Spotify is waxing lyrical

I'll be the first to admit it: from time to time, my blog posts can border on the vitriolic. But I flatter myself that, when I do let loose and turn the air puce, I'm only saying what quite a lot of people are already thinking. Such was the case a few months ago when I waxed hysterical about Brad Pitt waxing lyrical in that pretentious Chanel No.5 ad ('Inevitable'). The one which was so bad that Saturday Night Live made a parody where the goateed fake-Brad eventually breaks off from his gibberish-spouting to ask of the director, 'Sorry, is it just me, or do I look super-homeless?'

Now I have a new object of ire, but it's not one I wanted to choose, being a bit of a muso myself: it's Spotify.

Spotify recently launched their first ever advertising campaign on US television, appropriately airing their first commercial during the new series of music talent show, The Voice. In my view, there's a big problem with it. Simply, at no point does the ad say, hint at or even vaguely point with a bent stylus towards what Spotify actually is or actually does. I thought the fashion for making these vague commercials was fading, no? Apparently not.

In 30-, 60- and 90-second incarnations, the ad features a cool dude crowd-surfing his way across a never-ending auditorium, with waves upon waves of people thrusting him upwards to new physical and emotional heights (presumably). Don't get me wrong, it's beautifully shot, and if the ad wasn't for Spotify then I'd probably love it. But it is – and I don't.

The reason is, as was the case with Brad Pitt's Chanel No.5 ad, that the copy which is meant to sell the product means absolutely bugger all. As a piece of creative writing, it's not half bad, but as advertising copy, it fails woefully. No, I'm not from the Ronseal school of advertising where the copy has to blatantly state what it does and why it's good, but this is just waffle, pure and simple. If you want to watch the ad, you can do so by clicking below. But if you just want to see what I mean and save yourself a bit of uncomfortable flesh scratching, below that is the copy alone too:

"It's been said that the best songs don't give answers but instead ask questions," suggests the narrator, pseudo-intriguingly. "So, why? Why does music stop us in our tracks? Dictate if we pump a fist or swing it? Why can a song change the world? Because music is a force. For good. For change. For whatever. It's a magnifying glass. A bullhorn. A stick in the gears and the tools to fix it. Because music is a need. An urge to be vindicated. It's bigger than us. It lives inside us. Because we were all conceived to a 4:4 beat. Because music can't be stopped. Can't be contained. It's never finished. Because music makes us scream 'Coo coo ca choo' and mean it. Because music is worth fighting for. Why? Because it's music."

Riiiiiight. Clear as mud – thanks for that. Just for the record, what the heck does 'we were all conceived to a 4:4 beat' mean? I literally stopped for a moment and tried to work this out and simply couldn't. Oh, and if 'coo coo ca choo' is a reference to Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson, then it's hardly the deepest of songs and I'm not sure what I would mean if I really meant 'coo coo ca choo'.

The next Spotify ad (above) which is shortly due for release features a middle-aged man listening to some song or other – again in slow motion – which reminds him of a girl he once knew. Or perhaps still knows. Or is married to. Or was. It doesn't really matter, but he's thinking of her. It's a nice, warm, intimate image, I'll say that. But again, where does Spotify actually fit in? I have no idea. He might as well be listening to a slightly droll audio book on his old Sony Walkman for all I know, or Thought For The Day on Radio 4.

OK, that last sentence was a bit flippant, but to my mind, the commercials seem to be more ads for music itself rather than the service – which we're still none the wiser about because it's never mentioned. Personally, I'm only a free Spotify user rather than a premium one so I may well be missing out on loads of features which might open up my musical world. But on the basis of this ad, I don't see anything which is going to encourage me to use Spotify (let alone upgrade to become a premium user) rather than iTunes, CDs, or even the good old-fashioned radio.

by Ashley Morrison

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