The Usual.
That new Strongbow advert. Fucking hell.
There are two fat lads with beards. One of them has an acoustic guitar and the other one is sat at a grand piano because this is one of those pubs with a grand piano in it. Or maybe he brought it from home - he looks the type. They're nervous, exchanging glances, dry lipped. But they are competent musicians playing proper instruments and its an advert so they'll be fine. The sun is shining through the windows - its mid-afternoon, the best time for a pub band to be setting up - and the boozer has a beautiful honeyed glow. They start to play, a strident and painfully earnest version of Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder's "Electric Dreams". "Electric Dreams" played on acoustic instruments, but the irony is lost on our boys - they just want to bring everyone in the pub together through the power of song.
Now.
When I go to the pub and I see a band setting up in the corner my heart sinks. I go to the pub to meet friends and talk to them. A bit of ambient music is fine, it softens the noise of breaking glass and farting dogs. I don't want to hear an earnest young man or woman playing Snow Patrol covers on an acoustic guitar, as though they were in heats for X Factor. But that's what you get: competent covers by a regular guy, a busker with a loop station and the lyrics to "Video Games" on his lap-top.
But in the advert the punters don't act like me. They aren't sat down jostling for attention with their equally awful friends. They're an amorphous blob, just standing around waving their pints of cider, waiting to be entertained. They have no conversation, no small talk, nothing of interest has ever happened to them. But they know this song. Somewhere in the ruined spittoon of their collective consciousness the words come bubbling up, like fag butts on a thick foamy bronchial head. "We'll always be together." At this point its more a threat than a promise, but their lips start framing the words, the noise comes, bellowed through bared-teeth, heads spinning to police bystanders - this is compulsory play. Saliva strings between their sharp white teeth and the two fat troubadours are grinning now, their perfunctory performance has been accepted by the punters at the pub. They may get to play "Don't Go" by Hothouse Flowers or "Zombie" by The Cranberries or, fuck it, "Wonderwall. This is what they want.
Well done them. Another victory for empty, artless, proficiency.
Its not my least favourite ad though. That's the Peloton one: a static bike where a woman who sounds like she works for a commercial radio station shouts at you while you pedal. "Well done Peloton, you've smashed it." When you've completed your cycling she doesn't say "Well done" or "rest". She bellows "Saddle".
Despicable.
There are two fat lads with beards. One of them has an acoustic guitar and the other one is sat at a grand piano because this is one of those pubs with a grand piano in it. Or maybe he brought it from home - he looks the type. They're nervous, exchanging glances, dry lipped. But they are competent musicians playing proper instruments and its an advert so they'll be fine. The sun is shining through the windows - its mid-afternoon, the best time for a pub band to be setting up - and the boozer has a beautiful honeyed glow. They start to play, a strident and painfully earnest version of Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder's "Electric Dreams". "Electric Dreams" played on acoustic instruments, but the irony is lost on our boys - they just want to bring everyone in the pub together through the power of song.
Now.
When I go to the pub and I see a band setting up in the corner my heart sinks. I go to the pub to meet friends and talk to them. A bit of ambient music is fine, it softens the noise of breaking glass and farting dogs. I don't want to hear an earnest young man or woman playing Snow Patrol covers on an acoustic guitar, as though they were in heats for X Factor. But that's what you get: competent covers by a regular guy, a busker with a loop station and the lyrics to "Video Games" on his lap-top.
But in the advert the punters don't act like me. They aren't sat down jostling for attention with their equally awful friends. They're an amorphous blob, just standing around waving their pints of cider, waiting to be entertained. They have no conversation, no small talk, nothing of interest has ever happened to them. But they know this song. Somewhere in the ruined spittoon of their collective consciousness the words come bubbling up, like fag butts on a thick foamy bronchial head. "We'll always be together." At this point its more a threat than a promise, but their lips start framing the words, the noise comes, bellowed through bared-teeth, heads spinning to police bystanders - this is compulsory play. Saliva strings between their sharp white teeth and the two fat troubadours are grinning now, their perfunctory performance has been accepted by the punters at the pub. They may get to play "Don't Go" by Hothouse Flowers or "Zombie" by The Cranberries or, fuck it, "Wonderwall. This is what they want.
Well done them. Another victory for empty, artless, proficiency.
Its not my least favourite ad though. That's the Peloton one: a static bike where a woman who sounds like she works for a commercial radio station shouts at you while you pedal. "Well done Peloton, you've smashed it." When you've completed your cycling she doesn't say "Well done" or "rest". She bellows "Saddle".
Despicable.
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