When you watch every second of the World Series, like pretty much everyone in Boston and St. Louis are currently doing — sorry Detroit and Los Angeles — you tend to get sick of the commercials pretty quickly. It feels like there are only 15 to 20 ads that run on a continuous loop, and some apparently run every inning or so (did you hear about this new buddy-cop drama that stars a robot? A fucking robot? A robot that has feelingz? Kray.)
Some of these ads feature catchy agency-made jingles, but most take a pre-existing pop or rock song and use it to pimp their product. This is nothing new, of course, but the frequency that these spots are airing lately are causing us to get sick to death. Here are five* songs that were ruined by 2013 World Series ad campaigns — you’d have to be Almost Human to tolerate them by now…
5. Kanye West, “Black Skinhead” — Motorola Moto X
Odd choice to be hawking phones with, but hey, to the white bros watching the World Series it probably sounds like Marilyn Manson’s “beautiful People” so who’s really paying attention?
4. Junior Senior, “Move Your Feet” — HP Chromebook
Catchy tune from an iPod band (your lame friends who aren’t into music and only buy 99 cent singles love this jam) and it’s up-tempo enough to get you to buy some technology. Colorful song, too. But the shelf-live decreases rapidly when digested in 10-second snippets.
3. Goldfrapp, “Ooh La La” — Apple iPhone 5s
The new iPhone 5s comes in liquid gold, so let’s get UK electro-pop act Goldfrapp to sing the song. And here we thought Alison Goldfrapp would be forever limited to hawking Greek foam-covered iced coffee drinks.
2. Miike Snow, “Paddling Out” — Budweiser
The worst offender of the 2013 World Series, and the musical version of “Her father is the district attorney!” or any lines from Almost Human promos. This song isn’t half-bad, when listened in its entirety. But take the 15-second snippet and replay it every other commercial break and we’re paddling out to the middle of Spot Pond with Miley’s wrecking ball chained to our ankles.
1. Every Pearl Jam song ever
The legendary Seattle band signed a deal with Fox to broadcast bits of 48 Pearl Jam songs during the duration of the World Series, including all 12 of recent chart-topping album Lightning Bolt.
But wait, hold the phone — this is actually a great idea. Buy spreading out the Jam over 48 songs, viewers didn’t have a chance to get sick of any one particular new Pearl Jam tune (though it did offer confusion as to why “Alive” suddenly got airtime 20 years after its release). So we’re reversing course for Joe Buck’s homeboys, because this Pearl Jam tie-in wasn’t overdone or tasteless, and there’s enough quality Jam to not sour at any particular moment. And hell, there’s definitely an “Even Flow” to this Series. (sorry)