Timex Throws Down the Gauntlet With Liars Track

Arnold Worldwide Makes Bold, Laudable Choice, Makes Us Happy

Posted by Charlie Moran on 03.27.08 @ 01:11 PM

Artist: Liars Song: "Clear Island" Marketer: Timex

Maybe upon first blush, this sounds inconceivable: Liars (please, no definite pronoun) have licensed a track for a Timex commercial. The band famous for its cataclysmic live shows and a screeching record about witches called "They Were Wrong, So We Drowned" can now be heard on television, in Dolby Digital, where available. SFS adores Liars and would love to give this spot's music supervisor a pat on the back for making such an audacious choice.

You can just imagine a creative saying, "We need something loud and in-your-face," and anxious hands across the room reaching for this week's Hot Modern Tracks list. Then we'd be hearing some Puddle of Mudd or Linkin Park or Seether and not even working up enough vehemence to groan as we flipped channels.

But someone at Arnold Worldwide had a better idea: They took the fiery orange waveform of a Liars track and made a runner sprint through it as it explodes around him. The band chants in the background with a long, droning chord, and the relentless intensity is only broken by a few dime-turning guitar breaks. Not the stuff of hook-laden "hard rock," with its pandering blandness and loud-soft dynamics beaten to death since Kurt Cobain died.

Granted, this track, "Clear Island," is not the most difficult of the band's ouvere, but it shows how really ancient and crusty "modern hard rock" and "alternative" have become, and why creative people with bold visions of pop music are the reason we bother writing about this stuff.

Also, this watch controls your iPod or something, which is pretty cool.