You ever hear a song you know in the background of a commercial? Of course you have, that’s how our capitalist, marketing overlords get ya. But there’s a difference between Michael Jackson [RIP] and Britney shilling for Pepsi, and say…Pantera, far beyond driving burgers into your head. When the ad execs embrace the metal world, you can end up with some odd, or awesome commercials. This list celebrates ten of the coolest metal related commercials around.
Chelsea Wolfe – Jaguar
Chelsea Wolfe rules. Sonically, her music covers a lot of bases but one of the major ones, is heavy ass metal. Her 2015 album Abyss has proved fertile ground for film trailers. The track “Survive” was used in the Live By Night trailer, and “Carrion Flowers” in the trailer for Dark Places . It’s the latter song’s use in this 2017 Jaguar commercial that sparked the idea for this list in our feeble brain last year. Haunting. gorgeous and the heaviest luxury car advert you'll probably ever find, it's a sick commercial, for a rad song. Oh yeah, this post was not sponsored by Jaguar or Sargent House in anyway [yet, crosses fingers!].
Led Zeppelin – Cadillac
In their prime, Zeppelin were the biggest band in the universe. After their unfortunate demise, the band kept its music library under wraps and out of the grubby hands of corporate parasites for decades; until…this 2002 Cadillac commercial that reshaped the 21st century marketing landscape overnight. For a small fortune, Cadillac nabbed the rights to Led Zeppelin’s hit “Rock and Roll” and jump shot their sales with aging baby boomers into the stratosphere overnight. The feeding frenzy for big dollar rock nostalgia went into over drive, and we can thank this Gary Sinise narrated auto commercial for the last two decades of, well you know.
Steel Panther – Discover Card
Steel Panther, everyone’s favorite comedic, 80’s glam metal tour de force; previously existed as Metal Skool, and before that Metal Shop. There’s another name they went by in this early 2000’s Discover commercial: Danger Kitty. Spoofing the popular VH1 Behind The Music format, crunched down to a 30 second TV spot, Steel Pan…er, Danger Kitty’s story is the rise and fall of glam metal icons who go from dominating the charts, to playing Bar Mitzvahs in The Valley. Shout out to Discover for prepping for the world for Steel Panther’s inevitable rise to power; and for releasing an actual “Love Rocket” single/CD back in the day because honestly, that song rules.
Suffocation – The History Channel
This is not a typo or mix up. Suffocation was featured in an ad campaign for the History Channel’s special series on The Dark Ages back in 2007. In this commercial, The band plays their song “Bind Torture Kill” from their 2006 self-titled album, while an extremely knowledgeable janitor lectures a co-worker about the deeds of barbarian tribes and how uber violent Visigoths naturally paved the way for super brutal death metal. It’s a leap for sure but how rad is it to see and hear friggin Suffocation on television?! The History Channel no less. I doubt when the guys were penning lyrics for “Infecting The Crypts” back in the day they’d ever think they’d be associated with a historical documentary dealing with actual, ancient crypts. Still don’t know why the two custodians are wearing earmuffs either…we all Frank’s growl would tear those things to pieces.
Godsmack – Navy
The United States Navy is easily the mightiest fleet in the history of the world, and they’ve also produced some of the coolest goddamn recruitment commercials. Whether you’re an anti-imperialist SJW, or a MAGA Stormtrooper, there’s no denying how down right cinematic and well-crafted these Navy commercials are. Part of their genius, aside from casting Keith David as narrator supreme, is their use of Godsmack tunes in the ads. That’s right, Godsmack supplied their song “Awake” for exhibit A embedded above, then brought “Sick of Life” to the table for this second commercial you can view HERE . The riffs, Sully’s roar, the masterful cuts in editing, if these ads didn’t boost enlistment during the 2000s [while two wars were raging] they definitely played a role in Call of Duty sales skyrocketing.
More awesome commercials on the next page…
