Commercially Aware
You can call them sellouts, but HEAVE calls them career moves.
This week's "Commercially Aware" focuses on the obsessive indie-love crush of every man on the planet: Chan Marshall. She performs under the name Cat Power, but she could call herself Dog Doo in a Ziplock Bag and it wouldn't matter a bit. In her early days, she experimented with free-form jazz fusion and blues work, but didn't gain a true fan base, outside of other musicians, until she began recording and releasing work of sparse minimalism-usually highlighting a single guitar and her lush voice.
Corporate America seems to have caught on to her appeal, as Cat Power music has steadily infused itself into a number of commercial campaigns. My personal favorite is the Cingular Wireless ad where a strapping young fellow waits for days for a call from a girl. For as much as Cingular's service sucks, the commercial is fantastic: the Cat Power cover of a Nerves song perfectly fits the mood and every guy on the planet can sympathize with the sentiment.
More people with probably recognize Marshall from the De Beers diamond commercial entitled "Morning Surprises" (which sounds dirtier than it actually is). The ad features a Cat Power cover of the Cat Stevens song "How Can I Tell You." I have a more difficult time liking this commercial, because the likelihood that some child in Africa lost a limb to mine the diamond featured in the commercial is pretty high; still, it is a beautiful cover by Marshall.
Cat Power and Cingular Wireless
Posted by Ryan Peters on Nov 20, 2007 @ 12:00 am
