Is It Holiday Jingle Time Already?

With Re-Worked Pop Song, Target Seems to Think So

Posted by Charlie Moran on 11.06.07 @ 10:34 AM

Artist: Jim Noir

Song: "My Patch" (Original Version)

Marketer: Target

Purchase:

Here in New York, it's 50 degrees, sopping wet and half the leaves are still clinging to their branches. So you know what that means ... it's Christmas jingle time! And Target is here to sate the desire for cheer none of us knew we had with a holiday spot featuring the English lo-fi pop musician Jim Noir.

In perhaps an unwitting nod to "Christmas Is All Around" from "Love Actually," Noir has taken his quirky, almost-antagonistic single "My Patch" and sprinkled it with plenty of holly and snow. What was once "If you ever step on my patch / I'll bring you down / I'll bring you down" is now hilariously "Holidays are times of magic / We're counting down / We're counting down."

And Noir gets away with it too, because his blend of Brian Wilson bedroom-pop is so infectious and unpredictably arranged that one can't help but think that it would make for a killer Christmas album. The plunking strings and (now added) bells feel right at home, and Noir's raspy voice sounds just as sincere on his album as it does in service to rather early holiday shopping.