29 March 2007

I Thought This Contest Was Already Over . . .

. . . I had assumed (wrongly) that the all time worst use of song for a commercial (or series of commercials) was the flogging of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines using Iggy Pop's ode to smack life, "Lust for Life", but I was sadly mistaken.

What could be less appropriate than that, you ask.

Well, I'm here to tell you, that I think Wendy's has outdone RCCL.

Seriously, Blister In the Sun, to sell freakin' hamburgers?!?!?!?

It takes 3 exclamation points and 4 question marks to express my incredulity at this turn of events.

Have they ever actually listened to the lyrics of this song?!?!?!?

So from now on, I'll associate Wendy's hamburgers with 'stained sheets', and I won't even know why.

I don't fault Gordon Gano for making a buck, however (assuming he owns the pub rights to that song, I'm pretty sure he does).

Looks like this campaign has been going on about 6 weeks or so, but my ire has been taking awhile to rise to the surface.

Come to think of it, when I saw them live at the Palladium in Hollywood back in 1986 (3 bands played that night, opening was Phranc, Femmes followed, Fishbone finished, good times, good times indeed), I thought to myself, 'self, I seriously hope 20+ years later that there song will find its way into a Wendy's commercial'.

And through the magic of YouTube, here's three clips, first, a performance from back in the day, then some PYT doing her own fan video to the song, finally a performance from this year.





1 comment:

bill said...

Great. Wendy's is using a masturbation song. Quizno's ends their commercial with "It's not lacking any meat and that's what real women need."

There's something going on and it'll have me avoiding fast food for a long, long time.