He Whistles and Plays Violin...

I stumbled across this well-written spot for Australian job site Seek.au and noticed that it uses a song by one of my favorite musicians, Andrew Bird. Besides eliciting a smile, the ad reminded me of my love of good music direction in any piece of non-static media, television commercials in particular. Music (and art in general) is the substantiation of an artist's experiences and feelings; when you consider that statement in the context of advertising, there doesn't seem to be any easier way to establish an emotional connection with the consumer than with a perfectly chosen song. I don't know how music direction works in an agency, whether there are people whose entire occupation is to flip through MySpace and record label websites searching for the perfect 30 second clip, but I'm certain that if I'm ever given the opportunity to, I'm going to try and save myself a thousand words by exploiting the passions of sound.

Off the top of my head, other spots that have excellent music direction: the use of ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" in VW's "Bubble Boy" ad; Modest Mouse's "Gravity Rides Everything" in Nissan's "Mom's Have Changed"; Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and DJ Squeak E. Clean's title song for Adidas's "Hello Tomorrow".

Finally: The song in the ad is titled "Scythian Empires". Andrew Bird is coming to Richmond on September 30th. Definitely worth the price of admission.