Made for advertising Soca....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_aSemA6Mks - Lord Kitchener - love in the cemetary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTgt13JL5i4 - Blaxx - Tanty Woi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWM4hNbohgg - Hard Knaxs - Kentucky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImXOCgxiR30 - Coca Cola Riddem


Is Soca targeting advertising money? Are soca artists trying to take the guess work out for choosing songs for advertising material? Growing trend or opportunists?

 Our culture is under constant barrage by the United Cultural Imperialists State of America, now I fear we have learnt a new trick from them, "Made for advertising Soca".  A growing trend among artists, this undoubtedly is to capitalise on alternate forms of revenue.

Soca music in advertising is by no means a new phenomenon. There may be earlier examples but one dear to my heart is the series of guardian Life commercials done over 20 years ago using even older songs by Kitchener and Sparrow. To those of us who have destroyed a fair number of calenders i am sure these dittys are very fresh in our memories and still generate warm feelings inside.

More deliberate use came when words of popular songs were adjusted to accommodate a particular product or concept. Replacing 'WhiteOak' for 'Puncheon' made Blaxx's 2011 offering Tanty Woi perfect to promote Angostura's more main stream product. I cannot claim that the inclusion of Puncheon was commercially deliberate as drinking and singing about drinking is very much part of our culture but the replacement or relabelling was definitely deliberate.

This brings us to 2012 and the Coca-cola Riddem, Hard Knaxs, et al...   need I say more?..

DW