1. College “A Real Hero (feat. Electric Youth)” – YouTube
From “The Drive” soundtrack, this infectious gem of 80′s synth-pop revivalism is loaded with super cheesy lyrics (“you’re a real hero, a real human being”) but a production style that recalls early Soft Cell or Human League. The rest of the soundtrack is just as good but this track shines through.

2. Mitzi “Morning Light” – YouTube
Thanks to Garth Trinidad for playing this late one night on KCRW while I was driving home. I know nothing about this band but love this organic disco groove and cute boy/girl vocals.

3. Com Truise “Ether Drift” – YouTube
Just when you thought electronic music has been decimated by dubstep, along comes this melodic IDM track that recalls the melancholy work of Boards Of Canada or Casino Vs. Japan. A delightful instrumental jam, perfect for headphones.

4. Theophilus London “I Stand Alone” – YouTube
“The journey starts beneath the stars…”  If you have opened a magazine or turned on your computer this year, you’ve heard about this emerging artist. Believe the hype and get this record.

5. Shugo Tokumaru “Rum Hee” – YouTube
This Japanese, twee track has it all: bells, acoustic guitars, pop sensibilities, repeating “doo doos.”  Nothing has been this perfect for an iPod ad since Feist.

6. Paul Simon “So Beautiful Or So What” – YouTube
Every once in a while, these old-timers come along and teach us a thing or two about great tunes (see David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “Strange Overtone”) – put this on and then delete your Vampire Weekend tracks.  Never been so excited to hear a gumbo recipe.

7. Acrylics “Molly’s Vertigo” – YouTube
A delightful slice of psychedelic AM radio indie pop from one of my favorite un-sung labels, Friendly Fire Recordings.  Classy and smooth.

8. The Weeknd “House Of Balloons – Glass Table Girls” – YouTube
You don’t need me to tell you about this new artist but I gotta be honest, I have never heard R&B with such gothic tendencies – this might be the single most unique blending of music from 2011. And yes, that is a Siouxsie sample.  All their music is available here for free download at their website.

9. Metronomy “She Wants” – YouTube
Simply a terrific, smooth indie jam with flanged out bass and Cure-ish tendencies. ‘Nuff said.

10. Yuck “Get Away” – YouTube
Remember Superchunk, Versus, Archers Of Loaf, Seam, Sebadoh, etc.? So do Yuck and they serve up a great piece of 90′s indie rock nostalgia.

11. Washed Out “Amor Fati” – YouTube
Exceptionally sublime.

12. Gotye “Somebody That I Used To Know (featuring Kimbra)” – YouTube
Sting hasn’t put out anything worth listening to in decades (we can all argue over whether anything after Soul Cages was worth our time but I digress…) – so Gotye can fill in the void. Excellent track with a marimba melody that will never leave your head.

13. Wugazi “Shame On Blue” – YouTube
Let me be clear, I hate mashups. When I first heard “bootlegs” like The Strokes & Christina Aguilera I thought “huh…that’s funny but why would anyone want to listen to this?” Well, this merging of Fugazi with The Wu Tang Clan works – something about hearing ODB with Guy Picciotto actually feels natural – like if The Judgement Night soundtrack was still listenable. You can download the entire record here.

14. La Vida Boheme “El Zar” – YouTube
Venezualuan post-punk revivalist indie rock – no idea how I got this but to whoever sent it to me “thanks!”  Beginning makes you feel like you are about to hear YYY’s “Maps” in a whole new light but it ends up sounding more like The Killers than I’d care to admit.

15. Me’Shell Ndegéocello “Dirty World” – YouTube
Sultry, sexy, dark, dirty. Perfect.

16. The Separate “Close to Me with Mark Lanegan (The Cure Cover)”
An orchestral covers album. This is the stand-out track.  For some reason, I can’t find any info or links on it.

17. James Blake “The Willhelm Scream” – YouTube
Call it what you want (most people call it dubstep) but this track is soulful and unique, reminds me more of Plaid or Jamie Lidell.

18. SBTRKT “Hold On” – YouTube
Dear Music Industry – More Of Stuff Like This Please!

19. AM & Shawn Lee “Somebody Like You” – YouTube
I really dig AM so was eager to check out this collaboration with Shawn Lee. Shawn Lee, incidentally, is not a snowboarder.  That’s Shawn White.  Thought that would also be an amazing collaboration.

20. Jamie Woon “Lady Luck” – YouTube
More soulful electronic music – guess that was a trend this year and on this list.

21. Ford & Lopatin “Emergency Room” – YouTube
One of the guys from Tigercity works with another fella to make this fine synth pop blend.

22. Dirty Vegas “Little White Doves” – YouTube
Ok, I admit that when this CD showed up I ignored it. Having never been a fan of this Mitsubishi-branded act, I was totally blown away by this track.  This is what New Order’s last album should have sounded like.

23. The Antlers “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” – YouTube
This feels like post-apocalyptic indie rock – so bleek and yet hummable, memorable and loveable.  Plus, that drummer is one handsome fella.

24. Lana Del Rey “Video Games” – YouTube
As contrived and controversial as it is, I cannot hide the fact that I love this song.

25. Britney Spears “Til The World Ends” – YouTube
The ultimate guilty pleasure, I cannot deny that I really dug this track.  Amazing was contemporary production can do.  Team Britney!

- Launched a new retail soundtrack for Sephora in April, 2011 – their customers are tweeting about how much they love the new program!  You can read Sephora’s official blog about it here.  Also, check out some recent customer tweets here.

- Paired Urge Overkill with John Varvatos to celebrate the band’s new album including an exclusive album stream and a NYC event launch.  Read the press release here.

- Brought Qdoba down to SXSW for 2-days of events that received 14,000 RSVPs and featured legendary artists like J Mascis and Exene Cervenka alongside emerging acts like Nicole Atkins and the Civil Wars.  Our event was even featured on Pitchfork’s Guide to the best showcases, parties and panels of SXSW.  Read more about it here.

Not too mention tons of other projects for the world’s best clients!

Enjoy!

1.) “Young Blood” by The Naked & Famous from “Young Blood 7″
2.) “Tightrope (Featuring Big Boi)” by Janelle Monae from “The ArchAndroid”
3.) “Record Collector” by Lissie from “Catching a Tiger”
4.) “No Strings” by Mayer Hawthorne from “No Strings Attached”
5.) “Heaven Can Wait” by Charlotte Gainsbourg from “IRM”
6.) “Summer Holiday” by Wild Nothing from “Gemini”
7.) “The High Road” by Broken Bells from “Broken Bells”
8.) “Jona Vark” by Gypsy & The Cat from “Gilgamesh”
9.) “Do You Want It All” by Two Door Cinema Club from “Tourist History”
10.) “Hold On” by Angus & Julia Stone from “Down The Way”
11.) “Boy Lilikoi” by Jonsi from “Go”
12.) “Floating Vibes” by Surfer Blood from “Astro Coast”
13.) “Flint March” by Brian Eno from “Small Craft on a Milk Sea”
14.) “All to All” by Broken Social Scene from “Forgiveness Rock Record”
15.) “Ambling Alp” by Yeasayer from “Odd Blood”
16.) “Little People (Black City)” by Matthew Dear from “Black City”
17.) “Boyfriend” by Best Coast from “Crazy For You”
18.) “I Want The World To Stop” by Belle & Sebastian from “…Write About Love”
19.) “Dark Fantasy” by Kanye West from “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”
20.) “The Ghost Who Walks” by Karen Elson from “The Ghost Who Walks”
21.) “I L U” by School Of Seven Bells from “Disconnect From Desire”
22.) “July flame” by Laura Veirs from “July Flame”
23.) “Heart Full Of Pentagons” by Film School from “Fission”
24.) “Angela Surf City” by The Walkmen from “Lisbon”
25.) “Heaven’s On Fire” by The Radio Dept. from “Clinging To A Scheme”
26.) “Get Smarter” by Styrofoam from “Disco Synthesizers & Daily Tranquilizers”
27.) “Nine O’Clock in France” by Elk City from “House of Tongues”
28.) “stick to my side” by Pantha Du Prince from “Black Noise”
29.) “Shadow People” by Dr. Dog from “Shame, Shame”
30.) “Bushwick Blues” by Delta Spirit from “History From Below”

Sure, we can point to at least one recent (and unforgettable, for better or for worse) jingle that follows all the usual rules (mention the product, don’t do anything too edgy) with the song for Lapband, a weightloss device.  Come on, you know the song:

“Let Your New Life Begin Call 1-800 Get Slim (or Trim)”

Not too mention “Beep Beep.com” and the “Freecreditreport.com” band.  But these are rarities today.  More often when brands and agencies want an original piece, they want it to feel less like a “jingle” and more like a song.  This includes everything from Karen O’s Adidas song to Chris Brown’s Doublemint commercial which was suspended when the singer got in some PR trouble.  During last week’s class, my friend Geoff Sherr, from Squeek E. Clean (one of the hottest original music houses for advertising), walked us through the process.  We were all struck by the quality, risk-taking and sheer authenticity evidenced in some of their groundbreaking work like their “Accidental Duet” track for Match.com which won them a host of awards at Cannes Lion.  This isn’t “Plop Plop Fizz Fizz” and, in fact, the song is so authentic that YouTubers are covering it.

“I Like Old Movies Like Godfather 3″

In the recent “Conversation About Music, Marketing and JetBlue,”during Ad Week’s recent conference, this desire for authenticity and risk-taking was echoed.  When explaining JetBlue’s “Live From Terminal 5″ program featuring artists playing for between-flight customers, Fiona Morrison, Director of Brand & Advertising, said “You have to be willing to take risks.”

Companies like Squeek E Clean (and their brethren Mophonics) understand that and, as a result, they will continue making interesting work while jingles continue their slide into irrelevancy.  And, in a bizarre bit of jingle appreciation, I leave you with Cotton Candy, a band whose repertoire consists entirely of old product jingles.  Listen here.

We spent 2 days in the Edison Ballroom absorbing discussions on several facets of music branding including picking music for commercials, composing original music and artist-brand relationships. And while there were many great moments to cover (including Kid Rock’s quip to the editor from Billboard that “I’ll handle the jokes, thank you” and Devo’s riveting, tongue-in-cheek focus-group tested new album), we are going to focus on the two areas in which everyone seemed to be in consensus: Customer Engagement and Artist-Brand Partnerships.

It was in the very first panel where Sheri Timmons, from Levi Strauss & Co, stressed the importance of customer engagement through rich content.  The key, said Timmons, is “being there when something magical happens or enabling it to happen.”  Levi’s music program placed artists in the studio to reinterpret some of their favorite songs – examples can be found here.  This resulted in short form web programming in addition to the music itself and as fans get closer to the artists, they get closer to the brand.  This idea was echoed in the case study for Cotton in which artists recorded their own version of the famous “Fabric Of Our Lives” lyric associated with the brand.  Cotton’s campaign went beyond the free mp3 and extended into web programming and commercials which showed the artist’s in their own environments (their cities, their houses, their lives.)  Cotton’s campaign was a success – the site achieved 2.4 Million hits in 3 months with customers actively creating stylebooks that featured the artists (Zooey Deschanel’s had 350,000 users.)  Even the Creative Directors’ discussion, which focused primarily on the one-way communication of a 30-second spot, the concept of engagement rang true.  As Michael Lee, Executive Creative Director at EURO RSCG said “Music is the single most subjective part of a spot” and indicated that personal taste goes a long way toward engaging (or, conversely, alienating) your customers.

The notion of “Not Sponsorship, but Partnership” was echoed across many of the panels including the Levi Strauss discussions, the Cotton Case Study, the conversation with EA’s Steve Schnur and, most obviously, in the Lexus Case Study.  What made the Lexus scenario so interesting was the artist himself, Ryan Leslie, who seems so far removed from the aloof-artist stereotype that he could have easily been mistaken for a CEO.  The delight that Lexus had in working with Ryan was apparent as Ryan brought in not just his music and personality, but creative marketing ideas and a serious digital knowledge base.  As Ryan said “I am an artist and artists want to create, it was interesting not to be tied just to a single, but to be involved in all the creative discussions and strategy for Lexus.”  Lexus and Leslie’s 360-degree artist-brand partnership was effective: a 216% sales increase and 3.3 Million impressions during the campaign.  Kid Rock was another case of deep partnerships in addition to his partnership with Jim Beam, as he is owner, investor, sponsor or just plain spokesman for so many brands, it’s difficult to keep track.  His most captivating brand partnerships were the ones in which he has a direct impact on the lives of people in Detroit through job creation at his local brewery and clothing lines.

From the perspective of the content providers, as opposed to the brands and agencies, a somewhat controversial question of the “Free License” was another recurring theme and we understand artists’ and labels’ concerns here.  The general consensus was the need to evaluate each opportunity based on the whole experience and not just the financial rewards.

A Twitter-feed ran behind the panel following the tweets related to the conference.  Amongst a handful of semi-obnoxious pitches for jobs or “get a free song search now!”, were some really insightful posts which I am including below.  You can access the entire Twitter feed here.

jaybirdcom – so why hasn’t an artist done a p&g-style marketing study before Devo?

Finally, as opposed to our fuzzy iPhone shots above, you can see some nice pics of the event here.

“It’s ev’ry Sunday morning when I am by your side
We’ll jump into the Wagon and all take a ride
Wait for the Wagon, Wait for the Wagon
Studebaker’s Wagon and we’ll take a ride”

“Wait For The Wagon” was first written in 1850 (so says Wikipedia) and a few versions of the song on YouTube have no mention of Studebaker.  We dug a bit.  According to this nugget from “The Life Of Clement Studebaker” (written in 1901 and published in 2009):

“A little girl wrote him a letter telling him that she could play the music of “Wait For The Wagon” which had been set to words advertising the Studebaker wagon.”

So, Studebaker commissioned the new version of the song with new words to promote their product.  This beats by about 20 years what we had previously thought was the first example of Music Branding – the 1905 sheet music for “In My Merry Oldsmobile.”

What was it about car companies in those days (and today) breaking ground with music?

“We simply presented an idea to Verizon and they liked it,” says Mike Boris, Music Producer at McCann Erickson, the agency behind the entire Verizon campaign.  “They had no intention of affiliating with Big Red, they just thought it was a song that everybody would recognize and they wanted to have fun with it” he continued.

And he should know – years before he was the guy choosing music for L’Oreal, Buick, Mastercard and, yes, Verizon commercials, Mike was a sound engineer on one of those Big Red sessions in the early 1990s.  “We brought in one of the original singers from the Big Red spot who I had known from doing that session,” said Mike.

Mike helped run the new session and told us that Wrigley, who owns the copyright on the Big Red jingle, was up for it.  When I asked Mike if they had any concerns about lending their brand sound to another, he said Wrigley had no concerns.  “They asked us to include a Big Red T-shirt which we did and I think they actually got a lot of recognition from the spot.”

When those of us in Music Branding make the case that a brand “owns” their sound, how does that hold up in a case like this? It’s an interesting question and one that merits further discussion.  Does Verizon plan on using any more jingles in this way? “Nah,” says Mike, “There are no current plans to do this again although you never know!”

Watch for yourself:

Verizon’s “Big Red” Commercial:

Original Big Red Commercial:

The total investment by Jovan to have their name on tickets and posters? $1 Million.  For this the Rolling Stones heard cries of “sell-out” from their fanbase but ultimately this introduced a whole new way of associating music with a brand.

By the way, the cost of the recent Blackberry/U2 sponsorship?  $150 Million (reportedly)

Enjoy the vintage poster!

Jerry put me in touch with Tom Pratt, the Executive Creative Director on Crayola at McGarry Bowen and we had a discussion about these music choices.   Music branding experts profess that the right song has to tell both the commercial’s story as well as the brand’s story.  “Crayola is a storytelling brand,” begins Tom, “and the right music helps tell that story.”  I wanted to know specifically what it was about these songs that made them a natural choice for these spots. The songs “not only helps reflect the idea of Crayola as a innovator of new ways for kids to express themselves,” he said, “it also reflects it’s relevance to a new generation.”

As an avid consumer of online music blogs and websites, I was aware that the Crayola spots had been covered on some pretty cynical websites (Stereogum, Pitchfork) who were largely supportive.  I asked Tom how conscious McGarry Bowen and Crayola were of the underground appeal of these artists. “Crayola is all about creative energy, exploration and discovery,” said Tom, “and our music choices were meant to help reflect that.”  As to whether appealing to cynical hipsters was part of the strategy, Tom admits they “were very pleasantly surprised at the warm acceptance of our efforts by the music community.”

Historically, from Nick Drake (VW) in the late 90s to Phoenix (Cadillac) today, ad agencies have a love affair with up-and-coming or underground artists but how much of it has to do with each client?  ”Crayola does have an adventurous spirit and a genuine interest in being experimental in the ways it reinforces itself as a creative brand,” said Tom, “(and) that spirit is reflected in all the ways it sets itself apart from other toy brands.”

Tom concluded, “We like to think that we are joining hands with new up-and-coming bands to bring their creativity, and ours, to a new audience.”

Crayola Glow Station Spot
Music by Dan Deacon

We have often thought that a music strategy that looks to the brand’s attributes to find the right musical voice is a seperate marketing idea than a simple celebrity endorsement but in cases like the above (and the Christine Aguilera/Target partnership, for instance), these two ideas have converged.

Is there a difference between Music (Sonic) Branding and Celebrity Endorsement?  Are cases where the two converge an easier sell to marketers and branding folks?

We would love to hear from a variety of marketing and branding pros what you think – please chime in.