If you’re English, you might have seen a certain Slim Fast advert within the past six months. If you’re not English, or just don’t watch television (in which case you missed Bianca Jackson dressed up as a giant prawn) you can see it here.
This advert is pretty well-known over here; it’s become a cult thing, like Kia-Ora’s “too orangey for crows” or something, and whilst on YouTube I saw some witless school girls performing the advert in the playgroud. I still have no idea why people make videos like it, but I digress.
It’s some song. I think it’s incredibly insulting to women – insinuating they only want to lose weight eat chunky chocolat and look at their fat arse all day – but it got me thinking about the life of a commcercial jingle writer. Slim Fast is a pretty big thing, and the thing got TV play, so it’s not all bad, but at the same time it has to be a depressing occupation. writing and making this shit.
The guy (not girl, let’s face it) probably started his career in an edgy punk band called ‘The Sane Effect’, throwing glasses and tipping over his mic stand in some dodgy London pub. He played a few gigs, destroyed a few stands, sent off his demo to Sony, and ended up writing the lyric ‘losing weight I can enjoy!’ with a Parker pen in his cushy studio with red Tannoy monitors.
I’m going to end up like him, although my contract won’t be with Slim Fast – it’ll be with the Torquay House Movers, where I’ll write a naff jingle for them, something involving a MIDI trombone and the funky drummer loop. How many musicians that are jingle writers wanted Warp to come up to them and shoot a big load of cash into their open mouth?
Then I saw this recent McDonalds thing advertising their new American burger – the McWashington Beefy or something – which featured a man dressed in leather playing a guitar and ‘rocking out’ hilariously. Was he the founding member of failed punk band ‘The Cunts From Hele’? Did he tip over his mic stand, piss on the snare drum, and then sign a contract with McDonalds to play the part of ‘washed up rockstar’? I suspect he did.