Grandaddy – Honda Civic Commercial

Grandaddy
Nature Anthem

Continuing the car commerical parade, about a month ago I began hearing Honda Civic Hybrid commercials featuring the band Grandaddy. Seeing as we’re all huge Grandaddy fans we immediately recognized Jason Lytle singing on what seemed like a somewhat psychadelic commercial a la Polyphonic Spree or something with cartoon drawings leaking into the real life video. The song of theirs featured in the commercial is called “Nature Anthem” and is recognizable by it’s aw-shucks attitude and lyrics “climb up the side of the mountain…”

What was more difficult was figuring out where that song was from. I knew I’d seen a song title “Nacher Anthem” before somewhere and a bit of searching reminded me that it was originally released as a video off of the limited-edition version album of Sumday which featured an enhanced section that included a wiggy video a short film of theirs: “Nacher Anthem“. I’d completely forgotten about that.

They also released the song “Nature Anthem” (note the slightly different title) on a strange little CD called Artist’s Choice: Below The Radio in which Jason picks out songs from several indie bands he digs. Sort of like a mix tape? Anyhow, “Nature Anthem” is the only song on there that is actually by Grandaddy.

As far as seeing Grandaddy waltz ever so quietly into the realm of commercial music, I’d guess that it’d be a good thing for them. And they haven’t yet been overplayed beyond belief like some other indie bands reaching critical mass on TV and films. My favorite albums of theirs are still Sophtware Slump and before that, where the band was still smoothing out the rough edges on their melodic direction and wrestling with the dreaded lo-fi, slack-rock tag. But even though their new stuff is more produced, I’m always interested to see what else they come up with.

by Palebear