Crimes Against Music: Kia
Kia's use of Sexy Zebras' (FFS) Nouvelle Vague's cover of The Undertones Buzzcocks' Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't) in its new advert for the 2012 Cee'd earns it a spots in the Crimes Against Music files.
Sani-fucking-flo
Have you ever wanted to turn your basement into a kitchen? Yes of course you have, we all have.
What about turning your oubliette into a wetroom? Or your lounge into a communal shower area? Surely you'd want to give serious consideration to swapping your kitchen and bathroom around. I mean, just imagine that. A fucking toilet in your kitchen.
With the magic of Saniflo it's now possible to add plumbed-in goods like sinks in your house without building a new house. Sheesh, that's some lateral thinking right there.
If you're brave enough to consider this radical departure in sanitation then you'll certainly want an unnervingly smiley man with one of the strangest accents every heard to do the work for you.
Look how HAPPY they are
"Yaw see, with Saneeflaw installing a toilet right eee-ar is as easy as this!"
I'm going to give you some advice - if you can afford to get a toilet fitted into a small downstairs cupboard I strongly advise you to do so. Just wait until estate agents hear about this.
Saniflo is going to revolutionise how, where and when we shit and wash our hands. Mark my words.
NB. Also file under: Crimes Against Music (Mozart - Alla Turka)
Crimes against music: Thomson
What an utterly sickening misappropriation of brilliant music. Hasn't music suffered enough with Volkswagen's assault on the Beach Boys' canon of late?
And wasn't one breathlessly acoustic destruction of an alt-rock classic bad enough recently, with John Lewis (you know, the adverts we're legally obliged to cry at) trampling all over Morrissey's daffodils with its utterly underwhelming Christmas advert?
Apparently not, because now we've got Thomson assramming the Pixies' Where Is My Mind? with the intent of selling a cheap fortnight to Marbella. Assramming it while looking at itself in the mirror and winking. Depressing.
This should be a useful reminder of what advertising is: something that uses whatever it can to make you part with your cash. That's all. That's literally all it is. Sometimes an advert is funny and sometimes touching. But the final analysis is that they want your money. And if they can annoy you, coerce you, guilt trip you, play on your fundamental alienation from your fellow human or use the things that you love against you, they will.
Twas ever thus of course. Think of all the beautiful classical music you now associate with furniture outlets. Or the brilliant Peter, Bjorn and John song, Young Folks, destroyed forever by its constant rotation on telly and radio. Advertising destroyed it for you, because it wanted your money. Like it's destroying the Beach Boys' back catalogue. Like it's destroying The Pixies.
Bastards.
Crimes against music: Volkswagen Think Blue advert
Not content with associating God Only Knows with a crap van, we now get this bastardised version of Wouldn't It Be Nice promoting VW's Think Blue programme. It begs one question, and one only:
What did the Beach Boys ever do to Volkswagen?