THE BLANK GENERATION

Tonight is the No. 5 Illini's nationally-televised matchup with No. 1 Wake Forest. It's officially "paint the Hall orange night," which is Coach Bruce Weber's excuse to don a bright orange blazer and the crowd's excuse to get pumped for the opportunity to knock off the nation's highest-ranked team. I would hope that no additional motivation is needed for either the crowd or the team, but being superstitious as I am I will be preparing for the game today by eating oranges and drinking only orange-colored drinks (Hi-C, oragne cola, etc.). This is one game that I will not be missing. (I'm sure M will be quick to point out that I don't miss any Illini basketball games.) This will be the first time since 1979 that a No. 1-ranked team has battled the Univeristy of Illinois on its home turf. (I know, hard to believe.) And on that occasion, a fourth-ranked Illinois club knocked off a Magic Johnson-led Michigan State on a last-second jumper by forward Eddie Johnson. Hopefully, tonight's game will be just as exciting.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I watched a good deal of college basketball with the men in my family (and M, too). We got a preview of Wake Forest as they narrowly defeated a good Arizona team. And it was during one of the commercial breaks for that game that I was smacked upside the head by a catchy rock tune that I never expected to hear on national TV, let alone in a Chevy Trailblazer advertisement. "Hmmm...what is this tune?" I thought. "I know this song...confidant female vocals...tough riff...it's not The Runaways, is it? Nope..."

Then, it hit me. I was listening to the verse of "Bad Word for a Good Thing" by The Friggs. "The who?" you ask. The Friggs were a little-known all-girl band from Philly that took after The Runaways, Pat Benatar, and the like. They were around in the mid-to-late '90s, and as far as I know they never made any kind splash on the national scene. (Although, I did hear Little Steven spinning said song on his radio show once.) So, there I was, sitting on my mom's couch, dumbstruck by the fact that I was: 1) watching a Trailblazer ad that was blatantly targeting women (mom's specifically); and 2) listening to a song that I used to spin by the most obscure of all-girl bands, The Friggs; and 3) waiting for the chorus of the song to come into play. It's the chorus of the song, after all, that's the catchiest part: "I need a Bad (bad), Word (word), for a Good (good), THINGGGGGGG". The singer gnarls on those words as a sultry background singer whispers the words in paranthesis. Pretty provocative for a Chevy ad, eh? Except, the ad doesn't use the chorus—opting instead to play it safe with the ambiguous verse.

I'd love to meet the person who, when it came time to select a music bed for this commercial—which revolves around a "mom on the go" who loads her kids into the Trailblazer, where they can conveniently continue watching their Powerpuff Girls DVD—thought out-loud in one of those brainstorming meetings, "Hey! What about the fucking Friggs? They'd be perrrrfect!"

On a related note, the brilliant Stephin Merritt, he of the Magnetic Fields, they of the most disappointing album of the year, has also sold his soul this season to the world of car advertisements. See this bizarre affair for the proof.

That said, I have nothing against starving musicians making an extra buck on the side...of the street! (Just kidding.) This whole hearing my favorite artist's music in a commercial thing is going to take some getting used to, me thinks. What next?

MC5 selling peanut butter?

The Dead Boys selling diapers?

The Louvin Brothers selling laundry detergent?

("Cleanse your soul, dear brothers and sisters, with Tide's new Tropical Clean liquid detergent with fabric softener. It's tough on Satan's evil stains, but goes easy on all of the colors in God's wonderful rainbow.)

Hey, I might be on to something here...

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 1 at 10:30 AM.

6 Comments:

Hey-

Came across your blog today. Great stuff. Jealous that you'll be at the Illinois-Wake game tonight. Should be incredible.

Noticed you were a college basketball fan. Hoping you could (create a blogroll and) add a blogroll link to my College Basketball Blog, http://collegeball.blogspot.com. I'd very much appreciate a link on your site.

And would gladly return the favor, adding a link from my site to yours.

Thanks!

Yoni Cohen, http://collegeball.blogspot.com
College Basketball Blog

By  yoni cohen :: http://yocohoops.com, at 12:57 PM  

On the topic of indie bands on car commercials, a couple of days ago I heard Air's Surfing on a Rocket being played on an advertisment for a SUV of some sort.

Cassie

By  Anonymous, at 6:17 PM  

It would be cool to see a database of indie/underground/cult artists and the commercials their songs appeared on. It seems like Nick Drake and that VW commercial started a trend.

By  thenoiseboy, at 8:05 PM  

there was that Modest Mouse/minivan comercial a year or so ago as well...

-mary

By  Anonymous, at 10:05 PM  

I guess it's a little late for my "hey, guess what I heard" comment, but I haven't been here for awhile. Anyway, I went to see a movie one day about oh.. 9 months ago and one of the previews was for that horrible looking Richard Gere/J. Lo movie (Shall We Dance?). At the end of the preview I thought I heard the words faintly "I want to give you wedding rings", but I thought maybe I was mistaken. A few months later I was forced to watch the preview again so I paid attention and sure enough I was correct the first time. It was really soft though and I don't think it was the Magnetic Fields' version of the song which I found strange that someone else would be singing it. Oh well.

By  Anonymous, at 7:26 PM  

Now I'm going to have to rent that (probably horrible) movie just to watch the trailer.

By  thenoiseboy, at 9:24 PM  

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