poptimists | A Year In Pop: 37

In lower-down-the-charts news there is now a band (act? outfit? groupuscule?) called Out Of Office.

DOH I meant "Let's Dance" not "Say Say Say"

let's dance is aces (

skillectric mentioned it in his video round up the other week) and NO ONE had it on soleseak when i was looking for it the other week, grrrr.

I can "furnish" you with a copy, if I remember anyway.

i'm sure it's more readily available now, but i wanted it before it was released!!! ;)

what is the world coming to (to be fair i was looking on a saturday morning when there was hardly anyone on...)?

the Lisa Maffia joint is far superior commercial dance though! it has Lisa Maffia on it!

If the Lisa Maffia thing had been by Groove Armada (or even Basement Jaxx) there wd have been a lot more interest in this poll I think.

Haha indeed, it's basically like the GA/Stush effort except GOOD. Poptimists love their band loyalty.

yes i forgot this was pretty good so went back and changed my vote from DON'T LIKE ANY

Bring back Moggy!

what is Phil Collins doing here?

Gorilla-based chocolate advert.

I feel ridiculously out of touch with humanity when I read things like this. I've never even heard OF this advert. Who the hell watches adverts? Who the hell BUYS SONGS BASED ON ADVERTS FOR CHOCOLATE OMG JUST DIE BRITISH PUBLIC DIE DIE DIE

It's quite frightening but also pretty interesting: the power of suggestion coupled with the immediacy of technology. In the future the Christmas number one might not be the cunningly crafted ballad released as single but what ever plays over the credits of the big film that everyone in the country watches after Christmas dinner. Likewise whatever plays over the montage they use after the World Cup final. Record pluggers will start trying to nobble TV production assistants rather than Radio 1 DJs.

This was the prediction at the start of the year, but in practise the high end of the top 20 seems to be about as far as resonance and suggestion can take you, at least so far. Christmas will be an interesting test as you say but the general level of sales is so much higher then anyway.

I don't remember seeing this advert either - I'm intrigued that it's from an ad: the new rules actually ought to kill off the power of ads to inspire really high-placing songs (because the demand for those songs can't be concentrated into a sales peak).

The difference between this ad and many others is that it's a 90" advert, giving much longer exposure to the music. Plus the music is a key element of the ad's structure, and not just incidental. And it's been heavily written about in the tabloids too. They've also been placing it in high profile places - such as the Big Brother final, rugby world cup matches and so on - that give massive exposure and also reaching people when they are likely to be watching in bigger groups, giving it more talkability too.

Yeah, having actually seen it I can see why it might lead to people buying the track - I also note (and Cadburys must be really delighted by this) lots of remixes with other tracks using the gorilla.

The Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart one is the only one I've seen that actually works properly in terms of having the same build-up (although still not as good as the Phil Collins one)

I actually preferred the 50 Cent one - the Tyler one just looked like a less-good version, whereas the 50 Cent one, by missing the build-up, looked like a different and more focused gorilla.

Oh, I hadn't seen that one, yeah, it is quite different.

I guess I'm just surprised that people are so open to the power of suggestion - for whatever reason buying something you hear as the credits of a film roll makes a lot more sense to me than buying something you hear on a fucking CHOCOLATE ADVERT. I dunno, I have a real hatred of TV adverts - they were totally frowned upon in the house when I was growing up, the TV was always muted when they were on, and I still do that myself.

I don' think it's just the power of suggestion - the whole advert is based around the dramatic build-up of the song, and when you see it the first time, it's so unusual compared to most TV ads, you really pay attention, and I think it's reminded people how good the song is.

(I saw this first hand when I happened to be in a pub showing the rugby the other day; normally everyone just talks through the ad breaks but in this case the whole pub stopped and watched and started talking about it.)

This is also working for Feist's "One Two Three Four" apparently - buzz from iPod ads (although I've never seen one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy52yueBX_s - here it is!

I am always out of touch with adverts cos I mute them or change channel, but now I have the extra good excuse of being abroad, so I looked it up on YouTube and here we have the Phil Collins gorlla chocolate advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbLr2NEV_7o

I can't really see the point. What has it even got to do with chocolate? I'm sure Dairy Milk never had adverts before.

Oops, freeakytigger has already posted it - well, my comments still stand, what's the point? I'm not exactly rofling.

This is the point:

http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2537369.ece

I agree with what they're trying to do (although I work in advertising so perhaps see adverts differently to normal punters). But it certainly seems to be working in many respects - it's had huge numbers of youtube views, it's being talked about a lot on blogs and in the press, and now the single has charted (and looks like it'll climb the chart next year). Of course the big question is whether or not it will increase sales, and that won't really be known for a while.

Also less than a year after the salmonella scare there's really no better opportunity for Cadbury's to take the risk of ignoring the actual chocolate in the advertising.

Boooooo Cadbury's and their gorilla exploitation.

Also my impression of ads over the last ten years (though I mostly only remember what annoys me) is that everyone is going for "Please associate our product with Joy", which considering that so many people already make that association with Chocolate, I'm sort of surprised that it's taken so long.

Back in the day Dairy Milk used to do an advert featuring Bobby McFerrin's 'Thinkin' About Your Body'. The song ended up remixed and just missing the charts as 'Thinkin' About Your CHOCOLATE'.

Is it the alBUM version that everyone's downloaded or the original single mix that added extra drums in the first half of the song (thus destroying the dynamic of the track)? If the former, I will tick. If the latter, NO TICKY.

Hey Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to drive?
You know the song by Phil Collins, "In the Air of the Night"
about that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drowning
but didn't, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him?

Isn't this Phil Collins song really old? It's the first time I've heard it (the original, anyway). Not as good as the Lil' Kim interpolation but still good in a yuppie Patrick Bateman soulless cocaine decadence kind of way.

Lisa! Maffia! So good to see her back! The song's pretty good too, more for her voice than anything else.

How come no one told me about Taio Cruz? This is great boy-r&b, lovely clattery beat and everything, though why he is in the top 40 while Lloyd barely scraped the top 75 I don't know.

I quite like the crunchy guitar riff in the middle of the White Stripes song but not the dull indie jangle surrounding it.

Akon, rule no 1 of being a proper popstar = NEVER APOLOGISE

The Chemical Brothers have outdone even my low expectations of them. RETIRE OLD MEN.

Why are the Chemical Brothers trying to make some kind of undie cha-cha slide?

heard it this morning, DERE LORD it's bobbins eh? the only good bit is where it tries to be like tinny 80s fairlight-y (NB i MAY have dreamt this bit)

this is the worst song on the album, though - as i have said before, i am quite liking, despite myself

Taio Cruz is British so I suspect that's why he's charted. I think it's good too.

Is he?! Gosh I would never have guessed (admittedly I have only heard it once on youtube but that did inspire me to d/l it properly). Wikipedia informs me that he had a hit last year, has written for Mya, Usher and Britney Spears, and that he wrote 'Your Game'. Curiouser and curiouser.

Well, he's London-based but Nigerian and something else descent. I like his video. I didn't know he wrote Your Game, wow!

So says Wikipedia! He is apparently working on Britney's new album too...I will scour some Mya credits tonight to see if I can find his contributions.

Ah, so the White Stripes decide to release their cover of Manfred Mann's 'The Mighty Quinn'. Such blatant plagiarism from a band so renowned for their creativity.

Chemical Bros' new single is quite funky.

Am I right in thinking that the charts this weekend might well include Pavarotti, Elvis, Phil Collins AND Status Quo?

NME are running a campaign to get 'God Save The Queen' to #1 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of 'Never Mind The B****cks'. Whatever happened to that campaign to get Billie Piper to #1?

It succeeded in getting Billie Piper to #17 or so.

The NME campaign is point-missing even for them, plus the band reissued it last jubilee and it did nothing.

Why the hell are they releasing that as a single? I see that it has some novelty value, but god, there's so much better off that album (esp PULSE GENERATOR). It just reeks of tack commercialism.

I think they determine their single releases based on what makes for 'best video concept'.

A Year In Pop: 37

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Let's Dance

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The Salmon Dance

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