Super Bowl Commercial Syncs Score
Songs popularized by Neil Diamond, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston and Charli xcx found new life in commercials during NBC's Feb. 8 Super Bowl LX telecast, which also presented Bad Bunny's Apple Music Halftime Show extravaganza.
Beyond UMPG-signed writer Bunny's 14-song set, the company's sync of Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" in a Hellmann's commercial starring Andy Samberg as "Meal Diamond" generated a ton of online chatter, while the Bon Jovi all-timer "Living on a Prayer" was parodied in amusing fashion by actors Danny McBride and Keegan Michael Key (with keytars and Hailee Steinfeld!) in a State Farm spot.
UMPG also scored with: Randy Newman's "Feels Like Home" (Google); Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" (Budweiser); Dr. Dre and Eminem's "What's the Difference" (Anthropic); INXS' "Devil Inside" (Amazon AI standard-bearer Alexa); John Williams' Jurassic Park theme (Xfinity); Sleigh Bells' "Riot Rhythm" (Ro); a re-recording of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" (Lay's); and bespoke music by Hamnet composer/Best Original Score Oscar nominee Max Richter for Cadillac F1 and Bugonia composer/Best Original Score Oscar nominee Jerskin Fendrix for a faux-dramatic Squarespace commercial starring Emma Stone.
Film trailer syncs included Prince's "I Would Die 4 U" (Project Hail Mary) and the Emerson, Lake and Palmer-performed "Peter Gunn" (The Adventures of Cliff Booth).
Sony Music Publishing's 20-plus syncs were led by: Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (a Bud Light spot in which Post Malone chases an errant beer keg), Charli xcx's "Club Classics" (Poppi) and "Von Dutch" (McDonald's), Travis Scott's "Hyena" (Oakley/Meta), Queen's "I Want To Break Free" (Pepsi), Rick James' "Super Freak" (Svedka), Gizzle's "Go Up" (Hims & Hers Health), Enya's "Only Time" (Novartis), Phil Collins' "Against All Odds" (Liquid I.V.) and Etta James' "Something's Got a Hold on Me" (Dave's Hot Chicken).
Warner Chappell found the end zone with House of Pain's "Jump Around" (Volkswagen), a re-recording of Florence + the Machine's "You Got the Love" (Wix), James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" (Levi's), Ciara's Missy Elliott-assisted "1, 2 Step" (PREP) and Rupert Holmes' still frosty “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” (Xfinity).
Primary Wave participated in the aforementioned Houston, Brown, INXS and Skynyrd syncs, plus the Prince and ELP trailer uses, the latter through its stewardship of the Henry Mancini estate.
The company's writers were further credited for pre-game walkout music airings of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" (co-written by bassist Tom Hamilton), Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" and Alice in Chains' "Man in the Box," and Bad Bunny's set sampled Primary Wave-owned Blue Mountain copyrights of music by Lloyd Oliver Willis, Sly & Robbie and Bob Marley.
Other notable Super Bowl commercial moments came from Benson Boone's role as half of a hapless Italian sibling singing duo with Ben Stiller (Instacart); a Pokémon commercial with Lady Gaga, Trevor Noah and Young Miko; various Backstreet Boys singing separately for T-Mobile and Coinbase; and Sabrina Carpenter constructing the man of her dreams from enormous quantities of Pringles. Crunchy!