When Music Videos and Campaign Commercials Combine
What could be better than a campaign commercial? One that is also an epic music video! I just discovered these today, and I’m so happy I did.
Music is an integral part of campaigns in America. Each candidate has their theme song, that familiar tune that gets cued up at the end of a fervent stump speech that the poor underpaid aids must be so sick of hearing by November.
In 2008, the Obama campaign used Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours’. Then there was the celebrity-laden, Will.i.am-produced ‘Yes We Can’ music video that went viral. Hillary Clinton used Tom Petty’s ‘American Girl’. John McCain’s choices were troublesome, picking a series of songs written by democratic musicians who either publicly chastised or even sued him for unauthorized use including ‘Baracuda’ by Heart, ‘Johnny B. Goode’ by Chuck Berry, ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen, and ‘Running on Empty’ by Jackson Browne. He eventually settled on ‘Raising McCain’, an original by country music star John Rich. This year, Republican presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been going with Kid Rock’s ‘Born Free’.
Mongolian campaigns go one step further with their music by producing several epic music videos with national celebrities and high production values. Below are a few choice videos from the Mongolian People’s Party and the Democratic Party, along with rough translations of the lyrics.
Bid Bigd Neg Mongol – We Are One Mongolia (Mongolia People’s Party)
Featuring several very famous musicians from three generations.
Haluun Elgen Nutag – I Feel Warmly For My Country (Democratic Party)
This is one in a series of videos produced in provinces around Mongolia. The song is a famous one here, one that everyone would recognize. The individual video is not particularly impressive, but the overall effect of having the same song sung in each province is meaningful.
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