The Ad That Rips Off Hoppípolla
Those of you who are fans of Sigur Rós may have noticed the Lotto advertisement that has begun airing on New Zealand television recently which features a poor imitation of the song Hoppípolla.
When I first heard the start of it last night I immediately identified the music as Sigur Rós, and as would be expected it grabbed my attention. However, shortly thereafter it became apparent that the beautiful piano progression written by the band has been altered to such an extent that I personally feel like Lotto are making some sort of sick attempt to skirt intellectual property rights (I am sceptical as to whether Sigur Rós would approve of their music being featured in some cheesy lottery ad; and even if the case happened to be that they do in fact approve, why does Lotto not use the real song instead of an inauthentic bludgeoned version cobbled together specifically for the advertisement?).
The imitation of the song contains no vocals, obviously not only because they are too hard to imitate, but because that would constitute really really running across the intellectual property line. In Lotto's interests, caution in rip-offery must be exercised. This hasn't stopped them from applying exactly the same muffling effect to the piano sound, the same splashing effect to the drum sound and even incorporating brass into the arpeggios of the climax, though. The sacrilegious fake plays in the background as potential Lotto winners look to the night sky to see shooting stars, as they fantasise about how great it would be to suddenly be a filthy rich self-indulgent monster through no effort whatsoever of their own other than buying a Lotto ticket.
In a state of outrage that was a little more than mild, I embarked on some investigation today and was disheartened to come across a thread on the Sigur Rós Message Boards describing another instance of Hoppípolla being ripped off -- in a sequence in Scary Movie 4. This one is an even poorer attempt, as I discovered upon watching the sequence myself. In a sense, for me this renders it not so unbearable as the Lotto commercial -- it's different enough that it could almost be a horrible coincidence, and merely a score typically written for this type of scene, although it is discernable from the climax, what the melody develops into and the piano work in this particular forgery that it is definitely trying to sound like Hoppípolla. It's certainly not as bad as the Lotto ad, which is a far, far more blatant theft of artistic work.
To hear the real beauty of Sigur Rós's wonderful piece of artwork, you can download the Hoppípolla music video.
When I first heard the start of it last night I immediately identified the music as Sigur Rós, and as would be expected it grabbed my attention. However, shortly thereafter it became apparent that the beautiful piano progression written by the band has been altered to such an extent that I personally feel like Lotto are making some sort of sick attempt to skirt intellectual property rights (I am sceptical as to whether Sigur Rós would approve of their music being featured in some cheesy lottery ad; and even if the case happened to be that they do in fact approve, why does Lotto not use the real song instead of an inauthentic bludgeoned version cobbled together specifically for the advertisement?).
The imitation of the song contains no vocals, obviously not only because they are too hard to imitate, but because that would constitute really really running across the intellectual property line. In Lotto's interests, caution in rip-offery must be exercised. This hasn't stopped them from applying exactly the same muffling effect to the piano sound, the same splashing effect to the drum sound and even incorporating brass into the arpeggios of the climax, though. The sacrilegious fake plays in the background as potential Lotto winners look to the night sky to see shooting stars, as they fantasise about how great it would be to suddenly be a filthy rich self-indulgent monster through no effort whatsoever of their own other than buying a Lotto ticket.
In a state of outrage that was a little more than mild, I embarked on some investigation today and was disheartened to come across a thread on the Sigur Rós Message Boards describing another instance of Hoppípolla being ripped off -- in a sequence in Scary Movie 4. This one is an even poorer attempt, as I discovered upon watching the sequence myself. In a sense, for me this renders it not so unbearable as the Lotto commercial -- it's different enough that it could almost be a horrible coincidence, and merely a score typically written for this type of scene, although it is discernable from the climax, what the melody develops into and the piano work in this particular forgery that it is definitely trying to sound like Hoppípolla. It's certainly not as bad as the Lotto ad, which is a far, far more blatant theft of artistic work.
To hear the real beauty of Sigur Rós's wonderful piece of artwork, you can download the Hoppípolla music video.
posted by Gary at 8:56 pm
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