Does This Ice Cream Ad Sound Too Much Like The White Stripes?
The White Stripes’ Jack White likes Coke, enough to write a jingle about it. But does he like European ice cream bars enough to let them borrow the Stripes’ sound?
This new commercial for Magnum ice cream bars (which, if you’ve never had one, are wicked good) sounds suspiciously like the Stripes’ 2005 song “My Doorbell.” It might be the simple piano and drums arrangement, or the chord progression, or maybe it’s the way the vocalist does an uncanny Jack White impersonation. There’s even a bit of “Conquest” fanfare right at the beginning, via the horns in the intro.
Tom Waits successfully sued Frito Lay in the late ’80s when they got a sound-alike to impersonate him in a television commercial. Ironically, the jingle sounded like Waits’ song “Step Right Up,” which lampoons false advertising. Check out the Magnum commercial and “My Doorbell” below.
The Royal Treatment ..| Article Tools Provided by: |
|
Subscribe to American Songwriter > Browse The Current Issue > |
Facebook
Entries (RSS)
Wow, there really is some strong similarity there. Usually when I hear these kinds of complaints it seems to me that people are imagining it, but this one bears such a strong resemblance to The White Stripes (and “My Doorbell” in particular) that if I didn’t know better I would swear it was Jack and Meg themselves. (Oh, and how about those two towers at the beginning with the iconic White Stripes colors of red, white, and black? Just a coincidence?) Hmmm.
I’m not sure it’s worth a lawsuit; only the band could decide that. But it might be that Magnum was intentionally trying to draw more publicity, with the deliberate “homage” to The White Stripes. The kids in the video for “My Doorbell” are also shown eating ice cream; so it does seem a little fishy. (The ad, not the ice cream.)
I’ve listened to the White Stripes every day since right around 2000. I’ve listened to My Doorbell hundreds (if not more) times.
The commercial doesn’t sound like My Doorbell.
I don’t if I think that because the commercial song is nowhere near the quality of My Doorbell, or what.
But, no way would I mistake that commercial song for something Jack and Meg did.
Rod – are you deaf? It is a platent rip off!!!
and The Wihte Stripe sounds like Led Zeppelin..jaja!
If you can not hear the WS in that jingly then you are not a WS fan. PERIOD!
Yeah, I find it hard to believe that the similarity would not be obvious to any real White Stripes fan. (So how’s that job with the ice cream company working out for you, huh…?)
Maybe people are not listening to the right section of the song? It’s right at the start of My Doorbell, which is about 30 seconds into the video for the song.
This has been labeled as a rip-off in various other music news websites, such as Pitchfork and I think Rolling Stone, so apparently there are a lot of people out there who notice the resemblance immediately.