Sigur Rós Continue Their Polite Protest Of Commercial Copycats

Sigur Rós, who posted a blog late last month gently, but pointedly, admonishing advertisers who are copying their sound in commercials, continue their campaign in a new blog, posted on October 5, and are collecting examples of as many of the international copycats as they can. Anyone have that Mexican Coca-Cola advert?

The Icelandic band, currently on hiatus, has never sold their music for use in commercials. They first addressed the viral spread of the copycat Sigur Rós sound in advertisements in late September via a blog post titled  "Homage or Fromage?" . In that post they included a generous handful of YouTube examples of commercials for Peugeot, Orange, TelMex and many more and the Sigur Rós songs that they felt were perhaps being used, perhaps, as too much of a foundation.

Today's most recent post, entitled "Homage or Fromage? Part Deux" admits that asking fans to send in more suspect videos of global commercials has been an "interesting and amusing, if ultimately slightly depressing, exercise."

"Thanks to you we not only tracked down some ads we were aware of but could no longer locate (the Telmex adoption ad from Chile and the ridiculous HSBC ad from Hong Kong)," writes Sigur Rós, "but also winkled out such gems as Amica, which seems to be household appliances from Poland, Geox shoes from Italy and an interesting Sony Bravia making-of clip for their 'Play Doh' commercial (see all these now added to original post). Still no sign of the Mexican Coca Cola campaign from last summer, which had a working title of "Teacher", so a gold star and signed photo to anyone who can put their virtual hands on that baby."

The band was especially frustrated with an HSBC advert that not only "saluted" Sigur Rós' music, but also created a "virtual facsimile" of the video for "Hoppípolla."

And while they do address the use of their music for the Discovery Channel or BBC 3, the topic of fair use of music - and the frequent rip-off of certain bands who refuse to bow to financially lucrative commercial enticement - is a provocative discussion that Sigur Rós and their management has chosen to address.

"Anyway, keep the ads flowing in and we'll keep the page growing," the lengthy blog post concludes. "Who knows, as seanthethief suggested on Absolutepunk, maybe if can't beat them we should join 'em? 'If i were in sigur rós i would just let them use the damn songs and go buy an iceberg up there or whatever rich Icelandic people do with their money.' An iceberg sounds nice ...."