Radiohead Gets Pumped Up for NBA Playoffs

'House of Cards' Featured in Split-Screen Spot With Steve Nash and Jason Kidd

Posted by Charlie Moran on 04.30.08 @ 03:23 PM

This isn't the first time that Radiohead has licensed a song from its most recent album, the much-talked about "In Rainbows," but it may very well be the first for American audiences. As we wrote a while back, the band lent the gorgeous song "Nude" for a spot promoting the UK teen drama "Skins," but now they've got the song "House of Cards" in one of the NBA's new split-screen spots. They're joining the far-more-obscure (but nearly as rewarding) experimental string group Rachel's in a multi-spot campaign featuring heavyweights delivering simultaneous monologues on such abstract notions as fear, work and belief.

Artist: Radiohead Song: "House of Cards" Marketer: NBA

Keep in mind that Radiohead isn't indie, but we always feel a little tickled to see hip, stridently un-macho bands with their songs in sports commercials. Remember when everybody was flipping out over Arcade Fire being in an NFL on Fox bumper? But controversies aside, it's like a fleeting glimpse of some high school utopia I never had, where the punks and the jocks party together and swap girlfriends. Of course, back in my day, we didn't have FIFA games soundtracked by Radiohead and The Jam; we had "Jock Jams."