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Current TV ads and old music.


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Every other ad now aimed at young people playing a jolly tune from yesteryear... expecially the 70's.  So yeah I rest my case, the 70's really was the best decade for diverse music, whether happy, groovy, difficult, miserable, edgy, funny...you name it and every single one melodic and written for the job it was set out to do, and yep Agadoo is a superbly written party tune, in fact so many tunes from then sound like party tunes..... Question is why arent the TV big wigs using stuff from todays current crop of "artists"? 

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There seems to be a lot of 'vintage' references throughout advertising at the moment - fashions, cars, skateboards. Are people finding it hard to look ahead with positivity, so advertising cleverly let's them look back to perceived better times?

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Hasn't this always been the way? A lot of my first exposure to what turned out to be classic rock was via TV ads in the late-80s through the 90s.

 

Between licensing issues, nostalgia, familiarity, the possibly limited tastes of the creators and deliberately targeting those with greater spending power I suspect it will ever be the way too.

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The other big thing in ads for a few years now, and has created a few huge hits along the way, is the 'acoustifying' of old songs. Latest dirge is the Pandora advert.

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Posted (edited)

There was a thing about this in the Washington Post recently (think the actual article is paywalled but the graphic has been widely shared). 
 

Basically, everyone thinks the best music was whatever was made when they were teenagers:
 

IMG_5831.thumb.jpeg.4c040854c016bc52a5bbf91be540df93.jpeg

Edited by nekomatic
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9 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Is this a serious question or a long-winded way of telling us you think modern pop music isn't very good?

Its a deadly serious Q. TV people arent stupid, far from it, and Im totaly familiar with what passes for music today....Cant go in a  shop or store so yes I know.

So where are ur Adels, Sheerans, girl bands, boy bands, guitar bands etc....Im hearing none of them apart from the odd bit of watered down ....Rap? in current TV advertising. Guess its a simple answer . Old tunes tended in the main to tell very clear stories and were very well written....TV people know.  

 

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I'd say it's partly a licensing and/or financial issue. Any popular modern artist either thinks they don't need the additional income or exposure from having their music used in adverts or the advertisers simply aren't offering enough to make it worthwhile. With older artists who are no longer as popular as they once were, almost anything that will boost their music's profile is more likely to be worth doing plus they are probably a lot more affordable.

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2 hours ago, nekomatic said:

There was a thing about this in the Washington Post recently (think the actual article is paywalled but the graphic has been widely shared). 
 

Basically, everyone thinks the best music was whatever was made when they were teenagers:
 

IMG_5831.thumb.jpeg.4c040854c016bc52a5bbf91be540df93.jpeg

I think Rose coloured specs comes into play on a lot of these statements, but yes teenage years are the most formative music wise, I think it's great they use old songs in TV ads, it means everybody knows songs we do in our set like Blitzkrieg Bop and Should I Stay or Should I Go etc

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As well as generational prejudice, let's not forget that time is a great filter.

 

When I was growing up (80s/90s) it was almost accepted as fact that 70s music was crap: pundits, talking heads, chat show hosts and guests all happily echoed the line that 1970s music was all some tacky and regretable post-60s aberration. Similarly, 1980s music -long the soundbite-seekers' bête noire- is now routinely used in ads and shows and also in cheeky references in new music.

 

The quality of music being made over time is presumably fairly consistent, unless there are weird, internationally-consistent variations in levels of talent, with only the good stuff (and the atrociously terrible stuff) being remembered.

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1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

I'd say it's partly a licensing and/or financial issue. Any popular modern artist either thinks they don't need the additional income or exposure from having their music used in adverts or the advertisers simply aren't offering enough to make it worthwhile. With older artists who are no longer as popular as they once were, almost anything that will boost their music's profile is more likely to be worth doing plus they are probably a lot more affordable.

A bit of this, but also, a lot of older artists have absolutely no say on how their work gets used, whereas more recent signings may well have held on to more control.

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Advertisers understand who their demographic is. A retro tune from the 70a and 80s is going to be more relatable to those over 50 who remain a huge consumer force in the economy. If you’re targeting Gen X or late stage Millenials you’re not advertising on TV. 
 

The fact that I know this and work in this industry is soul crushingly depressing and is the reason I’m looking to exit my business and do something with value.

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1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

Advertisers understand who their demographic is. A retro tune from the 70a and 80s is going to be more relatable to those over 50 who remain a huge consumer force in the economy. If you’re targeting Gen X or late stage Millenials you’re not advertising on TV. 
 

The fact that I know this and work in this industry is soul crushingly depressing and is the reason I’m looking to exit my business and do something with value.

The ads Ive seen on TV are full of under 50's, way under. .  I still hold my case. Old tunes are simply more tuneful, more interstng and just plain better than anything today.

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1 hour ago, diskwave said:

The ads Ive seen on TV are full of under 50's, way under. .  I still hold my case. Old tunes are simply more tuneful, more interstng and just plain better than anything today.

 

If you genuinely believe that then I'd suggest that you aren't listening widely enough now and were not doing so back then. Or, as noted above, the rose-tint of retrospect has filtered out a lot of the dross that the charts/radio/TV have ever been full of.

 

Just in case you're open to having your mind changed, here's some recentish tuneful stuff that tells stories and has interesting compositional quirks:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1qlK5dF5s4 - The Weather Station

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqXSfHO-7f0 - Jesca Hoop

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7MIqZ6Bvo - BC Camplight

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHfnY_ZE_4 - Carwyn Ellis/Rio 18

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFu5wYMflSI - Mick Head

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1 hour ago, diskwave said:

The ads Ive seen on TV are full of under 50's, way under. .  I still hold my case. Old tunes are simply more tuneful, more interstng and just plain better than anything today.


Adverts for older people use younger people because they don’t like to consider themselves as old. 
 

Adverts for cremation, for example, show happy and smiley people doing DIY for that very reason.

 

Old tunes are more tuneful to you simply because your heard them more times. 

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4 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

Old tunes are more tuneful to you simply because your heard them more times. 

Im over 50 but up until about ten yrs ago Id never really listened to Classical music. Now I get it, now I get why old crappy classical music is still huge. Music which is written with tunefulness in mind is always great.  Dare I shop in the Co-Op where Im subjected to what can only be described as very very poorly written rap style nursery rhymes which 50 yrs ago wouldnt even pass muster at your local Kindergarden. Thats what Im getting at.

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