Isn't It Ironic?: Difference between revisions

* The "Zoom Zoom" jingle that appears in commercials for Mazda is actually an old Capoeira song which goes "Zum Zum Zum, capoeira mata um" which roughly means "Zoom Zoom Zoom, Capoeira (can) kill you, or (Capoeira kills someone)". Mazda carefully excises all this nonsense about Capoeira, natch - all they care about is the zooming.

* David Bowie has suffered from this '''a lot''' -- ever since his work first got mass media attention. In 2008, all the trailers for ''Milk'' (a movie about an openly gay politician) used his song "Queen Bitch", which raises unfortunate questions about how the marketing team felt about the film's subject. Then there was the jeans commercial that put videos of masculine men to the song "The Jean Genie". The only appropriate response is "You're all aware the song is about gay sex, right?"

** Another in the same series of commercials uses the cover of "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Shiny Toy Guns (originally recorded by Peter Schilling), and it cuts off right after "Earth below us / Drifting, falling..." While it's a very cool commercial, you just have to say, "Uh, you know that song ''doesn't end well'', right? {{spoiler|''"Across the stratosphere / a final message / 'give my wife my love' / then nothing more..."'' it's only even more of a [[Tear Jerker]] after that, and that 'drifting, falling' part becomes an [[Ironic Echo]] - the same words meant something totally different on the way ''up'', didn't they?}}

* "Happy Happy Joy Joy" from ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'', a parody of [[Sickeningly Sweet|saccharine]] kids' cartoon songs, being used sincerely to sell Sara Lee products.

how far we've come". }}

** They're oddly apropos for the History Channel, especially considering their newfound love of both the end of the world and the pretend.

* "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols has been used more than once in car adverts by virtue of the first line, which goes "you've got a great car". The ''second'' line, [[The Alleged Car|"what's wrong with it today?"]], is rarely played.

* Mack the Knife, a song from a incredibly anti-capitalist musical, detailing a businessman who murders people to further his own gains, was once used in a marketing campaign for McDonald's.

** The lyrics were completely rewritten, at least. More on the Mac Tonight campaign can be found at [[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Mac Tonight|here]].

** "Move Along" also turned up in one of [[LEGO]]'s ''[[Bionicle]]'' ads, when Lego had a deal with the band. At least ''there'' it was SLIGHTLY less out of place...but only just: on the one hand, the heroes of the story are trying to prevent a death. On the other, the song's still being used with kid's toys.

** Speaking of suicide in car commercials, one for Hyundai prominently features "Today" by [[The Smashing Pumpkins]], which incidentally features irony in a prominent manner: the song talks about the greatest day of the narrator's life... because he's going to kill himself tomorrow. Presumably using his Hyundai in a closed garage.

** How about the same band's "Tonight Tonight Tonight", a song about a paranoid junkie making a drug deal late at night, being used for a famous Michelob beer commercial?! (Did Michelob sponsor their ''Invisible Touch'' tour?!)

** After "Jesus He Knows Me" was released, the Christian TV station, the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), figured the band had discovered religion and picked up the song's video to air, but they decided not to after learning what the song is really about. It's about a televangelist who [[Sinister Minister|lives a decadent, corrupt lifestyle]] off the donations from his viewers.

* Kohl's department stores have recently adopted Barenaked Ladies' "Shopping" as an ad jingle, either not knowing or not caring about the song's satiric anti-consumerist thrust.

 

* A number of tobyMac songs (mostly "The Slam") have been used in previews for violent movies and shows, despite said songs being about God.

** Although, "The Slam" was written by tobyMac after he saw ''[[The Passion of the Christ]]'', which is pretty violent.

* ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops|Call of Duty Black Ops]]'' ran adverts featuring The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter". Apparently a song depicting the horrors of war, which will eventually end all life on the planet, is supposed to encourage people to play as Black Op soldiers.

** Though, Call of Duty has had a history of being anti-war, yet [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|simultaneously being pro-war, due to being a fun video game about the subject.]] So, while still contradictory, the advertisers were probably well aware of the song' meaning

* There's an advert for some car or other which is set to "This Is The Life" by Amy MacDonald. It would be bad enough if they'd used one of the verses (which describe apparent good times) and conveniently ignored the chorus (which is a "reveal" of the misery that the person the song is addressed to is trying to run away from) but no... they've gone straight for the most miserable part of the song, purely for the [[Title Drop]]. The music behind it isn't even particularly peppy.

* Finnish hardware store Rautia uses song "Vasara ja nauloja" (Hammer and nails) in it's commercials to promote how successfull you are with their tools. What's the song about? A man failing to build a house...

The day that she stands up

for everything that she chose }}

* Target attempted to license Adam Freeland's anti-consumerist song ''We Want Your Soul''. Apparently, Target only must have listened to the lines "here's popcorn, here's magazines, here's milkshakes, here's blue jeans," while conveniently ignoring the rest of the song, the [[Bill Hicks]] sample comparing modern culture to bread and circuses, and ''the title itself''. Luckily, Freeland turned down the offer.

* A certain commercial for he show [[Toddlers and Tiaras]] used [[Lady Gaga]]'s "Born This way", a song about accepting who you are and not having to change... while showing shots of ''children around the age of five '''wearing makeup and false eyelashes.'''''

* Germany's ''Deutschland sucht den Superstar'' (you could say ''[[American Idol|German Idol]]'', it's the same branch) uses Melanie C's "Next Best Superstar" to celebrate their winner. ''"Crack a smile in denial; throw your morals on the fire"''.

* Elimination show and beauty contest ''The Swan'', which took ordinary-looking women and gave them plastic surgery to bring them closer to mainstream notions of conventional beauty made use of Groove Armada's "If Everybody Looked the Same", oblivious to the meaning of the song's refrain "If everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other".

** ''[[The X Factor]]'' is guilty of this, too. "Heroes" has nothing to do with war in anyway, shape or form.

* ''[[Glee]]'' had Emma wanting to use [[Intercourse with You|"Afternoon Delight"]] to promote the Abstinence Club, under the mistaken belief that it was about having dessert in the middle of the day.

* In yet another case of a politician completely missing the subtext of a song, presidential candidate John McCain made an appearance at a primarily Latino high school alongside reggaeton rapper Daddy Yankee, and made reference to the latter's song "Gasolina". Suffice it to say, said song uses putting gasoline in a car as a metaphor for...[[Intercourse with You|well, think about it for a second]].

** I heard once that "Gasolina" is also Puerto Rican slang for general illegal/underground activity. Which makes it even funnier.

* Special mention should go to [[Bruce Springsteen]]: in 1984 his "Born In The U.S.A.," a song about a disaffected Vietnam veteran, nearly got picked up by [[Ronald Reagan]]'s campaign until Springsteen turned him down.

** Of course, that's after John (Cougar) Melloncamp refused to allow Reagan to use his song "Pink Houses" which has a "patriotic" chorus, but similar disillusionment in its verses.

** Granted, the reason Palin used that song was because her nickname in high school was "Saracuda", and that was something that her supporters were aware of at the time. Might bring up some [[Unfortunate Implications]] but at least they weren't using the song because of some perceived lyrical meaning.

* In 2009, the British National Party used the Manic Street Preachers' "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" on their website, without permission. The song contains the lines "If I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists". The song was removed when Sony threatened legal action.

* "[[Cabaret|Tomorrow Belongs to Me]]" has been recorded by more than one White Nationalist band. At least they're honest.

* Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, sang John Lennon's "Imagine" with a little Asian girl for a photo op during his 2011 campaign trail. Stephen Harper is a conservative who planned to buy warplanes to wage war in the middle east, boost military spending, reduce gun control, and has much of his backing from conservative religious communities. [[Yoko Ono]] was so displeased, she demanded that [[YouTube]] pull all videos of the performance.

** During this performance, his only comment was "I might get in trouble for that line!" referring to "Imagine there's no heaven." 'Cause, you know, that's the most jarring part of a pro-war state leader singing a song about world peace through enlightened anarchy.

** PM Harper had earlier sang "I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends" with the Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra during a parliamentary crisis in which all the other party leaders threatened to band together and form a coalition government against him.

* Former British prime minister [[Tony Blair]] attempted to give his "New Labour" makeover mass credibility and some glamour by pulling in stars of music, theatre and TV to Downing Street parties and receptions. He called his new era ''Cool Britannia''. Had he or his party wonks properly done their homework, they would have realised this is the title of a Bonzo Dog Doodah Band musical parody from thirty years previously, when Britain was being called "cool" for different reasons in 1967. The musical pranksters performed a deliberately discordant and amateurish jazzed-up version of ''Rule Britannia'' with extremely corny new lyrics, involving what was then in-slang being sung in a very plummy British accent that palpably fails to sound cool or with-it. ''Cool Britannia, Britannia, you are cool! (Take a trip!)/Britons ever, ever, ever, shall be hip! Groovy, mama!'' After this was pointed out, Blair's big idea of Cool Britannia was quietly dropped. It is understood that surviving Bonzos such as [[Neil Innes]] put in a claim against the British government for copyright money for the use of their intellectual property.. They certainly, very pointedly, revived the piece for reunion gigs in the early 2000's, dedicating it to Tony (Blair) and Gordon (Brown).

* In a reverse of the way it usually goes (ironic song being used unironically), ads for Discovery Channel's show ''Who The [Bleep] Did I Marry?!,'' about people who married criminals without knowing their histories, used the first few lines of Peter, Bjorn and John's "Young Folks" (''If you knew the things I did before, told you who I used to be, would you go along with me?''). The lyrics are meant to invoke sleaziness and artifice in their use in the commercial... But in the [http://youtu.be/51V1VMkuyx0 actual song], not only are they not malicious (seeming to be more about past relationships than anything else), the female singer implies she has a similar past (unlike in the show).

[[Category:Ironic Tropes]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]