Cars (2nd pitch exercise)

Following up on our efforts with The Doors' "People Are Strange" today we used Gary Numan's classic "Cars" as stimulus ... with some genuinely impressive ideas emerging!
We didn't get time with 13D to look at the actual video; this is embedded below, followed by the lyrics, then a summary of some (don't have enough time to type in all!) of the ideas that emerged, some examples of cover versions and some links for further reading. It was generally felt (and I certainly agreed) by 13B that their ideas would work much better than the actual video - remember though that this was 1979, some years before the success of MTV made shooting a music video almost an automatic choice for any singles release. The generally basic look reflects the artist's techno-driven style and the technological limitations for videos shot and edited on low budgets (an Indie label released this song).

POST OUTLINE: After the video; the lyrics; snapshots of your ideas (+ some of mine), examples of covers (remember, you could always look to commission your own!); some useful links for further reading on this track.

ORIGINAL VID

*** LYRICS ***

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars

Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars

Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please?
If I open my door
In cars

Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars

*** Released : August 1979 ***

SOME IDEAS SUGGESTED AS POSSIBLE MUSIC VIDz

tba

COVERS

There are many, many covers of this - just a few examples below. Numan himself notes:

This song has found new life and given Numan a great deal of exposure to another generation through covers by Fear Factory (with Numan singing on the track and appearing in the video), Nine Inch Nails, Dave Clarke, Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, The Judybats, and Tia. Says Numan: "It's been a most amazing thing, really, to keep hearing about the people that are doing cover versions. I was trolling around the other day for something totally unrelated and I came across a Youtube of Courtney Love's band, Hole, doing 'Cars.' I just thought, 'Yeah.' And there's a lot of that. It's very cool, and I don't take it for granted at all. I'm so totally blown away with a big grin on my face every time I hear that someone's done something like that. So it's not as if I'm kind of arrogantly expecting it. Quite the opposite." [Source]

Numan covers it himself in this ad:




Daft Punk


Synthpro - better audio quality at Myspace


Fear Factory


With Nine Inch Nails


Technologic [a cute little pussycat DJ!]


Blue Man Group

READ MORE:

Main Wiki on Gary Numan
Wiki on the song
Covering Cars with actual cars [gizmodo.com]
Again on this ad [technorati]
Bass tabs for the song
SongFacts.com guide to and analysis of the song/lyrics
RollingStone interview about Cars etc
Guide to playing on synth
Gary Hunter cover

Music vids as ads

We've discussed 2 examples, both of which used the expensive but prestigious ad-breaks within Saturday's X Factor to launch the campaign. In each cases we can see a company looking to extend (or consolidate) its reach to the lower end of the youth market, 15-24, with humour the main tool used to achieve this.

I came across these examples by reading the Media Guardian online - can i urge you all again to flick through this from time to time...

We can take from this the widening use of the music video format; as well as commercials for bands/singles/albums/tours/merchandise, as well as 'art films', we are seeing the form used within advertising - an ad trying to disguise its status as an ad!

In the 2nd example we get a straightforward use of juxtaposition which you could consider yourselves: the urban, bling-heavy rap set and performed in a farm by supposed farmer types wearing country clothing! Nice effects with the tractor, the owl and quirky shots of cows all thrown in.



The song dates back to 1980, so as well as our core youth target audience we're looking at clear appeal to a secondary nostalgic mature youth market, 35-44.


As Media Monkey notes:

At first glance Monkey was mightily impressed with the breathtakingly fresh, unique and offbeat approach the ad agency BBH had taken creating dairy company Yeo Valley's first TV ad. It was a a well-planned debut: Create an ad of a bunch of young "farmers" performing a rap homage to their trade and hog an eye-wateringly expensive two-minute slot in The X Factor's first live knockout round on Saturday. Except it seems that the idea for the campaign may not be that new at all. It seems a Canadian TV campaign from a year ago, the "Milk Rap" by the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, which aimed to make milk a bit "cooler" (strapline: "It doesn't get any cooler than this") featured a bunch of, you guessed it, young hip farming typers rapping about the virtues of the white stuff.
Spot the difference, you decide: here's the Yeo Valley TV ad and the Canadian Milk TV ad .

There's a nice link from this into our 2nd stimulus song: Cars...