When good songs happen to bad people

I love music. Always have, always will. I got the music in me, alleluia! So it really bugs me when companies pushing their lame-arse products and advertising companies getting paid to push the companies lame-arse products take great songs and turn them into shitty jingles. Forever ruining the songs appeal.

Take, for instance, The Good Guys. 'Come in and see the good, good, good guys. Pay cash and we'll slash the prices.' I'd prefer to stab everyone in that commercial. Who thought it was a good idea to use one of The Beach Boys' classic tunes and turn it into that poorly rhymed embarrassment?

AAMI have picked up the mantle in recent times and are doing an excellent job of ruining a couple of old favourites. Though to be fair 'What about me' had already been decimated by that cowboy guy from Australian Idol. Whatshisname. The guy who, when he tried to pen his own smash-hit came up with something about a big, black shiny car. He should really be on Play School.

Anyway, now AAMI have reinterpreted the title song from Hair. 'Give me a deal that's fair, FAIR!' I guess AAMI thought they had to pull out the big guns since their rivals RACV have that incredible thespian 'Jason' drumming up business. Neither of those advertisements encourage people to buy their insurance, they just encourage people to change the channel.

Sometimes though, an advertising company uses a song and gets it bang-on. I don't think this one is still on air but how good was the Cadbury's ad where a gorilla played the drum solo from 'In the Air Tonight' by Phil Collins? Brilliant. Not that Cadbury's really need to advertise since who doesn't love chocolate in the first place?

To deter future offenders I think there should be a general boycott of all products whose advertising campaign destroys the popularity of a song. In fact, it should be punishable in the International Criminal Court as large-scale auditory assault. Heartless, tuneless villains.

xx