[Closed] Inappropriate songs in (car?) adverts

Yeah, there was a tyre ad (I want to say Perelli but I'm not sure) that used Venus in Furs, presumably because of the "shiny boots of leather" line as a vague reference to rubber. Yeah they probs realised the song's subject matter, but who really cares. TBH few people got the reference, and as I've listened to perhaps one black sabbath song my entire life, I wouldn't get the connection either.

There was an advert for a large Toyota a fair few years ago. They used Iggy Pop’s The Passenger. It wasn’t long before they had edited out the line about the city’s ripped backside.

They used Iggy Pop’s The Passenger. It wasn’t long before they had edited out the line about the city’s ripped backside.

I’ve known the lyrics to that for years, and just re-read them to make sure I’m not missing something, but I can’t see that they’re as rude as you think they are.

I agree with TJ about Walk on the Wild Side though. I’ve seen that advert a few times and thought that they really didn’t know that song other than the title.

Apparently radio 1 banned Walk on the Wild side as 1 of the lines sounded rude but they didn't know what it meant (just shows how times have changed!)...even when she was giving head...

If I ever worked in advertising, I’d make it my mission to somehow get I Touch Myself by The Divinyls used in an ad. 😀

I don’t like Michael Kiwanuka’s Cold Little Heart being used in the Mercedes great-big-suv-speeding-around-town ad. It’s a reasonably dark song about heartbreak, and i really like it. ☹️

On Born In The USA, wasn’t it Ronald Reagan that used it? Didn’t realise Trump had...or did they both?

EDIT: I thought you were completely above even paying attention to advertising TeeJ?!

I have no idea what was being advertised - I think a car!

Surely someone has used Pull Up To The Bumper by Grace Jones, which definitely isn't about driving a car! 😂

I have no idea what was being advertised – I think a car!

Course you didn’t teej; course you didn’t...

I don't really listen to lyrics, I'll admit it, I just like the music side of it.

I'd imagine lots of people are in the same boat, and potentially the target market.

But I'll never buy a new car, so perhaps not! 😂

I really did not DD. I think it was a car advert. I couldn't tell you what car

I can’t see that they’re as rude as you think they are.

I wasn’t suggesting that it was a sexual reference, you perv! /wink

I just said that it was in the ad the first few times I saw it, then it was not, so I’m guessing someone was offended.

more relevant to the topic is using a song that suggests they are trying to sell a car to folk who don’t concentrate on driving is probably good warning to other road users when they see said car approaching

When I was in school each class was occasionally called upon to do an assembly. They were always terrible, and there was always a song played at the end for some reason. One lot did a piece about the plight of battery chickens, which was reasonable and it was in the news at the time; but the song they chose was 'I want to break free' by Queen.

sticking to Lou Reed I've always suspected that the often used Perfect Day is about heroin addiction rather than a relationship

If I ever worked in advertising, I’d make it my mission to somehow get I Touch Myself by The Divinyls used in an ad.

Or Closer to You by J.J. Cale.

Or I'm a Doggy by The Legendary Marvin Pontiac for a pet food ad.

Maybe not a car advert but Specsavers using the Vapors Turning Japanese or the Who with Pictures of Lily to encourage teenage boys to get their eyes tested or maybe Lloyds pharmacy using Poison Ivy by the Coasters during the summer holiday season

sticking to Lou Reed I’ve always suspected that the often used Perfect Day is about heroin addiction rather than a relationship

I don’t think it is; Golden Brown, by The Stranglers, on the other hand, is entirely about that.

I'm deeply offended by a recent B&Q ad that used The Connells' '74-'75. Not because it's lyrically inappropriate (though it is a bizarrely melancholy choice), just because it's a great song and B&Q can ****ing do one.

re Venus in Furs, see wiki:

In advertising
In 1993, the song was used as the soundtrack for a British advertisement for Dunlop Tyres, by the advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and directed by British director Tony Kaye. The advertisement was notable for featuring both fetish and surrealist imagery

I guess its young advetising execs who do not understand the songs? I mean do you really want your car associated with a man going insane? With a transvestite hooker?

You think? Maybe there's also an element of trying to add some edginess to dull as ditchwater, tin box transportation. You know, like Boris Johnson walking out at the Tory party conference to Baba O'Riley by The Who. The teenage wasteland bit of it is apparently a reference to destroyed teenagers out of their heads on acid at Woodstock. Someone knew that - ad / marketing people may be cynical and exploitative, but they're not entirely stupid.

sticking to Lou Reed I’ve always suspected that the often used Perfect Day is about heroin addiction rather than a relationship

See also There She Goes by The La's.

I remember an Audi advert that used a Jimi Hendrix tune. Just seemed wrong.

Surely someone has used Pull Up To The Bumper by Grace Jones, which definitely isn’t about driving a car! 😂

Not sure about that, but my work used it in an internal communication about parking safely.

British Gas used Ride of the Valkyries to promote their repair service.  This maybe appropriate for Huey's blowing up a Vietnamese Village in a film but not the gas repair man paying you a visit.

Not a car advert, but one that plays in a car... NSFW 🙂

Ford (I think it was) used Master of the Universe by Hawkwind. This could only be bettered, to me, by throwing in a Gong tune 🙂

The problem here is that you guys actually listen to the lyrics and think about the meaning. For most people especially the thrusting young ad exec desperate to make his or her mark with an edgy campaign it's all about the sound fitting the image.

Todays song - " white Rabbit" by Jefferson airplane. I took careful note just for you guys - it was for some sort of boat cruise.

So a song about and LSD trip makes you want to go on a cruise? "feed your head" - yes that line was actually used!

What about the Free Love one - a joke song and a terrible one at that, that Ricky Jervais wrote for the Office. Being used on a advert like its some soft rock classic. Bloody embarrassing.

Also the “Why Don’t You... “ theme tune used for the Go Outdoors advert.. its a theme tune to a kids’ programme from the 70s! Maybe not inappropriate, but bleedin lazy and awful!

Why stop when your period starts?

"sticking to Lou Reed I’ve always suspected that the often used Perfect Day is about heroin addiction rather than a relationship"

Nope, LR has categorically stated it was just about a day with his GF

"His interpretation, according to Reed himself, is "laughable." In an interview in 2000, Reed says that, "No. You're talking to the writer, the person who wrote it. No that's not true [that the song is about heroin use]. I don't object to that, particularly...whatever you think is perfect. But this guy's vision of a perfect day was the girl, sangria in the park, and then you go home; a perfect day, real simple. I meant just what I said."

So a song about and LSD trip makes you want to go on a cruise?

no, I think it's a oblique reference to the split of the main driving forces of the band centred on the Slick and Kantner antagonism to Kaukonen/Casady. Forcing Marty Balin to leave re-evaluate his priorities and book a holiday

How about King Crimson - 21st century schizoid man - heard that used in an ad

Given Lou Reed has loads of songs with very clear drug references then "perfect day" never seemed to be about drugs to me.

The Gang of Four's Natural's Not In It for xbox was good.

Lou had a great ability to re-invent the past. He may have said that it wasn’t about smack ... but it was. It was just useful to say when he was finally clean that it really was the sugar coated song that it seemed.
Americans can do irony, it seems ...

Like all songs, it’s open to interpretation by the listener.
I mean, Ian Astbury didn’t write “the sparkle in your eyes” about my girlfriend, but thats how I always heard it!
As for Perfect Day, we had it as our first dance at our wedding and neither of us had ever chased the proverbial dragon 😀
We also had White Lines because we liked driving on country roads 😂

Todays song – ” white Rabbit” by Jefferson airplane. I took careful note just for you guys – it was for some sort of boat cruise.

I noticed that too! So inappropriate. Or fantastically subversive, take your pick!

How about King Crimson – 21st century schizoid man – heard that used in an ad

Me too, but a long time ago. The best thing about advertising agency choosing these tracks is that they expose them (either deliberately or unintentionally) to a whole new audience- I had never heard of the Velvet Underground before I saw that Tony Kaye/Venus In Furs car advert, and it very much prompted me to seek out the rest of their stuff and I've been a massive fan ever since. Thanks!

Oh there's a surprise- it's actually for Dunlop tyres, and not a car. And also quite an entertaining watch!

Peugeot's use of Berlin's Take My Breath Away, because air pollution and all that.
I'm not a member of extinction rebellion officer, just being mildly sardonic.

How about King Crimson – 21st century schizoid man – heard that used in an ad

I’ve heard that, I think it’s another song using a sample of ‘21st century schizoid man’; my g/f was watching that dance competition thing earlier this evening and some dance group were dancing to it.
I think it’s ‘POWER’, by that Yeezus bloke.

Even so - its a song about a dystopia.

Not a car ad, but there’s an ad for an erectile dysfunction treatment that uses Steve Harley’s “come up and see me”.

Good spot. That song is about being betrayed by a band member and hoping the band member fails and has to grovel. good call for an ED med!

there’s an ad for an erectile dysfunction treatment that uses Steve Harley’s “come up and see me”.

"Mr. Soft" was already taken 🙂