Sacrilege!

Well, maybe not actually...but still very infuriating to myself. I was innocently watching television this evening when I heard a horrendous cover of the Beatles' Hello Goodbye and it was for a Target commercial. A Target commercial? Come on! Worse yet, as the horrible singer said "Goodbye," the words "goodBUY" appeared on the screen. Goodbuy? Oh my...

I hate it when good, established music is used to sell products. It greatly angered me to see The Who use every song they ever made to sell products: Won't Get Fooled Again and Magic Bus by Nissan, Happy Jack by Hummer, My Generation by thirdage.com. Start Me Up from the Rolling Stones was used by Microsoft. U2 soldout to sell IPods with Vertigo. Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll was used by Cadillac. But I always held the Beatles in a different spot from these other groups...their music seemed beyond reproach. To the best of my knowledge, the only Beatles song ever used in a commercial was Revolution in a Nike commercial in the late-80's and that caused quite a stir if I remember correctly.

If this is going to be the beginning of a slippery slope, I'm going to be really disappointed. I know how I felt hearing Happy Jack every 20 minutes on TV...and it wasn't good. I don't want to hear When I'm 64 in a Viagra commercial or Taxman for H&R Block. Nor do I want to hear Help! for On-Star or I Am The Walrus for Sea World. I don't know who is protecting the Beatles library but they need to be a little more selective...I think it might be Michael Jackson or Sony. Whoever it is must be stopped before it's too late and the Beatles become just a commercial group.