[Music] I finally found it!
After years of mental torment and about an hour and a half of wily googling, I finally found the song for the VW New Beetle commercial for their 'Vapor' color scheme. It was around 2000 and the song is 'Renaissance Affair' (1998) on the album 'Blue Wonder Power Milk' by Hooverphonic.
Why you may ask have I spent any amount of mental energy over the last 5 or so years looking for this song? Well, because I am that type of person. Songs I hear and like, get in my head and bounce around until I can figure out who sings them and the name of the song.
I remember this song was cool. I am into music like Hooverphonic, Cocteau Twins, Delays, Aphex Twin, Orb, Land of the Loops, and many many more, that kind of light and metaphysical ambient music, trip-hop, and trancendental rock. I remember thinking that was a very cool song, but never caught the small print to see who did the music. This song was damn elusive to find. You would think in this day and age almost all TV ads would be searchable? VW has an extensive list of their commericals and their songs, you can buy the music on a CD they put out. But everything seems to focus on the lame commericals. The only reference I found...in all of the Internet...was in a review by someone named Voltron1984...on Amazon.com. Yes, I search the length and breadth, exhausting hundred of google search permutations until I found this reference on Amazon.com. I confirmed the song was what I thought it was with a quick trip to iTunes.
Ahhhhh...I now freed that 0.0001% of my brain for other processing.
3 comments:
'Renaissance Affair' by Hooverphonic.
Dude, I KNEW that. All you had to do was ask me. Also, and I think this is still true, VW allows you see all the ads they run including credits on their site.
I personally was partial to the VW 'Big Day' ad with Kevin Rahm racing to the wedding, only to find out that he's racing to break things up. That particualr ad came in three varieties, including a 'gay vague' ad version which subtly implies that he's had an affair with the groom instead of the bride.
Interestingly, Apple did an ad right after this one ('Elope') that also starred Kevin Rahm, getting married and sending his folks a burned DVD of the marriage ceremony done on some tropical island. One of his parents says "Julie? Whatever happend to Leslie?" To which I took to be a stroke of marekting genuis to tie it in with the previous VW ad. Well, good to know that the fictional character Rahm played found happiness, although it would be nice to find out what happened to "Leslie".
That and VW was responsible for a small resurgance of the late Nick Drake's career with the 'Pink Moon' Cabrio ad. Plus, you've got to admit that the 'Synchronicity' ad they did aroud the same time was pretty cool. The only other ad I've seen in the last five years that I even remotely liked was the Honda UK "Cog" ad, in which a functional Rube Goldeberg machine made out of Honda Minivan parts is contructed and set into motion for a minute.
I should ad that the Volkswagen ads of that era were done by Arnold Worldwide ad agency of Boston, while the Apple iDVD ad was done by TBWA/Chiat/Day agency. The song in 'Big Day' was "One Million Miles Away' by J. Ralph, and obviously the film The Graduate was an influence. That ad won three major Automotive Advertising Awards in 2001 - Silver for Brand/Full-Line, Music-Original, and Cinematography. It was shot in Humboldt County, California.
Ok, now that was too much detail.
I knew Arnold Worldwide did the Ads, it was part of the ultimate google search string that lead me to Voltron1984's Amazon review. The search string was:
song + "new beetle" + vw + vapor + "arnold worldwide" + tv + commercial -jetta -golf -passat
VW does allow you to see credits for the Ads, but they have become selective for anything older than the last two model seasons.
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