Wanna cruise?

What in God's name is going on with American advertising? Madison Ave. has been falling all over itself to come up with the hippest songs to soundtrack their commercials. I'm all for using new stuff to promote artists (Spoon, Dandy Wahols), but the retro stuff is at best annoying and at worst blasphemous.

Most egregious is the trend towards advertisers courting the Baby Boomer demographic. We have Led Zep stumping for Cadillac ("Rock And Roll"), Iron Butterfly flogging Fidelity Financial ("Inna Godda Da Vida"), and Jimi hawking Razr cell phones ("Fire"). Jeep Wrangler used CCR's "Fortunate Son" as a patriotic anthem, ignoring the fact that the song is an anti-war polemic.

Even stranger is the use of vintage punk songs, usually taken completely out of context. AARP is using the Buzzcocks' "Everybody's Happy Nowadays," the title of which is take from "Brave New World" and is used there ironically (everyone's happy because they're high on Soma). Royal Caribbean's use of Iggy's "Lust For Life" is just sick. If going on a cruise entails "liquor and drugs," a "flesh machine," and a "strip tease," then count me in. Or how about Nissan's lovely advert with The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" playing in the background? Who are these aimed at?

Slate posted a "Worst ad song ever" contest a while back. Check out the results.