Having your song chosen for an iPod ad is the musical equivalent of receiving Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket, because who among us can resist holding Shazam right up to the TV screen and then firing up iTunes? So it was last night when I heard Chappo’s “Come Home” for less than 30 seconds. The song was then downloaded in seconds flat.
For the consumer, it takes a hard heart, or tin ear, not to perk up when some new artist is launched into your living room; iPod Touch or Nano ads regularly introduce us to pop confections we didn’t know we couldn’t live without until we heard them. “Come Home” fits in a great tradition (think of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour’s amazing “Around The Bend”): an artist with maybe just an EP to push, but a song with enough hooks to land Moby Dick. Chappo, from Brooklyn, sounds like what would happen if you melted down old Eno and Bowie records and gave the resulting goo in a silver goblet for Pop Levi to drink while Danger Mouse stood in the corner, laughing his ass off.
I used to think the best job in the world was being Target’s in-house musical programmer, for some of the most delectable pop music of the past decade has first been heard in one of their ads. But there’s no stopping the relentless iPod advertising gurus. Wolfman Jack or Cousin Brucie never had their power to break a band.
Tulip Frenzy 