This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.
When I was 9 or 10 years old, a teenaged family friend played an album for my younger brother and I in his basement. That album was Rio. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a pivotal moment in my discovery of music. Most fans don’t think of Rio as album rock mainly because it contained monster hits and music videos in the title track, “Hungry Like The Wolf” and “Save A Prayer”. But this friend of ours didn’t draw our attention to these obvious tracks. He pointed to the depth of the album, and specifically called out the sublime beauty of “The Chauffeur” and the fan-favorite banger “My Own Way”.
Is there a better way to describe this track than disco-tinged new wave banger? I don’t believe so. It’s a collision of worlds. That old late seventies sound of Japan and Roxy Music fueling our beloved Track 2 with one of John Taylor’s finest bass lines (and there are a lot of them). The lesser celebrated Taylors – Andy and Roger – do their thing with some unconventional, seemingly off-key guitar chords and a Brit rock barrage on the drum set. Nick’s synth hooks as always aren’t overdone. Shimmery and perfectly occupying the treble range. And Simon sings with a swagger that makes him the dynamic frontman he is. “Cause I’ve got my own way, ay-yee ay-yee ay-yee ay-yee ay-yee ay-yee ay-yee.”
“I'm on 45tH between 6th and Broadway. 7-UP between Sixth and Broadway.”