Video Game Ads: The Deception of a Housewife

I was just sitting here, enjoying my day off (ha! I'm unemployed), milling about the house, doing laundry...housewife things. Suddenly, my ears piqued at the sound of a song playing on TV. "What song is this? Who sings it? What's it advertising?" Another fucking video game. This has now happened to me too many times. I am not knocking video games or the gamers who play them but, I have had it up-to-here with the random mismatch of video game advertising and their song usage.

Advertising interests me and I've been turned on to many an artist by the use of their songs in commercials (i.e. Band of Horses, Sean Hayes, Amos Lee, etc.) But, someone tell me how Mazzy Star's Into Dust, can coincide with Gears of War: 3. I realize, on some deeper level, Mazzy Star's melancholic lyrics and slow, sweeping melody contrasts with the violent nature of futuristic alien battles yet both compliment each other with their tragic natures. I get it. Deep. And I can appreciate deep but - COME ON! I get so pissed when I see a song I like have Mortal Grand Theft Evil: Black Ops IV, Halo Edition as a backdrop. I associate good ad music with a creative and entertaining commercial and when it's not that, it's a frickin' video game? Kind of a kick in the crotch. Sia's Breathe Me doesn't belong in Prince of Persia, it belongs on the series finale of Six Feet Under. Did Bill Withers write Ain't No Sunshine to promote Dante's Inferno (the 2010 video game, not the first part of Alighieri's classic poem, Divine Comedy, which sadly, when Googled, comes up second (!!!) to the 2010 video game) or did he write it after being inspired by a 1962 Jack Lemmon movie? Hint: It's the latter.

I guess I have to hand it to them - those ad execs who are probably younger than I am - when I hear their ad tracks playing, I look up to see what's being sold to me and maybe that's the master plan. Can't say I wouldn't use it myself if I were a marketing genius. But I'm not. I'm just a stay-at-home mom with a lot of time on her hands who thinks some decent music is being misused. 

Poles apart, I want to thank Saints Row 2 for using the late Easy E's Real Mothaphukkin G's for their ad spot.