Spinner

What's That Song From the Target 'Everyone' Commercial?



'Blogspot,' Paul and the Patients

The word "irony" is used often and everywhere these days, but get ready for a serious ironic pile-on by ironic hipsters from -- where else? -- Brooklyn, N.Y., in this Target ad for the retailer's Fall 2010 fashions. When Paul and the Patients recorded their song 'Blogspot,' it was a not-so-subtle jab at the hype machine known as the blogosphere. As the lyrics lament, the Internet Age has a built-in mechanism that propels indie rockers -- often ironic hipsters straight outta places like Brooklyn -- to "flavor of the week" status, only to abandon them a week later when a new flavor comes along. The song has, potentially, turned Paul and the Patients into this week's flavor.

"God, there are too many levels of irony to make sense of," bandleader Paul Holmes tells Spinner. "The tune was a reaction to the format in which an artist is deemed cool nowadays ... I guess the song was meant to be a stab at the fickle nature of the indie music world."

But along comes the decidedly non-indie big-box behemoth known as Target, and boom -- the song has suddenly been converted into a mainstream commercial advertising the hippest new fashions that "everyone" will be wearing this fall. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, the commercial does an excellent job of emphasizing the word "everyone" by pairing its repeated appearances in the song with a visual caption. The message? Everybody should sport these styles this season, which Target offers for prices that everybody can afford.

And now, suddenly, the blogosphere is telling everybody about Paul and the Patients, thanks to their song about how the blogosphere tells everybody about the coolest new bands.

The irony is not lost on the group. "Of course, it's somewhat hypocritical since we're now hoping to gain attention through this very process and a big sellout commercial," Holmes says about the song and its meaning. "I suppose everyone has to play the game to some degree."

If it is, indeed, a game, looks like Paul and the Patients win this round, at least.


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