Bob Dylan Shills for Cadillac
Move Over, Rappers. Folk Legend Pimps This Ride
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| Bob Dylan shills for Cadillac. | ALSO: Comment on this post in the 'Your Opinion' box below. |
Let's let the press release speak for a second: "Music icon Bob Dylan will star in an innovative multi-platform marketing campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade that integrates his critically acclaimed XM Radio show, 'Theme Time Radio Hour.' The campaign, which begins today, highlights XM as a standard feature in the Escalade through TV, online and print. Coinciding with the campaign's launch, Dylan's critically acclaimed XM show 'Theme Time Radio Hour,' which offers an eclectic mix of music based around a weekly theme, will include a 'Cadillac'-themed episode, premiering October 24."
The campaign launches with a :30 spot from Modernista, but we'll let you take a peek at the :60. You'll note that a) You can't even tell it's Dylan for the first half of the ad, b) Dylan for some reason gets out of his Escalade in the middle of nowhere, and c) DYLAN SPEAKS!
Actually, Dylan speaks every week on his critically-acclaimed "Theme Time Radio Hour" show on XM. And this spot isn't nearly as creepy as Dylan in the Victoria's Secret spot, though it does make us wonder if all that music-pirating is cutting into his royalties so much that he has to do commercial work.
But seriously ... while this is meant to promote Dylan's radio show as much as the Cadillac, and while it includes print and online work, the take-away for the average viewer will be this: "Bob Dylan's doing car commercials."
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Forest Steele
Michael O. Accra.
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
-"It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan
"Well I'm drivin' in the flats in a Cadillac car/The girls all say, 'You're a worn out star'" - Summer Days
Just exactly what is the source of your information? I have seen Dylan recently (last couple months), both in concert and in person. He seems to me like a much sharper tack than you'll ever be.
Whether or not Dylan is a "sharper tack" than me is really beside the point. All I said was, my sources tell me he's pretty toasted. and essentially takes on whatever projects are presented to him by his handlers.
And, I would add, he is certainly not the first genius artist who, by his mid sixties, was driven totally insane by the idiocy surrounding him.
1 The answer (yellow ribbon/bring home troops) is blowing in the wind
2 hawks are birds of prey and supporters of war
3 the song playing is "Held" by Smog
4 there is a (freight) Slow Train Coming (all that foreign oil controlling American soil)
5 poor woman by side of road will never own an Escalade
6 Windmills are a source of alternative energy (something is written on it but I can't make it out)
7 When Bob says driving a Caddy makes you feel like a million bucks, my red flag went up. I know that he knows that just ain't so.
8 I find the line about "long road to nowhere" a little ominous, too -like the road we're on as long as we continue to pursue fossil fuels
9 the 2 1/2 acres for sale sign makes me think he is suggesting that if you are so quick as to gullibly accept the superficial message of this commercial, then I have some land in the middle of nowhere that I'd like to sell you
10 Bob arrives at the crossroads (a la Robert Johnson) but then leaves (without selling his soul?) and the Escalade turns left-not right- (politically?) as it leaves
11 My wife (co-conspirator) at one point was sure he said "where the robber meets the road" as in how the auto, petroleum industries rob us. I don't think that's what he said.
I know I am reaching on some of these but some seem pretty obvious. Meanwhile, my wife and I are going crazy wondering what is written on the windmill, train, and what the numbers 143 7 on the sign might say and mean, if anything. How much of this production could really be accidental? That's it. Peace.
George Tezich