The Best Rock Songs Used In Super Bowl Ads, Ranked

Every year, a big part of the collateral Super Bowl extravaganza are the Super Bowl commercials. Companies pay millions of dollars for a few precious moments of ad time during the NFL's championship game, the most-watched TV broadcast of the year, and so they do everything they can to make sure their ads are memorable. Brands give their specially-made Super Bowl commercials huge production budgets, cast famous and well-liked celebrities, and pay top dollar to secure the rights to iconic and enduring classic rock songs that most of the population seems to know by heart.

Some of these displays of capitalist savvy and marketing might make good and proper use of the guitar-driven staples that Boomers and Generation X members grew up absorbing, in order to create a nostalgic, positive connection and inspire a purchase. Other ads are crass cash-ins that don't do justice to the wonderful song they've been lucky enough to get the opportunity to use. Here are 15 Super Bowl commercials featuring great rock songs, ranked by the greatness of the song and how well and respectfully they're utilized.

Jimi Hendrix tragically died in 1970 at the age of 27, but his tremendous music lived on forever. An often inscrutable genius figure who played psychedelic blues guitar better than anyone else on the planet, the legend of Hendrix only grew after his death, as did the annexation of his music by big companies making commercials. For Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, the same year that featured Janet Jackson in one of the most disastrous Super Bowl halftime shows ever, Pepsi offered up an origin story for Hendrix and his godlike guitar gifts — and one that involved sugary brown bubble water, of course.

In what's Seattle, 1953, according to a chyron (that text on the bottom of your TV screen), a boy walks down the street juggling a piece of pizza and a handful of coins. He sees Coke and Pepsi vending machines and can't decide which to buy, ultimately deciding on the Pepsi. Then he looks up and sees an electric guitar in the window of a music store. Across the street, above the Coke machine: an accordion store. The famous opening riff of Hendrix's "Purple Haze" blasts from the ad as the on-screen copy smugly quips, "Whew, that was a close one."

Part of the messed up reality of Kiss is that the '70s costumed glam-horror band has never turned down the chance to make a buck. In 2010, the musical merchandising and self-marketing machine not only allowed the use of its lascivious 1976 hit "Calling Dr. Love" in an ad that was broadcast during Super Bowl XLIV, but its longtime frontmen, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, starred in it, too.

"Calling Dr. Love," a piano-driven boogie-jam is one of Kiss's better, groovier, and less confrontationally hard rock songs, and in this context, it's used to get millions of viewers interested in a new soft drink variant, Dr. Pepper Cherry. It's different from normal Dr. Pepper, as Stanley cheekily notes, because it's made with "a little kiss" of cherry. And then there's another "little kiss," or rather Little Kiss — a Kiss cover band made up of musicians of short stature. Making those guys the butt of the joke is supposed to be the comic twist; we'd rather just hear "Calling Dr. Love" some more.

In recent years, Skittles has embraced a goofy and surreal approach to advertising to set it apart from all of the other candies at the ready. Manufacturer Mars Wrigley laid out some major cash for some airtime during Super Bowl L in 2016, as well as to hire Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler for his comedy stylings. The scene is an art gallery, where an annoyed Tyler — on his way to corrupt the youth of America with his old time rock 'n' roll — gets to see his commissioned portrait, and one that's made entirely out of rainbow-colored, fruit-flavored Skittles.

The colorful pop art masterpiece also offers a little something extra: It can move and talk, and it sounds almost just like Tyler. A voice actor who doesn't really sound like the singer conducts a combative conversation with the Aerosmith frontman, who directs him in a brief rendition of the climactic finale of his band's 70s classic rock staple "Dream On." But the high notes are too much, and the portrait Tyler self-destructs, all except for his famously huge lips.

After it was included in the 1969 hippie / biker cult classic "Easy Rider," Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" joined the short list of banger rock songs made famous by movies. Thereafter, closely associated with the late '60s counterculture, and feeling free and easy and not beholden to a button-down lifestyle, "Born to Be Wild" has since been used in dozens of commercials, movies, and TV shows, either to seriously underscore a character's rebellious moves or as an ironic counterpart to that. 

It's more of the latter, but it's presented as the former, incongruously, when it was used in a commercial for Mercedes that aired during Super Bowl LI in 2017. Directed by iconoclastic filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, the ad uses the song from "Easy Rider" as well as that film's star, Peter Fonda, in a biker bar setting. Mercedes is a luxury car brand, a vehicle for the upper classes and the wealthy, the kind of thing that hippie bikers were solidly against. So while "Born to Be Wild" is a great song, its use to sell expensive cars hits a sour note.

Radio Shack, once one of the biggest retail organizations in the United States, declared bankruptcy for the first time in 2015, and it would eventually disappear from the retail landscape. In 2014, it made one last desperate bid for surviving into the future by reaching into the past. Recognizing that most Americans considered Radio Shack an old-fashioned or hopelessly dated company by that point, the chain spent millions on a Super Bowl XLVIII commercial in 2014 in which it embraced its retro vibe and made fun of itself for it.

In a dusty strip mall Radio Shack, an employee takes a phone call. "The '80s called. They want their store back." Then, possibly the most '80s song available starts pumping — Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend," set off by a cowbell countdown and killer synthesizer riff. As the spirit of the '80s has been properly established, Radio Shack gets positively ransacked by dozens of blink-and-you'll-miss-them examples of '80s pop culture and intellectual property. Mary Lou Retton, Hulk Hogan, Dee Snider from Twister Sister, and ALF grab stuff off the shelves as do the characters Teen Wolf, Cliff Clavin from "Cheers," and Jason Voorhees from "Friday the 13th."

In the early 2010s, an audio clip of David Lee Roth went viral — it was the Van Halen lead singer's isolated vocal track from the recording of the 1978 hard rock classic "Runnin' with the Devil." Fun, funny, and fascinating, it showed off Roth's pipes as well as his tendency to ad lib, scream, and mutter when in front of a microphone. That became the basis of an Acura NSX commercial about five years later, which aired during Super Bowl L in 2016.

Viewers see an Acura being forged out of raw materials, as if by some supernatural combination of science and magic. Liquids turn solid, parts gleam and come together, and dials light up and get excited. Meanwhile, the audio of the commercial consists of Roth's exuberant outbursts, taken from "Runnin' with the Devil." The message on the screen: "What he said." Acura suggests that Roth is so revved up because he's thinking about the Acura NSX, at which point, the master, full recording of "Runnin' With the Devil" finally blasts through.

Millions of TV viewers watching Super Bowl LI in 2017 likely instantly recognized the music used in a cinematic commercial for fast food giant Wendy's. Those flamboyant and epic piano stabs couldn't come from any other place than "Cold as Ice," a Top 10 hit for Foreigner back in 1977.

A re-recorded, almost identical to the original version of that rock radio staple, doesn't actually start playing until about a third of the way through the 30-second spot. But it's the right song to get across Wendy's message — that it only uses fresh beef for its burgers, not frozen stuff like its biggest competitors allegedly use. The vocals, a scathing accusation and admonition from Foreigner to a cruel and heartless adversary, kick in just as an anonymous fast food employee weirdly tries to thaw some beef inside a cold storage locker with a hairdryer. It's a funny premise, and the song fits. 

For one of its commercials set to air during Super Bowl XLV in 2011, automaker Volkswagen deployed the use of "Black Betty," a head-banging Southern rock stomper from 1977 one-hit wonder Ram Jam. Volkswagen was looking to promote its venerable, insect-like VW Beetle, and it did so with a commercial that took place in the forest. It shows a bunch of bugs doing their thing, marching along through the dirt and debris, never wavering from their boring mission. But there's one rogue critter: the beetle, who does things a little bit differently, not unlike the folks at Volkswagen, the ad implies, or some swampy Southern rockers.

That creature goes flying after jumping off of a stump and landing on a rock, its image evolving immediately into that of the highly recognizable VW Beetle. All the while, the ramshackle, hard-charging strains of "Black Betty" play underneath, the ideal rebellious rock song to go along with the daredevil activities of a black beetle.

While it's clear that old rock songs from the '70s are used in commercials with regularity, it was downright newsworthy when Led Zeppelin decided to allow one of its hard rock confections to be used in an ad. Automaker Cadillac announced via a breathless press release in January 2002 that the heavy, blues-inspired bestselling band's "Rock and Roll," a favorite from its fourth, 1971 LP, would mark the first time any of the group's music had been licensed.

The song was a major part of an ad campaign called "Break Through" to hype a new line of particularly luxurious and high-end Cadillacs, including the CTS, XLR, and Escalade. One ad in the line aired during Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, and just simply showed a bunch of late model Cadillacs racing around a countryside race track. The recognizable "Rock and Roll" plays subtly in the background, with just Jimmy Page's chugging riff giving way to singer Robert Plant's joyous wails.

"Gimme Shelter," the lead-off track from the Rolling Stones' 1969 album, "Let It Bleed," is one of the band's most harrowing and unnerving songs. The ringing and wandering guitars create a sense of mystery, and of being lost, alone, and bewildered, and those are put to proper effect in a Super Bowl XXXIX that aired in 2005. Oscar-nominated director David Fincher, who started his career helming commercials, returned to short-form capitalism with this clip for Heineken, which also reunited him with his "Fight Club" star, Brad Pitt.

In what amounts to a 90-second chase movie, Pitt plays a version of himself. Residing in a glitzy, high-tech high-rise, he's being surveilled by hundreds of paparazzi in another skyscraper. They enthusiastically follow him as he confidently (but clearly nervously) heads to a corner shop to replenish his empty stock of Heineken. He escapes through a back door into an alley, still staying one step ahead of the predatory photographers. Pitt looks cool doing it, mostly because "Gimme Shelter" plays throughout.

The commercial for Hyundai's Santa Fe SUV plays like a satisfying revenge-of-the-kids movie. Such a premise needs a song that's going to inspire its characters to get the audience pumped up, too. Producers wisely chose the straightforward, very hard rocking "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)" by early 1980s metalheads Quiet Riot. This ad brought some very heavy and also nostalgic music to the broadcast of Super Bowl XLVII in 2013.

While delivering a full arc of a plot in its 30-second run time, the rapidly-paced clip also lets viewers know that the Hyundai Santa Fe can seat a whole bunch of kids. A mom helps her son exact vengeance on a group of playground bullies who steal his football — by driving around town and picking up all of his totally metal friends, a collective of pint-sized weightlifters, bear wrestlers, and first responders. The familiar strains of the pop-metal standby are what keep things moving along so briskly.

NBC landed the rights to Super Bowl LII in 2018, which it broadcast just before it was set to air wall-to-wall coverage of that year's Winter Olympics. It gave itself plenty of space to advertise the quadrennial sports spectacular, including one starring popular elite snowboarder and heavily decorated Olympian Shaun White.

Not only is White an excellent snowboarder, he's one of the longest-competing cold weather athletes, medaling in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics prior to his stint in the 2018 games. NBC Sports aimed to demonstrate that White was some kind of indestructible, unbeatable force, a man made of iron, if you will. And so, for its Winter Olympics promo spot during the Super Bowl, it paired footage of White competing and preparing with one of the earliest and greatest heavy metal songs ever, Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" from 1971. That monster guitar riff and those pounding drums are pretty undeniable.

If you're going to make a self-referential, self-deprecating, and self-aware Super Bowl commercial, then the right choice for a needle drop is certainly "Don't Stop Believin'," one of the most valuable classic rock songs of the '80s, if not among the most popular songs ever recorded. The Top 10 hit from 1981 is one of the most frequently used recordings in film and TV, and Journey's songwriting element got another paycheck when it was used to comic effect in a commercial that aired in 2005 as a part of Super Bowl XXXIX.

"Don't Stop Believin'" plays for all of five seconds in the ad for FedEx Kinko's, and it's as a punchline. In the ad, a corporate type claims that FedEx Kinko's is striving in real time to make the scientifically perfect Super Bowl ad, and has included the 10 identifiable, must-use components. A precocious child and cheerleaders observe as celebrity guest Burt Reynolds dances with and fights with a talking bear, punctuated with the necessary "famous pop song," which is, of course, the Journey modern standard.

The beloved 1996 bowling comedy "Kingpin" included a climactic sequence between professional bowlers Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) and Ernie "Big Ern" McCracken (Bill Murray). The whole montage is dramatically and elegantly set, appropriately enough, to Electric Light Orchestra's lush 1973 single "Showdown." When Michelob Ultra got to work on its Super Bowl commercial for Super Bowl LVI in 2022, it counted on audience familiarity or goodwill with "Kingpin" — and that slow burn of an ELO jam — for a bowling-themed commercial.

While plenty of beer ads past and present have featured pro athlete endorsements, this Michelob Ultra spot gathers some objective legends for the "Superior Bowl," a bowling competition to declare cross-sport dominance. NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, NBA star Jimmy Butler, soccer champ Alex Morgan, and tennis great Serena Williams all show up at the humble bowling alley (operated by Steve Buscemi, in a nod to his work in the bowling movie "The Big Lebowski"). While they all bowl and stare each other down, "Showdown" plays, the perfect song to add the playfulness and gravitas the moment requires.

The bizarre history of heavy metal music wouldn't have gone down the way it did without Judas Priest, one of the most influential bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal of the '70s and '80s. Probably the group's best known song, "Breakin' the Law" goes hard, with a powerful, menacing riff, relentless forward momentum, and a sing-along chorus that gleefully encourages rebellion. "Breaking the Law" is a uniting song, not a dividing one, and the impish minds behind Liquid Death — a water company that treats its product like it's dangerous and as metal the cans it uses to distribute its water products — picked the perfect song for its splashy big game commercial, seen during Super Bowl LVI in 2022.

A soundalike studio musician cover of the 1980 Judas Priest classic was used for the ad, humorously made to resemble hard-partying beer ads of the late 20th century. Rather than dudes and ladies chugging suds at bars and beach parties, the Liquid Death ad depicts children absolutely raging, in slow motion. It looks like they're breaking the rules of society by drinking alcohol, but it's all just Liquid Death water. The cap: A woman observes the out-of-control-kids' party and approves before cracking open her own can of Liquid Death that looks a lot like a beer, revealing her pregnant belly.