Real Kato Blog: New-ish Music

I'm really woefully out of the music scene these days. Thank God for Target commercials.

There was a good period in my life where my friend Jen would send me mix tapes every now and then; that's how I got hooked on artists like Liz Phair and Sarah McLachlan, even before either of them became superstars.

Much more recently, Erika started introducing me to low-fi and trip-hop, so now I have a substantial collection of Portishead, Beth Orton, and Supreme Beings of Leisure.

Nowadays? I get all my new music from TV commercials.

Recent iTunes downloads include:

- "How Can It Be" by Forever Thursday, made popular on a J.C. Penney commercial
- "Stuttering" by Ben's Brother, from the Dentyne Ice commercial

Songs that aren't available for download:

- "How Can I Tell You", a cover of a Cat Stevens song by Chan Marshall of Cat Power, from a DeBeers commercial
- "Hello Goodbye", a cover of a Beatles song by Sophia Shorai, from a Target commercial

Any other good ~~commercials~~ new music out there?

Permalink 4 Comment

Posted by Ken in: music

Comments

Comment #1 from MonoCerdo (Guest)
2007 Nov 1 - 10:19 am : #

Ha ha! It's true! Commercials sell me their songs more than their products. I remember hearing Feist's "1234" on an iPod commercial, which prompted me to buy her new album. Also, Verizon commercials cost me a couple of bucks in Goldfrapp downloads. Shameful. I'm glad to know I'm not alone.

Comment #2 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2007 Nov 1 - 12:25 pm : #

1) HSBC - may be the first Feist commercial - "Gatekeeer" mix.

2) HSBC - "Bless You" - the Ink Spots (oldie, but great song and commercial)

3) Jaguar - "I Turn My Camera On" - Spoon

4) Cingular - "City of Love" - Persephone's Bees (I "discovered" them in 1999 at Cafe du Nord in SF)

5) Korbel - "The Mating Game" - Bitter:Sweet (prob. know of them from other stuff; they've been all over the place)

Comment #3 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2007 Nov 1 - 12:31 pm : #

One more I just downloaded recently:

Doubletree Suites - "Relax Max" - Dinah Washington

Comment #4 from Phil (Guest)
2007 Nov 1 - 12:59 pm : #

I hadn't thought about hearing new music through commercials until today, when I read this blog and (coincidentally) an N&O article about a Merge Records founder testimony on Capitol Hill:

"Titled "The Future of Radio," the hearing's agenda was to "assess the state of innovation and competition in the radio market." In his testimony, McCaughan pleaded for the government not to allow the Federal Communications Commission to loosen regulations and allow further media consolidation (a move the FCC is considering). He also put in a plug for alternative media, where Merge acts get most of their exposure:

"Nowadays, you are much more likely to hear new independent music in a TV show, in a car commercial, in a video game, on satellite radio or community radio stations than on commercial radio.""

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