{"id":281,"date":"2011-02-07T16:14:31","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T00:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=281"},"modified":"2015-01-12T09:31:55","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T17:31:55","slug":"psst-super-bowl-advertisers-nice-use-of-classical-music-but-mix-it-up-some-with-these-alternate-masterpieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2011\/02\/psst-super-bowl-advertisers-nice-use-of-classical-music-but-mix-it-up-some-with-these-alternate-masterpieces\/","title":{"rendered":"Psst, Super Bowl advertisers: Nice use of classical music, but mix it up some with these alternate masterpieces"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Giuseppe Verdi no doubt always dreamed of his music being set to images of stupid men being outwitted by cute animals for the purpose of selling snack chips.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I only watched half the Super Bowl (unfortunately a half that included Black Eyed Peas), and I really only half-watched that portion. But my attention snapped back to the screen whenever I heard a piece of music I recognized, such as\u00a0the use of “Lose Yourself” in Chrysler’s spiffy “Detroit will kick your Euro-luxury-car ass!” commercial<\/a> that everyone is talking about today.<\/p>\n

But you know what I noticed even more? The use of famous classical compositions to sell the Super Bowl audience beverages, snack food and automobiles.<\/p>\n

This is not a new trend, of course, as this blog post<\/a> from New York classical station WXQR makes clear. Nor did advertisers plumb very deep into the classical cannon; these are all fairly famous pieces, recognizable even to casual fans. Here are four compositions I noticed, along with some humble suggestions for advertisers to use in the future rather than recycling these masterpieces again and again.<\/p>\n

What’s being shilled:<\/strong> Doritos
\nClassical masterpiece:<\/strong> “Dies Irae” from Verdi<\/a>‘s Requiem
\n<\/em>Short summary:\u00a0Dude taunts his girlfriend’s pug, gets a face-full of door in return.<\/span>
\nReal story behind the music:<\/strong> The Italian opera composer wrote this setting of the Latin mass for the dead in memory of poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni.
\nAlternate musical cue:<\/strong> Almost any other “Dies Irae.” Few are as full of fury and bombast as Verdi’s, I know, but how about some love for\u00a0Dvor\u00e1k<\/a> once in a while?<\/p>\n

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What’s being shilled:<\/strong> Coca-Cola
\nClassical masterpiece:<\/strong> “1812 Overture” by Tchaikovsky<\/a>
\nShort summary:<\/strong> “Lord of the Rings”-esque siege is cut short after a dragon ingests some cola and starts belching fireworks.
\nReal story behind the music: Written to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon’s army by Russian forces at the Battle of Borodino<\/a> in 1812.<\/span>
\nAlternate musical cue:<\/strong> OK, we get it. Everyone associates this piece with fireworks, which is Tchaikovsky’s fault for incorporating explosions into the score. Handel<\/a>‘s “Music for the Royal Fireworks,” however, was actually written for a fireworks display.<\/p>\n

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What’s being shilled:<\/strong> Coca-Cola
\nClassical masterpiece:<\/strong> Second movement to Beethoven<\/a>‘s “Symphony No. 7”
\nShort summary:<\/strong> Two super-serious border guards at some remote desert checkpoint declare a temporary truce to share some sody-pop.
\nReal story behind the music:<\/strong> An immediate success, the stately, minor-key melody remains the third most famous theme from the composer’s nine symphonies and is sometimes performed as a funeral march.
\nAlternate musical cue:<\/strong> This one isn’t terribly over-used in advertising (yet), but for argument’s sake, let’s go with Mahler<\/a>‘s similar funeral march from the third movement of “Symphony No. 1,” a.k.a. minor-key “Fr\u00e8re Jacques.”<\/p>\n

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What’s being shilled:<\/strong> “The X Factor,” the American version of a British talent show, which will be pretty much indistinguishable from “American Idol.”
\nClassical masterpiece:<\/strong> “O Fortuna” from Orff’<\/a>s Carmina Burana.<\/em>
\nShort summary:<\/strong> Metal shards fly together to form Simon Cowell.
\nReal story behind the music:<\/strong> The cantata is a musical setting for 24 poems from a medieval manuscript<\/a> discovered in a German monastery, full of odes to drinking, sex, fortune and other secular concerns.
\nAlternate musical cue:<\/strong> “O Fortuna” is so common in movie trailers that there are literally dozens of Internet discussion forums with people seeking”something that sounds like Carmina Burana<\/em>” to use in some film project. My favorite answer: “The Battle on the Ice” from Prokofiev<\/a>‘s score for the 1938 film\u00a0Alexander Nevsky<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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