike

Screenwriter
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Wow, I never heard the Modest Mouse song in a beer commercial... I think I'd probably have a stroke.
The commercial is running frequently. It doesn't feature any lyrics (it's the opening of the song, with the bending notes), but I instantly recognized it.
 

Derek Miner

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Feb 22, 1999
Messages
1,662
My roommate is furious (animatedly so) that McDonalds has a commercial out using a song by The Shins. He was also perturbed by the commercial's implication that a father was eagerly awaiting the day he could feed his baby his or her first french fry. :)
I was recently shocked when I heard They Might Be Giants in a Chrysler commercial. It's a cover, though, of a song called "Yeh Yeh" that appears on their latest album, Mink Car. In concert, John Flansburg said they didn't get any money for this.
I also noticed a marked increase in use of "These Days" by Nico since The Royal Tenenbaums featured the song prominently.
 

BrianB

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Last year they were talking about Moby's Play being the most licenced album ever. I think there are 18 tracks, no less than 10 of which had been used in some sort of advertisement.
Basically, every song on the album was licenced to someone in some fashion. "Play" becoming successful's a strange one - it came out, sold nothing. Then the adverts started using it & got people familiar with the sound. The album got relaunched, they did new singles from it & voila, it's a /massive/ /massive/ hit.
 

JasenP

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I nearly pissed myself when Tiny Toons did their own music video of sorts with They Might Be Giants Particle Man and Istanbul (Not Constantinople).

Don't ask me why I know this but on Sesame Street they have some REAL eye opening uses of music.

Monty Python's Galaxy Song was used in an animated segment on the Universe (Particularly funny if you have seen Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life) and R.E.M. changed Shiny Happy People into Furry Happy Monters for their appearance on the show.
 

Mike Main

Stunt Coordinator
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Jul 29, 2001
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98
Yeah I love that when it happens. NBC plays New Order stuff all the time in these sports promo pieces.
:emoji_thumbsup: :emoji_thumbsup: :)
Mike
 

Philip Hamm

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Jan 23, 1999
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I'm a really big Stranglers fan and when the Stranglers song was featured in "Snatch" I was floored.
 

Dave Poehlman

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I was describing my Crystal Method cd to a friend. I said it sounded like hyper "car commercial" music. You know, when you see the car zipping across the salt flats and sliding sideways with a cloud of dust spewing out.

A few days later I hear one of their songs in a Toyota commercial. Although it wasn't the salt flats, it was that place that has all those radio telescopes.

I fell out of my chair.
 

Dan D.

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Aug 29, 1999
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I absolutely couldn't believe it when I saw a Spider-Man commercial using Curve's "Hell Above Water.
 

Ted Lee

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hey dave - fyi...that was a mazda miata - not toyota. no biggie...just being anal. :)
everytime i hear a tune that i have (movies, tv, restaurants, etc.) i tell my girlfriend, "hey i have that song!". it drives her freakin' crazy! :D
 

Jason_H

Second Unit
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Mar 9, 2000
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422
What really pisses me off is when companies rip off a song by recording their own version that is JUST BARELY different by one or two notes. You know it's because the band in question told them to shove it when asked for permission to use their song, or they just didn't want to pay the artist. This happens so much these days I have lost track of all the commercials that do this.
 

Adnan Sheikh

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
May 4, 1999
Messages
51
Along the lines of what Jason said, does the beginning of that 'Ford on Ford' remind anyone else of I Might Be Wrong?
 

PS Nystrom

Second Unit
Joined
Jan 27, 1999
Messages
444
I couldn't believe it when I heard James playing an acoustic version of "Ring the Bells" in an episode of The X-Files. That was a big moment for me. I heard them again when the beginning of "Born of Frustration" was played during a SuperBowl commercial a few years ago. And my girlfriend swears that Tylenol uses their song "One of the Three" in a commercial that is shown during The View. Of course my biggest James shock was hearing their song "Arabic Agony" during one of my favorite films, "Heat."

Pieter
 

Evan S

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Joined
Nov 21, 2001
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I heard Shawn Colvin's tune "Monopoly" off her unbelievably excellent but very underappreciated "Fat City" LP as the background for the ending of an episode of "Party of 5"...the episode where Charlie leaves Kiersten at the altar. I couldn't believe it. My girlfriend was into the show at the time and in future episodes I heard more and more Shawn Colvin in the background. I guess the producers must have been big fans...at the time she was basically an unknown artist.
 

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