With a James Brown scream and a retro melody, Pharrell just unveiled a new track… as part of an Apple ad. Announcing their new Beats 1 radio station as part of it’s confusing new Apple Music service, as long as the Neptunes-producer is involved, hell, so are we. Alongside ‘Freedom’ we take a look at some of the best tracks Apple have picked to soundtrack their campaigns.
That whole U2 thing aside, Apple are generally on-point when it comes to the power of persuasion through music. Launching their coveted products with a well-timed banger has become their signature – and unlike JZ’s awkward TIDAL exclusives – the perfect track becomes the soundtrack to their latest product. With plenty of hype surrounding the new ‘Apple Music’ – the streaming service to rival them all, apparently, the company picked to two perfect spokespersons – using Drake to announce the project, and now Pharrell.
1. Pharrell Williams – ‘Freedom’
2. Chet Faker – ‘Gold’
No doubt Apple paid more than a thousand trips to the barber for Australia’s bearded and beloved singer and producer Chet Faker. ‘Gold’ was used to launch the brand new Macbook back in March.
3. BADBADNOTGOOD – ‘Triangle’
Part of their iPhone 6 campaign, Apple used jazzy-trio BADBADNOTGOOD’s track ‘Triangle’ to soundtrack ads shot by photographers across the globe on their new iPhone. Perhaps the payment helped the band track down the elusive Ghostface Killer for their incredible collab album “Sour Soul”.
4. Diplo – ‘Revolution’ (feat. Faustix & Imanos and Kai)
Furiously trap shouldering and fighting your way to the bar might be the only exercise you do, but, thanks to Diplo x Apple you don’t have to feel out of your comfort zone at the gym with ‘Revolution’ soundtracking Apple watch’s ‘fitness tracker’.
5. The Black Key’s – ‘Ever Lasting Light’
It might be slightly older than the ad but – goddamn – this is one of the Ohio duo’s most contagious tracks. Fuzzed out guitars and sad lyrics helped promote the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference recap Youtube.
6. Moderat – ‘Bad Kingdom’
The collaborative project between German electronic music producers Apparat and Modeselektor, Moderat’s ‘Bad Kingdom’ is dark sonic exploration of greed and corruption – it’s no wonder then it was used as part of Mac’s retrospective of 30 years making computers with really bad battery life. Just kidding, I love my Mac.
7. Lykke Li – ‘Get Some’
Apple used Swedish singer’s foul-mouthed indie-pop anthem ‘Get Some’ in their IOS 5 campaign. Bonus points for the chorus ‘I’m your prostitute, you gon’ get some’ – I would have liked to be in that creative meeting.
8. King Tubby – ‘Patient Dub’
This classic Jamaican roots record was used in Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference recap video in 2011. We’re hoping they were smoking the good stuff there too – maybe that’s how they came up with Siri.
9. Wolfmother – ‘Love Train’
Let’s get nostalgic for a minute to when I was saving my lunch money to buy my first iPod – that giant dinosaur made the school bus bearable and it’s ad campaign helped launch the career of short lived (the good stuff anyway) Brisbane rock band Wolfmother.
10. Fiest – ‘1234’
Arguably you wouldn’t have had a coveted iPod Nano without that Fiest song on it. The Canadian singer’s lovely, sweet pop song launched a million rip-offs and made you think of getting a colourful Nano every time you heard ‘1234’ – advertising even Don Draper would be proud of.
