[link to original on tumblr]
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I heard "This Will Be Our Year" in a commercial for Starbucks this evening, and I have mixed feelings about it.
A small part of me is excited that the Zombies are in an-other commercial because there's a chance that more people will learn about them through it. (Which seems like a good segue to remind you to vote for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.)
Most of me is disappointed because of how the song's presented in the commercial. It's the stereo mix rather than the mono mix (which I know only because it's missing the horn overdubs, which are present only in the mono mix). In my opinion, the mono mix is superior. Not only are the horn overdubs there, but the piano seems stronger in a way. It might not be the right word, but it seems more focused in the mono mix.
Mostly though, I just think it's kind of ridiculous that there are three sections of the song edited together for a thirty-second commercial (or however short it is). Chopping it up doesn't really give a true sense of what the song is.
It's always weird when songs I love are in commercials because - more often than not - I'm more interested in the song and in supporting the band than I am in whatever product the company is trying to sell by exploiting my emotional investment in the song. I mean, I wasn't even looking at the television until I heard the opening chords (which I recognized immediately), and I was much more interesting in the Zombies' being on television than in Starbucks. (I'm apparently an outlier among erstwhile English majors in that I don't drink coffee. I had it once; I dislike it.)I saw the same ad on Twitter this morning, and I searched for (and found it) on YouTube:
One of the best (musical) features of the song - in my opinion, anyway - is the chromatic bass part and how even the chords by themselves contain that descent. They edited the introductory piano part so that chromaticism is completely destroyed. Instead of the chromatic phrase from A to E and then the diatonically descending phrase with the triplet (D, D, C#, B, A), it goes from G# to D.
The "And I won't forget the way you held me up when I was down" section following the first verse is excised, so the wonderful modulation from D minor to D major that's coincident with "'Darling, I love you'" is also absent.
I'd thought they'd edited the piano break from the middle so that it transitions into the piano part at the very end (which wouldn't work because there's a key change from A major to Bb major), but they just end it right before that key change. While that key change might be troublesome for me to play sometimes (it's easier to play the chord progression in A major than Bb major), I still think it's an integral part of the song. To some degree, it represents the temporal progression to what is now "our year."
While I'm hesitant to concede it, I realized that they have to edit the song in some way in order to make it fit a thirty-second commercial, but these edits are terrible.
