Blog Posts by Suzanne Baran

Another indie band lands a hot ad spot and lots of attention.

A guy drinks from a bottle of Snapple Antioxidant Water, and hears bubblewrap popping. He looks scans his surroundings and notices the entire city is covered in the stuff. Off he goes, bouncing and rolling down stairs. In one single bound, he leaps off a rooftop.

Check it out:

The song playing in the background is "Cat's Meow" by the Bad Eliots. These relatively unknown artists hail from New York City. Their name hasn't become a household legend yet--but the musicians who make up the band are pretty close to it. Lead singer and multi-instrumentalist James Rotondi boasts an impressive career with the band Air and Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle. Drummer Ant Cee played with Megadeth, the Deftones, and on the Warped Tour. Bassist Jony Matias runs a studio and is a member of the Crash Moderns, and guitarist Paul Riario is the maestro behind a successful cover band called the Monster.

So what's so grand about these fellas? Well,

If you haven't seen the commercial for the brand-new, even slimmer iPod Nano--now is your chance:

Apple made Canadian indie artist Feist a star, and after the MacBook Air ads, Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naim became ubiquitous every time the ad ran between our favorite TV shows.

Most recently, the Ting Tings' tune, "Shut Up And Let Me Go," was featured in heavy rotation for Apple's iPod + iTunes ad.  

This time, the marketing gurus at Apple create another feast for the senses. The commercial begins with iPod Nanos lined up in a rainbow patterns sprawled with album art on their screens. Virtual paint starts to drip down from each device. Lyrics play in the background: "I tried to do handstands for you / I tried to do handstands for you / Every time I fell on you, yeah / Every time I fell for you-ooh-ooh-ooh / For you."

The lucky band behind the song is Brooklyn-based trio Chairlift. Their tune "Bruises" is upbeat and bubbly in the electronic, avant-pop tradition, with a light

Presidential candidates have long had a strange and wonky relationship with popular music. The first real hurrah of dedicated, candidate-specific campaign songs began in the 1952 election. The great songwriter Irving Berlin wrote, "I Like Ike" for Republican nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower. The song was popular and one of the last famous election slogans put to music. Some argue that this tune helped Ike beat Adlai Stevenson in the general election.

Eight years later, the first modern election was held. In 1960, John F. Kennedy ran against Richard M. Nixon. This was the first election with televised debates, and Kennedy's youth shone through. His campaign song was aptly titled "High Hopes," with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn. Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1959, and it was widely popular by the time Kennedy repurposed it.

Republican rival Richard Nixon used a song called "Click With Dick," by Oliva Hoffman, George Stork, and Clarence Fuhrman. Though this campaign

There were 65 bands, dozens of vendors, and about 130,000 attendees over the three-day San Francisco Golden Gate Park Outside Lands music festival. The weekend indicated a few firsts: the first time a concert was held after dark in Golden Gate Park, and the first time (quite recently) that a multi-day event took place in a Recreation & Park Department-held property.

Transportation on Muni was beyond hectic on Friday night, it was worse than being jammed into a New York City subway car--even on September 11, 2001. I'd never been privy to what it might feel like as a sardine.

The festival kicked off Friday on three stages at 5 p.m., and we followed the procession as Canadian psychedelic rockers Black Mountain and reggae band Steel Pulse played. By the time Manu Chao, Beck, and the Black Keys were in full swing around 7 p.m., the place was teeming with people.

My friends tried to scope out Beck, one of the biggest headliners at the festival. But his stage was located in Lindley Meadow,

A bevy of Olympic-themed ads has aired since the Games' opening ceremonies last Friday. Seeing as how the games signify the triumphs and struggles of the world's best athletes, they're not just a platform for national pride, but global kudos, as well.

So they're a great opportunity for advertisers to rally viewers by creating emotional branding that makes people feel good, rather than dwell on an unstable economy.

General Motors tops the list of troubled companies attempting to turn misery into Olympic gold. In its main Olympic ad, the car company parades its seemingly endless range of vehicles across the screen, while a strong, powerful female vocalist sings a heartwarming ballad.

The singer is Brandi Carlile, the song is "The Story," and it's become an Internet sensation. It's no wonder: If GM made cars as well as they create ads, maybe the automaker would be in better shape.

As the cars on display roll by (Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Chevy Camaro) so does the company's tagline,

Canadian indie star Feist's smash hit, "1234," has really risen to ubiquitous heights. She'll appear on the August 11 season premiere of Sesame Street performing a different version of the song.

A video of the singer was leaked on the Internet over the weekend frolicking with muppets and holding colorful numbers.

As if the popular iPod artist wasn't given enough of a boost, she now joins an extensive list of artists who have contributed their lyrics to the hit children's show.

The lyrics of the upbeat, sentimental song have been changed from their tribute to "old teenage hopes...alive at your door" into "Oh, you're counting, counting with me/To one less than five and one more than three."

There's also a revised chorus: "I love counting/counting to the number four."

It's a cute song and video that's not syrupy, overdone, or too annoying. Watch her strolling down Sesame Street with her furry friends in tow:

One of the greatest TV series of the recent past is returning for a third season. Showtime's Emmy-nominated series Dexter will return September 28 at 9 pm. Last week, Showtime aired a two-minute long trailer for the upcoming show.

As the story line delves deeper into the complex and duplicitous emotions of "America's favorite serial killer," a song plays in the background. And quite apropos, a male vocalist sings, "Strange times are here." It's a fairly new track off the Black Keys' LP Attack & Release. Dan Auerbach fronts the blues-rock music duo.

Interestingly, the band's name was inspired by an artist friend of the band with schizophrenia. He used the term "black keys" to describe people who weren't quite sane. There's another entendre here. The black keys on a piano contain a pentonic minor scale when starting on E flat, which is often linked with blues and rock music.

Recently the band scored some commercial success. Another one of their songs off Rubber Factory called "Girl is on

It's rare to hear a catchy new tune by an avant-garde band in a film trailer of any kind. This is especially true for wide release films with huge stars like Will Ferrell.

Step Brothers marks the third time Ferrell has teamed up with writer/director Adam McKay, the man who helped boost Ferrell's Ron Burgundy character to comic gold status in Anchorman. And it's the second time the two have joined forces with John C. Reilly, following up on the success of the NASCAR comedy Talladega Nights. Here, Ferrell and Reilly play two spoiled men who become competitive stepbrothers when their single parents get married and make them live as a family in one house. Ferrell and Reilly are forced to share a room, despite their ages. This leads to sibling rivalry, until they suddenly find they may have more in common than they thought.

Watch the trailer here. 

The tune that plays in the beginning of the trailer is called "North American Scum" by LCD Soundsystem off the album Sound From Silver.

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