There are two reasons that I’m glad I kept putting off my treatise on the very unfortunate Bob Dylan vs. will.i.am smackdown in honor of Pepsi: First, MTV News’ James Montgomery pretty much summed up my thoughts on the overall “the present is kinda crappy, let’s just OD on sugar” feel of the ad; and second, I found out that the Coca-Cola-sponsored collaboration between Cee-Lo, Patrick Stump, Janelle Monae, Brendon Urie, Travis McCoy, and Butch Walker had debuted online today. Guess which one is about 50 million times more pleasurable to these ears? I’ll give you a hint: It’s the one without Shrek in its attached video. Embeds of both tracks after the jump.
Yes, we get it. Everything was better in the… well, whatever era that isn’t now that this commercial is trying to evoke. The present day has to deal with cell phones at concerts and will.i.am tainting the next generation of children forever! Ugh.
Meanwhile, Cee-Lo’s voice sounds great, and I love the overall “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots” feel. Yay!
Open Happiness [coca-cola.com; HT absolutepunk]
Open Happiness [YouTube]
Pepsi: Refresh Anthem [YouTube]
Pepsi’s Bob Dylan/ Will.I.Am Ad Could Have Been Worse [MTV Newsroom]
NB: This post also serves as yet another piece of evidence that Billy Joel needs to write a 20th-anniversary version of “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”
Something I realized only belatedly, reviewing the Grammy nominees the other day: Will.I.Am produced “American Boy.”
[pauses, gobsmacked]
I feel now the same way I did when he cowrote and coproduced the exquisite John Legend song “Ordinary People.” If he’s capable of stuff that’s that good, why does he have to suck so painfully so often?
@Chris Molanphy: Something I realized only belatedly, reviewing the Grammy nominees the other day: Will.I.Am produced “American Boy.”
I KNOW. This blew me away too, since if you listen to the instrumental it matches up PERFECTLY to a vision of Kanye sitting at home at 3AM in front of his MacBook Air thinking “I can beat Daft Punk at their own game.. I can DO THIS, I can do ANYTHING”
the thing is, the first two black eyed peas albums are actually good! but as soon as they came out with fergie and justin timberlake guesting on the first singles from the 3rd album, i was off the reservation.
Yeah, will.i.am ruins “Forever Young”, and I’m pissed off that Dylan licensed it, but “Open Happiness”? Give me a fuckin’ break. It’s “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” for the indie generation, with all the cliches firmly in place. It’s even got a whistle-along so everyone can raise their cokes in the air and join in. Yay! If Up With People were founded this year, this is what they’d sound like. I can’t believe Feist isn’t on it.
Pepsi Bad: Will.I.Am. Pepsi Good: MacGruber.
After listening to the Coke song, it made me realise how much Coke loved the “Buy a world a Coke” jingle. Stop trying to re-capture it.
well I could go for a coke after that. So ce-lo and brendon for the win.
the overall “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots” feel
Nailed it. Now I can enjoy the song guilt-free…
Though us Aussies get far worse Coke ads. Ben Lee, ugh.
I’ll still always be a Coca-Cola drinker (although I have managed to curb my 32 oz a day habit).
Say what you will about will.i.am as a performer and desperately prefab cultural icon, the man can produce a killer track. Go back to your copy of “Futuresex/Lovesounds” and listen to “Damn, Girl” one more time.
And by the way, Maura, out of curiosity, have you ever figured out your personal record for the longest amount of time you’ve gone between enthusiastic shout-outs to Billy Joel?
@DJorn: longer than you might think, dude. i write a lot.