If there was no Sky+, we?d have to actually watch the products advertisers attempted to flog us. Occasionally, some of these thirty second promotional adverts can be quite interesting and quirky.
The creative companies employed to make us believe we need to buy blu-ray when we already have the same film on DVD and VHS have to think of something so we?ll hurl our cash at a shop assistant.Even the dullest product can be jazzed up and made in to something all singing and dancing.
Levi?s in particular wanted something that was out of this world. Their sci-fi advert safely reassured us that aliens are sexy individuals who sported clean cut denim pants instead of giving us anal probes. It was sound tracked by a futuristic song by Babylon Zoo ? a song that lulled people in to thinking it was good.
The original advert for Levi?s 501 original denim jeans that now looks like something you could knock up off a free software program that comes with any computer or laptop:
As you can see in the video below, the music was somewhere in between ?indie? with it unprocessed drum beats and ?electronic? thanks to sounding something like a robot reaching orgasm.
What made a lasting impression in the mind of people were the heavily transformed vocals of the group?s badly named singer, Jas Mann. Whilst they were slightly incomprehensible, the mirroring image of aliens matched the vocals perfectly. This worked for both parties, Levi?s flogged loads of jeans and Babylon Zoo could sell loads of records.
However, when the music video for Spaceman hit stations like MTV, something dawned on a lot of people. Remember, the Levi?s advert lasts roughly 46 seconds. Just watch the video and work out for yourself what's a bit fishy.
What? Eh? Hold on. Where did all the weirdness go? After half a minute of the song we all knew and loved, the track warped in to a gruff rock anthem with lyrics that sounded like they?d been plucked from ten other songs and smashed in to one incoherent mess. Though, if you're from Wolverhampton like Babylon Zoo, dreaming of space is probably the closest you\’ll get to getting there.
However, not everything is lost, the final thirty seconds of the song return to the what we're used to, getting rid of all that guitar guff.
So what does this show us? Basically, advertisers have the power of manipulating almost anything in to a sale, even if it means screwing someone over in their path, be it child workers in the Third World who work for bugger-all or, in this case, a band called Babylon Zoo. As we sit here in aur Levi?s jeans, Levi?s shirt and Levi?s hat, we know that it probably worked on us.
The career of Babylon Zoo was short lived, however the single was successful and probably meant they could pay their rent off for a couple of years. Fifteen years ago this week, it started a five-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart and became the fastest selling single by a debut artist in the UK, (420,000 copies in 6 days). It also went to Number 1 in twenty-three other countries.
However, if you thought that Jas Mann had a unique style that people didn't get, such as wearing a silver skirt, you can witness him being beaten to a comedy pulp thanks to his appearance on Chris Morris?s Brasseye program, here.
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