One of the fundamental rules of The Internet goes something like this; if Bill Hicks said it, it is therefore gospel, and Unquestionably The Right Thing To Think. One of the things people like to link this to most often is his "you do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll-call forever" statement from Rant in E-Minor. Now, despite the fact that he only brandished his statement at celebrities who already have too much money, people like to throw this in the face of anyone involved in an advert, ever.
BrokenFM would like to stop slurping from a bottle of Orange Drink™ for a moment, and introduce it's own stance on the matter; IT'S OKAY TO 'DO' AN ADVERT, AS LONG AS IT ISN'T A REALLY, REALLY SHIT ADVERT. So, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie escape punishment for their old Alliance and Leicester adverts, as they were quite good. Armando Iannucci gets a suspended sentence for directing at least some of the Mark Benton Nationwide adverts. Mitchell and Webb serve a couple of months remand for "I'm a Mac" "I'm a PC", but are subsequently allowed a return to society.
But, and it pains us to say so, The Pixies might not be so lucky. When watching a VHS recording of the enjoyable John Simms drama Never Never from space year 2000, we stumbled over a prime example of a Smug Advertising Spunkwipe, advertising Smirnoff. The soundtrack? Tame, by the Pixies. Proof? Here:
Well, clearly it doesn't diminish the quality of their recordings, and this is hardly a revelation as we remember the advert going out at the time, but it still hurts. Especially as time had made us forget exactly how annoying that advert is. You can just picture an Advertising Suit sitting just off camera, ticking off all of the key demographics the advert is hoping to appeal to, probably whilst being lightly fellated.
The only thing that is getting us through the whole experience are the probabilities that:
(a) The Pixies themselves had no idea their music was being used in this way,
and
(b) The Stupid Smug Megatwat who 'stars' in the advert ended up auditioning for the role of monkey-faced-Lee-Evans-type-bloke in Torchwood, and failed miserably.
We can but hope.
BrokenFM would like to stop slurping from a bottle of Orange Drink™ for a moment, and introduce it's own stance on the matter; IT'S OKAY TO 'DO' AN ADVERT, AS LONG AS IT ISN'T A REALLY, REALLY SHIT ADVERT. So, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie escape punishment for their old Alliance and Leicester adverts, as they were quite good. Armando Iannucci gets a suspended sentence for directing at least some of the Mark Benton Nationwide adverts. Mitchell and Webb serve a couple of months remand for "I'm a Mac" "I'm a PC", but are subsequently allowed a return to society.
But, and it pains us to say so, The Pixies might not be so lucky. When watching a VHS recording of the enjoyable John Simms drama Never Never from space year 2000, we stumbled over a prime example of a Smug Advertising Spunkwipe, advertising Smirnoff. The soundtrack? Tame, by the Pixies. Proof? Here:
Well, clearly it doesn't diminish the quality of their recordings, and this is hardly a revelation as we remember the advert going out at the time, but it still hurts. Especially as time had made us forget exactly how annoying that advert is. You can just picture an Advertising Suit sitting just off camera, ticking off all of the key demographics the advert is hoping to appeal to, probably whilst being lightly fellated.
The only thing that is getting us through the whole experience are the probabilities that:
(a) The Pixies themselves had no idea their music was being used in this way,
and
(b) The Stupid Smug Megatwat who 'stars' in the advert ended up auditioning for the role of monkey-faced-Lee-Evans-type-bloke in Torchwood, and failed miserably.
We can but hope.
