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Notes On Channel Surfing
When music is selling signifying associating manipulating entertaining showing off distracting sentimentalizing playing the hitsbeing difficult oversimplifying soundtracking something else change the station. Continue reading
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On Spotify On Apple Music Continue reading
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On Music, Thinking, Dreaming, And Gender: Two Chords In A Lego Commercial
“Music’s ability to conceal its processes and to communicate nothing/everything ‘directly’ is largely responsible for its peculiar power and prestige in society.” – Susan McClary and Robert Walser, “Start Making Sense!: Musicology Wrestles with Rock.” Every once in a blue moon I watch a TV commercial that stops me, holds my attention, and generates the Continue reading
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On Using Voices To Sell
For a few years now I’ve noticed TV commercials using the voices of well-known actors to advertise services and products. I started paying attention to these voices during the 2012 Summer Olympics. It was an ad for VISA, and the reassuring, trustworthy voice was that of Morgan Freeman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOOoPOtckpU There are other examples too. In Continue reading
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On (More) Wonder In Apple Commercials: The “Your Verse” iPad Air Ad
I have written previously on this blog about the musical construction of wonder and enchantment in Apple commercials. (You can read the posts here, here, and also over here.) What I like about those ads is how their evocative soundtracks convey the humanity that Apple wants us to feel is either inherent in their products (a Continue reading
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On The Music In Apple’s FaceTime Commercial
“Seeing music as a model could seem cold or trivializing. But the urgencies and the passions of living are among the things that music models: music doesn’t belong to the detached world of mathematical modeling. And there is nothing trivial about the musical enterprise: it is far removed from toy model airplanes or fashion models Continue reading
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On The Sound Of Epic Achievement And Luxury: A Rolex Soundtrack
While overdosing on Wimbledon 2012 TV coverage over the past few weeks, I noticed a recurring ad for Rolex watches that features Roger Federer. In the 30-second spot the narrator begins by asking “When is greatness achieved?” as we see a montage of Federer’s milestone wins throughout his career interspersed with still shots of him Continue reading
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“Where Are We?”: Situating Wonder Through Music In Apple Siri Commercials
wonder — (1): rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience; (2) : a feeling of doubt or uncertainty Is there anything the Apple iPhone can’t do? And for that matter, is there anything Siri, the phone’s voice activated seer, doesn’t know? Recently I happened to be in Brooklyn early Continue reading
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On Music and Advertising: Weezer’s Tour de France Izod Commercial
I can’t seem to get enough of the Tour de France. A recent convert to the event, I sit transfixed in front of the screen, watching the peloton flow across the French countryside, up and down mountains, over winding roads and through picturesque towns, past lavender fields and 12th-century churches while the English ESPN commentating wizard Phil Leggett provides non-stop Continue reading
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