A Thank You to Advertisers

Well this is not to all of them. Especially not to those who came up with those Applebee's commercials with the two guys with guitars singing about salads and ribs to what was once enjoyable music. Or even before when they were no guys but the same butchering of good tunes with new food appropriate lyrics. Don't even get me started on that Kraft cheese one with the crumbled cheese being introduced as "crumbelievable".

No, this declaration of gratitude is to those ad men and women who decided to put the name of the song and the artist in the bottom corner of their commercials. Now I know in general it's a brilliant move to not only promote the product, but to spark (or in some cases renew) the public's interest in the song. But for me, it's time I don't have to spend on the internet trying to figure out what the hell that song was.

Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. You listen for lyrical cues to type into google and pray you get a hit. Most of the time I have to scan message boards with no search options and recheck to see if what one person claims to be the song is actually right. Anyone who has watched an iPod commercial has done it and knows my frustration. To spare a few of you still looking, try Adtunes. They have a search engine and a lot of people have commented on the more popular and recent commercials.

For you hard core trailer watching types who have been searching for classical and instrumentals, I think a good starting point is Soundtracknet:Trailers. I'm weird and looked long and hard for the music from the movie trailers Unfaithful and Vanity Fair (that eventually became the theme to the TV show Cold Case). This site guided me to the song "Nara" by E.S. Posthumous. And if you want some good background music playing while you're hatching some diabolical scheme, listen to their song "Elba". So good.

It sounds like a bit much for trailer and TV music but trust me, there was a huge response to the music from the Spiderman 2 trailer ("Lacrimosa" by Immediate Music, another amazing source for trailer music). And I know I'm not the only one that loved the music from the Volkswagen commercials that came out about eight years ago. (The ones that stick out in my head: Sunday Afternoon featuring Trio’s "Da Da Da"; Synchronicity featuring a just getting started Sarah Clarke and Master Cylinder’s "Jung at Heart"; and Crazy Guys featuring Tony (Arrested Development’s Buster Bluth) Hale and Styx’s "Mr. Roboto". Feel free to blast me if I left out your favorite because I know I missed many.) And wasn’t it a Gap commercial that renewed the swing dance craze?

So the next time you hear a catchy tune on TV or in a movie and spend the next few months wondering what the hell it was, you'll understand why I'm offering my thanks to that little artist blurb in the corner. Now if only I could figure out that music from the TV spots of You, Me, and Dupree. (No, not "Stuck in the Middle" by Stealer's Wheel.) It's an instrumental tune that was also used in the trailer for the movie Dave. So anyone one want to help me out? There a gratitude post on this site in it for you. You tell me that's not tempting.