10.12.05
The Postal Service
Such Great Heights
[Kaiser Commercial]
I caught a lot of flack for dissing The Postal Service early on, being a long time DCFC fan myself. I just thought that it sounded like Gibbard’s voice added to an unknown “X” electronica band. However, with the recent blowup of DCFC (signing to Atlantic, touring with Coldplay, and becoming an OC-teenybopper fave of the month), I think I’ve softened my stance a bit on Postal Service, and consequently gotten a bit harsher on DCFC. And hey, let’s not forget about All Star Quarterback…
Anyhow, the world seems to love anything Gibbard touches right now. We’ve talked previously about “Such Great Heights” being used in movies as well as being covered by Iron and Wine (whose cover was consequently used in a movie itself). The advertising junkies can’t seem to get enough of the song - the latest pandering corpo-behemoth being Kaiser Permanente. “Such Great Heights” appears on The Postal Service’s full length album “Give Up”.
Granted, the beat is what seems to sucker viewers in. But the song does seem to fit the Kaiser commercial (which if I remember correctly involves a number of street signs being showed in rapid succession?)
Interestingly, I have always thought that it would be a car maker that would use the Postal Service’s original song in a commercial. Interesting, because I think that the ad agencies for some of these auto makers have heard this song and thought, “Dang, I missed out on using it.” And rather than try and re-use the song, they’ve tried to COPY the general feel with a different song. There is a Honda Civic Hybrid commercial that I’ve heard a ton of times so far which employs an electronica beat song that sounds pretty darn exactly like “Such Great Heights”.
I only hope that the bandwagoning will stop there. There was a time when every other “action” commercial had to have that signature Crystal Method line of “I guess I didn’t know” along with the requisite synth “weeehhh!”. Or Blur’s “Woo-hoo” song… I don’t even know the name of that one. But they’ve got me talking about it so I guess there’s no escaping their evil commerical clutches…
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Oren Lavie
Gregg Yeti And The Best Lights
The Republic Tigers
The Transport Assembly
October 30th, 2005 at 7:29 am
BUT ITS SUCH A GOOD SONG!!! actually i like iron and wines cover better. and the kaiser commercial is cute.
October 30th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
i would say that yes, the song has been overplayed within the last year (i feel like i’ve heard it in another tv commercial, and at least a couple movie trailers), but another kaiser permanente commercial from the same ad campaign utilizes dylan’s “the times they are a’ changin’.” i’m inclined to give the ad wizards that came up with this one the benifit of the doubt… each commercial has a slow, thoughtful pace, and the song serves as memorable mood music to enhance the message. i’m sure it will continue to be used, but i don’t think that it screams ‘commercial’ the same way that dirty on vegas’ “days go by” does.
October 30th, 2005 at 11:42 pm
(Bryan writing as Palebear):
sunni - I like the Iron and Wine version better too.
topomodesto - That is really interesting because I was just about to write about the Dylan track as well. I have to agree that in both cases it really does seem to fit the pace of the commercial well. I think what bothers me a bit is the blatant bandwagoning. But I guess, in the long run I am always much happier at the chance of good indie music being spread even at the expense of it becoming over-exposed. Incidentally, have you heard the Dylan-like song being played for Volvo? It is actually Donovan’s “Catch The Wind”, but I’m not familiar with Donovan so I didn’t know that. I thought it was Dylan at first. but I guess for other people who have heard that song many times, they might be like “Why are they using this song?” But for me, it’s like a new song. =)
March 10th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Is there a site that has the Kaiser commercial available to view (ie as a quicktime movie)? I’ve only caught it once on TV.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Christine - not that I know of… if you haven’t already, you might want to try the adtunes forums. That community is pretty good at finding stuff…
May 9th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
You can see three of the Kaiser commercials (including the one with this song) at:
http://www.cecom.com/html/works/bigger.htm