"Most people work just hard enough not to get fired
and get paid just enough money not to quit."
-George Carlin
It's Friday. More than likely, you're between paychecks right now, having been paid on the 15th.
More than likely, you've got your mind on your money and your money on your mind.
Here's a wonderful Money-themed Friday tune from the absolutely rocking Fitz & The Tantrums
After their first show at Hollywood’s Hotel Café in December 2008, this band has gone from strength to strength at warp speed. All because of a retro organ, sharp suits, killer vocals and no guitars!
Off their brand new album Picking Up The Pieces, here's a wonderful get-up-and-dance Friday song
"Over the last 10 years, the percentage of Americans who took at least one prescription drug in the past month increased from 44 percent to 48 percent, says a federal government study released Thursday.
Use of two or more drugs increased from 25 percent to 31 percent, and the use of five or more drugs increased from 6 percent to 11 percent, according to the analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
The study also found that 20 percent of children and 90 percent of adults aged 60 and older reported using at least one prescription drug in the past month, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.
Spending on prescription drugs in the United States totaled more than $234.1 billion in 2008, more than double the amount spent in 1999, they found."
A couple of months into this Cool Song Of The Day blog and things are really rolling. I'm showing commitment, drive and ambition. I haven't flaked a day yet, and my song choices are going from strength to strength, if I do say so myself.
California week was especially tasty.
It's been great for me, too. I'm 42 years old this year, and most people my age couldn't name a contemporary recording artist to save their life. However, in doing the necessary research for this blog, I'm constantly being introduced to new bands. Which is wonderful, because there is some amazing new music coming out these days.
So, I've got this one song lined up in the rotation, from a great band, brand new out of Brooklyn, NY, real scene stealers. I like blogging new bands, and I'm especially excited about this one that was coming up. I thought I would get a jump on people, be the first to introduce this music to my friends and followers. Re-enforce my street cred.
Then I heard it. The song, on the television. In a commercial. For a Honda. A Honda, for God's sake. A Honda CR-Z Sport Hybrid, to be exact, a frickin' hybrid.
The Sleigh Bells "Riot Rhythm" being used to sell Hondas.
Which makes sense. Only....................it doesn't.
Ever since Dinah Shore suggested you could See The USA In Your Chevrolet, popular music has been a common feature in commercials. However, I wonder if commercial music has ever been as hip and trendy as it is these days. Which is the part that does make sense.
It makes sense to use cutting edge bands to sell hybrid cars, because old people don't buy hybrids. In general. In general (remember, this is a generalization now) old people are more than happy to drive around in their Cadillac El Dorado's or Mercury Marquis' drinking up as much of the planets resources as they can for their brief time left on this mortal coil. It's the young'ins what buy up all them new-fangled HIGH-brids.
Hence the necessary hipster soundtrack. But, that's also the part that doesn't make sense.
I mean, the Sleigh Bells have hardly been around more than a week. So for a multi-billion dollar multi-national conglomerate like Honda to carve out some some quality commercial real estate for a couple of newbie hipsters like the Sleigh Bells, they are taking a large risk on an unproven commodity. Or, maybe they got them for pennies precisely because they are week-old newbie hipsters, and the minuscule licensing costs aren't much of a gamble for a company as big as Honda.
Either way, it's a drag that Honda got to them first. Before I did. Jerks.
But, then again, even if you have seen the commercial, you've only got a small taste of the glorious noise that is the Sleigh Bells so, gentle readers, here they are in full force, full length and sans the sales pitch.
Completing the line up for our commercial themed TWOfer Tuesday is a song featured in a recent advert for Alberto Vo5 hair products in the UK and also in a Bud Light Lime commercial.
It's a truly unique track and coming close to becoming a personal anthem for me. Because me I'm a creator, thrill is to make it up, the rules I break got me a place up on the radar.
I'd like to start the week with a song that evokes the sound of those great Phil Spector Girl Groups, but with a post-modern, almost punk take on sexuality.
Maybe something that starts with a direct rip-off of My Boyfriends Back by The Angels but descends into pure erotic fetisization, like singing about a prostitute openly flirting with her arresting officer.
But where, I ask you, where would I find such a song? What group, pray tell, could pull off such a wonderful concoction?
