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- We need wheels.
I’m reading a newspaper (yes, I’m a Luddite) when this distinctive female vocal singing a Christmas standard cuts through the background noise of the TV in the next room. The vocalist, singing lead and harmonies, has a detached coolness in her delivery that borders on robotic but remains infectious nonetheless. However, it is her harmonic choices in the multi-tracked back-up vocals that are particularly intriguing. They possess a fine balance of past and future – so retro they wouldn’t sound out of place in The Wizard of Oz, while their coolness suggest a kind of techie futurism. Me like.
I look up to the screen and catch a musician-duo dancing and mugging around a shiny new car. It looks like they are having great fun while they are opening car doors, popping out of the trunk, and singing into a mic from the driver’s seat. It is deepest integration of a relatively unknown artist with product in a TV commercial that I can recall. The band is Pomplamoose, comprised of Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte from Marin County, and the song is Up on the Housetop. Here is their Hyundai commercial
It turns out they have had millions of viewings of their video versions of hit songs by Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and many others. Ben Folds and author Nick Hornby even recorded a video with them at their home studio.
What do you think? Is this the future of artist discovery? Are TV commercials the new radio?
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Tags: Ben Folds, Beyonce, Hyundai Christmas Commercial, Lady Gaga, Nick Hornby, Pomplamoose