Watch out, Apple. AT&T is giving you a run for the money by capitalizing on cutting-edge, song-themed ads.
The company cleverly ushers in spring with a promo featuring blooming flowers that sprout [Samsung aT37] slider mobile phones:
So what's that familiar and catchy tune? It's "Daydreamin,'" the Grammy Award-winning third single off of Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor album. The accompanying female vocals belong to none other than soul singer Jill Scott, and the song samples a variety of sources, including Tchaikovsky's "Danse de Cygnes" (from "Swan Lake"). Fiasco's lyrics are explicit, but the AT&T commercial cuts off before consumers (and their kids) can hear them.
The single was released as a download in the U.K. in September 2006 and climbed the pop chart to No. 46 without any physical record sales. But there's more to the backstory. "Daydreamin'" has a catchy hook based around a sample of "Daydream in Blue" by I Monster, a British electronic act who in turn sampled the music from the original song, the earliest of which was performed by the Gunter Kallmann Chorus on a '60s record.
I Monster's song remix plays as the group flaunts their slick puppetry skills in this video:
And that's not all. The song's original lyrics, "Daydream/I fell asleep beneath the flowers/For a couple of hours/On a beautiful day" were changed to "I've seen the demons/But they didn't make a sound/Daydream, I found 'em sleeping with the flowers." It's the first song off the Beta Band's latest album, Squares. Both sample Kallmann's "Daydreaming."
Since I Monster beat Beta Band to the punch and released its version of the song first, Beta Band changed the title to "Squares," and released it as a single.
Each version is worth listening to. The trouble is it might be difficult to listen to anything else. It's so darn appealing.