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This has been on regularly on CNN for over a month now, but at some point it occurred to me that the song they use here is better than the average car commercial song. In fact, if you’re not VW around the turn of the century, your music is probably awful. So I looked it up, and it seems like Volvo is capitalizing on their country’s greatest export: their music. The song is called “I Adore You,” and it’s by Melpo Mene, which is basically Erik Mattiason and a band (similar to El Perro Del Mar, except Sarah Assbring has a name that understandably might not fly in English-speaking countries).
Of course, Brooklyn Vegan was all over Melpo Mene back in February, which is why Brooklyn Vegan is Brooklyn Vegan, and I’m just the Theorizer. But it’s worth noting that Erik’s hope that commercial exposure would pay off seems to be working out, and his MySpace page has nearly 100K hits as of today.
As far as the actual music goes, Brooklyn Vegan compared him to “early Iron and Wine,” and I can see where they’re coming from. I’m just afraid that I sense a tiny bit of James Blunt in there–a too-grown-up, too-M.O.R. sterility that keeps me from getting too excited about anything. In fact, I’ve felt this way for a couple years about his labelmate, Jose Gonzalez, who’s good enough, but I never understood what all the fuss was about. Still, I like Melpo Mene, and as I said earlier, it’s a whole lot better than just about anything else on TV commercials these days.
Finally, I have to wonder what Volvo’s thinking here is. Are they trying to emphasize their Swedishness? Or is my particular demographic getting large enough that ad execs are targeting us with Swedish indie-pop? In any case, Volvo’s won a few brand point from me (at least they’ve taken some from Saab).
You can get some mp3’s from the Brooklyn Vegan link above. I’m off to Texas for the weekend, more soon.
Filed under: Swedish music, Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: commercials, music, Swedish music
Good blogs find a specialty and stick with it, right? Just like lawyers, consultants, musicians, authors… you know, separation of labor. Or target marketing. Well, this won’t be good. But if you want to read about any of the following topics:
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and don’t mind often-farfetched theories, then stop by and drop a message here and there.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment
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