Egads; a Buzzcocks song in an AARP commercial!

[oustemnow]

So I'm watching the news, minding my own business, when I hear the strains of "Everybody's Happy Nowadays." I look up, and there's the image of a geezer blowing out the candles on what must have been his 75th birthday cake, followed shorthly thereafter by the AARP logo.

Now, I have nothing against geezers, mind you, but hell--am I that fucking old? When I discovered the Buzzcocks, I was several years younger than the band members, and as far as I know none of them are anywhere NEAR retirement age. Is this the new (replacement) hipness?

[solinvictus]

1. Yep...

..similar to Iggy Pop used for commercials or The Cure licensing a song to promote a karaoke game for PS2. I think it's a product of the lagging remnants of hipsterism among the retiring Baby Boomers. If I see another advert for a financial services company showing a middle aged couple buying a Napa Valley vinyard, I'm going to hurl.

[oustemnow]

3. Yeah, I'm a bit torn on those examples

On one hand, the Cure has been a huge commercial success, so they don't need the cash. On the other hand, Iggy (by the way, the new Stooges album comes out in March) could use the money. BUT, while the Nike ad was actually pretty cool, selling "Lust for Life" to Carnival Cruise Lines was just BS.

And, totally, the vineyard theme is played out. Are we due for a glut of geriatric vintners in the near future?

[Bryan]

6. In his "Behind the Music", Iggy Pop justified this by saying

... that his songs were never conceived with any commercial goal in mind, so if some advertiser happens to want to use his song, he views it as a lucrative anomaly.

This strikes me as utterly sensible; if an ad exec thinks a song about a William Burroughs character getting drugged up and doing a striptease is a dandy fit for commercials for a cruise line, is there really any point in trying to dissuade them?

[mcctatas]

2. I was in high school in the early 90's and I started listening to them

I was playing the Love Bites CD loud in my room one day, and my step dad knocks on my door, I'm assuming to tell me to turn it down, but he says "I love these guys, I saw them live in London, can I tape this"... considering he's 57, I can see the AARP thing...

[oustemnow]

4. Bwahaha!

Well, they were a band that had classic pop smarts in spades. That cracks me up, especially given that my own dad often surprises me about his musical tastes, especially given the fact that he's pretty conservative and well within the AARp's target demographic. ("Yeah, Dad, I think the new Beck album is the bomb, but I do agree that he's retreading previous material. And, yes, I too find his devotion to Scientology very puzzling.")

[crispini]

5. My dad listens to rap.

White old guy AND an AARP member. :wtf: