Commercial Watch: Noah & The Whale, Silversun Pickups, I'm From Barcelona

This summer, I’m working at the front desk of the Courtyard by Marriott hotel and there’s a TV in the lobby that’s always on.  This being the case, I see a lot of commercials and recently, I’ve recognized quite a few bands I’ve talked about on here.  Does this mean that the music supervisors for these commercials read my blog religously?  I can only assume so.  Here’s a few of the artists/songs I’ve noticed recently with MP3s and link to video when available.

Saturn Outlook: Noah and the Whale – 5 Years Time

This is the commercial where the car drives by and coloful paper cut-out things appear everywhere and the car turns into a sailboat.  Cute video and obviously the song choice is top-notch.  Can’t wait to see Noah and the Whale at Lollapalooza (playing the same stage/day as Radiohead no less).

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JC Penny: I’m From Barcelona – We’re From Barcelona

This is the second commercial I’ve seen using I’m From Barcelona recently (Jeep had a commercial using “This Boy”).  This commercial ran up to and during Fathers Day this year and featured some kind of Father’s Day Parade. Glad this band is getting more exposure, Let Me Introduce You To My Friends is a fantastic summer album.

Chevy Malibu: Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye

Just saw this commercial today and recognized the riff immediately (Lazy Eye was one of my favorite tracks of ’06). I don’t remember any specifics about the commercial (pretty standard car-driving-through-tunnel it seemed) but the song sounded like some kind of remix or edit. 

Rhapsody Digital Music: Throw Me A Statue – Lolita

This ad is on all the time, and actually features the song and the Throw Me a Statue album cover (the non-naked lady version) both of which appears on different mediums (computer, tv, mp3 player, ex-girlfriends house).  It’s a very good commercial overall, and I’m betting the band is really happy with all the exposure they’re getting from it.

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Atlantis Cruises: Moldy Peaches – Anyone Else But You

This commercial is obviously a response to the Juno craze, and the commercial (for a cruise in the Bahamas) actually features a re-written version of the song with lyrics like “Let’s go ride a couple of dolphins/Or maybe play tennis/Or do some golfing”.  I’m normally a fan of using songs in commercials (as you can see from this point), but this song just seems to trendy at the moment.  Also not a huge fan of changing your lyrics for a commercial.  Oh well, maybe a few more people will buy a Moldy Peaches album now.

Wishbone Salad Dressing: Spank Rock – Bump

Hearing Spank Rock in a salad dressing commercial is totally surreal, considering both how obscure the artist is and how raunchy his lyrics are (the commercial uses the cleanest part of the song).  I got to hand it to them though, it makes for a pretty fun commercial.

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Any other commercials out there that I’m missing?

New Singles: Islands, Devotchka, Noah and the Whale

I don’t know about you and your geographic location, but the weather in central Illinois really sucks. It’s either rained, snowed, slushed, sleeted, or some combination of that every day for the last week. I’m making it through somehow, and these new singles (all of which feature strings prominently) from some of my favorite bands are definitely helping me through.

First off, I present you with the new track from Canadian indie poppers, Islands. There new album has the pun-erific title, Arm’s Way, and the first single is appropriately “The Arm”. The song is quite a bit different from the sunshiney singles from Return to Sea, but not in a bad way at all. It sounds kindof mid-eastern at times, jangly at others, and surpisingly enough, it reminds me a bit of Andrew Bird. Whatever it is it’s making me excited to hear the new album

MP3 Islands – The Arm

I was really excited when I got Devotcka‘s new single “Transliterator” through the Gum Drop last week and I’ve listened to it more than a few times since then. The band gained a lot of fans (including myself) from the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack and from this track it looks like A Mad and Faithful Telling is more of the waltzy, Balkan influenced, string-filled type music that the soundtrack delivered. This new single seems to also throw a French pop influence into the mix. It’s a beautiful track and Nick Urata’s vibrato is, thankfully, in full swing.

MP3 Devotchka – Transliterator

I’m not sure how new this song is, but I know it the non-demo version was just released recently on the 2 Bodies 1 Heart single, and wow, Noah and the Whale continues to blow me away. These Brits write some of the cheeriest, most jubilant folk music out there and this song shows that they are masters of the acoustic guitar, bells, fiddle combo. This song kind of has a irish jig feel to it. Download and get happy!

MP3 Noah and the Whale – Rocks & Daggers

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Holy crap, this Super Smash Brothers Brawl video is awesome. This game is going to be legendary. On a similar note, I just beat Super Mario Galaxy today. 120 Stars! Now just have to do it with Luigi…

Best Music Videos of 2007

Here listed before you are hands-down the 22 best music videos of the year 2007. I’m not saying I watched every music video in 2007, but I’m just going to assume that all the other ones completely suck (for purposes of this list). I’m estimating it would take about an hour and a half to watch all these videos, but seriously, do you have anything better to do today? To make it easier though, I’ve embedded them all below. Also, except for the five at the end (which are the best) the order is completely random.

As you can tell by the list I like videos that use stop-motion, videos all done in one take, bright colors, interesting effects, Wes Anderson nods, changing t-shirts, ridiculously high drum cymbals, etc. As always, If you have any favorites videos from the year that you think I missed, make sure to leave it in the comments. I provided MP3s for some of the songs that you might not already have. The first three are embedded below but you will have to click through to see the whole list.

The Shins – Australia

Noah and the Whale – Five Years Time MP3

Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position

Click the link below to see the whole list including my top five!

Noah and the Whale

For years, on my way to school, the lady I carpooled with would blast out contemporary Christian radio, no matter how much I tried to convince her to change it to an oldies station. Inbetween playing songs by rejected country singers with names like Steven Curtis Chapman and Rebecca St. James, there was call-in Bible Trivia. One of the questions meant to “stump” incoming callers was “How many animals were there on Jonah’s ark?”. Even though anyone who went to one Sunday School class should know it’s Jonah and the Whale and Noah and the Ark and not the other way around, most of the time the answer was quick “two”.

I’m not sure if this is where British folk-pop band, Noah and the Whale, got their name or if they’re just big fans of Noah Bambach’s The Squid and the Whale, but either way I think they’re great and with tourmates like Broken Social Scene I’m positive you’ll be hearing more of them. The band is full of breezy, lighthearted folk dittys that are absolutely perfect for what many like to call “sweater weather”. Ukelele strumming, layered vocals, and some of the best whistling since Peter, Bjorn, and John, can be found on the band’s first single, “Five Years Time”. Unless you’re turned off by lyrics like “wherever you go there’ll be love, love love” and Wes Anderson-inspired music videos than I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be playing this one over and over. “Death By Numbers” in another laid back acoustic song by the manages to be both melancholic and cheery in a short span. The gorgeous and simple melody will keep you hooked.

MP3 Five Years Time
MP3 Death By Numbers

Noah and the Whale’s Myspace
Visit Good Weather for Airstrikes for another review and a couple demos.