Soundtrack of Your Life: Selling out

An occasional feature in which we mark the songs of our relative youth as played over public muzak systems and beyond. 

Date: 22 October 2016
Place: TV commercials
Song:  "Default"
Artist: Django Django
     and
Song: "If You Want to Sing Out (Sing Out)"
Artist: Cat Stevens
Irony Matrix: 3.3 out of 10

Comment: Back in the 1990s, I was enamored of my cohorts who were crafting Target commercials, and I'll never forget my amazement at hearing Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle" in an ad for the frisky department store. The troubled outsider artist's childlike recordings had finally gone from the mailing of handmade cassettes to the American mainstream. Sort of. Popular music gets co-opted much faster and across a wider spectrum these days. During the baseball playoffs this year, two songs have jumped out at me. The British art-rock band Django Django in 2012 released a self-titled debut album full of retro electronic pop, a tame mix of Devo and Kraftwerk, with some irresistibly catchy tunes. Their frantic song "Default" has found a home in a commercial for Google Pixel. Meantime, Jeep Grand Cherokee reached into the archives for an orphan from Cat Stevens, the gem "If You Want to Sing Out (Sing Out)," which was originally featured in many folks' favorite film, "Harold and Maude" in 1971. When ballgames last 3-and-a-half or 4 hours, it is small joys such as these songs that make the down time a bit more tolerable. Here's today's starting lineup:

Django Django:



Cat Stevens:



The inimitable Daniel Johnston with his original:



And Mary Lou Lord with the mature cover version: