The Hurt Doesn't Show But the Pain Still Grows

When "Don't Stop Believin'" was uses to underscore the final scene of "The Sopranos," it inspired a flurry of articles celebrating and/or deriding the self-diagnosed "renaissance of Journey." Most of the arguments put forth filled me with self-righteous smugness. In my world, the Journey comeback had started years before. In fact, over two years before "Don't Stop Believin'" appeared while Tony Soprano stuffed his face with onion rings, I attended the wedding of one of my best friends, and saw that he had made good on a promise to convince his bride to walk down the aisle while the wedding pianist cranked out the opening chords from the Journey masterpiece. As she walked down the aisle to get married! It was far and away the greatest thing I've ever seen at any ceremony, and nobody in attendance needed David Chase to tell them that it was OK to appreciate Steve Perry.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that people go apeshit when a classic song from decades ago forces itself back into pop culture, either genuinely or in a ironic sense. Case in point: Phil Collins is back people.

Exhibit A: The promo for a new sitcom "Carpoolers" centered around "In The Air Tonight." I know nothing about this show (other than Vern is riding shotgun!) but I'm betting the ad will run for a longer duration that the series.



Exhibit B: A stunning ad for Cadbury running in the UK. Apparently this ad launches a £6.2m campaign for the company, which may help explain why they're cutting costs by shrinking the Cadbury eggs.


Perhaps things are simply coming full circle. Today, virtually every television series uses commercial music in episode montages/flashbacks/establishing setups, but it was "Miami Vice" producer Michael Mann who in 1984 first had the vision to combine cheesy overdubbed drum compressions with amazingly hackneyed dialogue between Don Johnson and his ex-wife.


23 years later, Phil Collins is back in the forefront of the worldwide psyche. We are a nation of Alec Baldwins, repeatedly enjoying our mixtape from Tracy Morgan.