The Weirdest Classic Rock Songs Ever Used In TV Commercials

Surviving the wild world of rock 'n' roll can be tricky. Of course, we're happy to see our favorite rockers make it to middle age and beyond. As time goes on, though, one thing rears its rather ugly head: money. That may take the form of pushing for album sales, going on tour, and selling merch, but artists may also license their songs for ads. Yet marketing firms don't always think things through. Some classic rock songs, for instance, have appeared in commercials so far removed from their artistic rebel roots that the team-up leaves you dazed and confused.

Why, oh why, should we think about Kiss' big hit, "Rock and Roll All Nite," when we're perusing half-price appetizers at Applebee's? And how did Lou Reed convince himself that "Walk on the Wild Side" was really the right choice for shilling scooters and computers? Others are even more notorious, as when the Beatles' record company (including Paul McCartney) got big mad about "Revolution" being included in a Nike commercial. All of these and more speak to the frankly weird marriage between advertising and classic rock.

When Iggy Pop released his 1977 album, "Lust for Life," it came at a turning point. Realizing the impact substance misuse was having on his health and creativity, he moved to Berlin alongside David Bowie. The two worked together on multiple albums, including Pop's first solo record, "The Idiot," and its followup, "Lust for Life." The title track from "Lust for Life" has a carpe diem ethos, but there's more than a hint of overenjoying life to the point of self-destruction. Ultimately, it's a song born of survival, showing Pop's drive to engage with life in an energetic, even joyful way despite the darkness that nearly consumed him.

So, what was it doing in a series of ads for Royal Caribbean Cruises in the early 2000s? Sure, even punks need a payday. With that said, the juxtaposition of Pop's frenetic song with family-friendly images of people going to spin class or flinging themselves down a water slide is still jarring. No one here is partying so hard they need to retreat to Berlin with David Bowie to get their life back together. Indeed, the original song's lyrics referencing various substances never made it into the commercial. Perhaps that's just as well when referencing a family vacation, but we're still casting some side-eye at Royal Caribbean's punk rock pretensions.

While we can't really say what Janis Joplin would have thought of the rest of the 20th century, we can reasonably guess that she would have been skeptical of the 1995 Mercedes-Benz ad featuring her song, "Mercedes-Benz." You see, Joplin's track was a satirical takedown of materialism, inspired by San Francisco-based beat poet and musician Michael McClure. After ad-libbing it during a night out, Joplin spontaneously sang it at a gig that evening. "We just all looked at each other and then tried to follow along," drummer Clark Pierson told The Wall Street Journal. Even her decision to track it in the studio was spontaneous, though it would prove to be her last-ever recorded song before her tragic death.

That spirit of spontaneity and cultural critique makes "Mercedes-Benz," the song, a truly weird bedfellow for Mercedes-Benz, the brand. Yet, the car company tried anyway. It was a blunt-edged attempt to update its image and attract younger buyers when at least some boomers were making more money. Perhaps Joplin — who owned a Porsche, for what it's worth — would have come around. The singer's younger sister, Laura, told the Roanoke Times that she and brother Michael felt justified licensing the track to Mercedes. "It does honor to the song as well as to the car," she said.

If there is one song that epitomizes the unique boundary-pushing, freewheeling subcultures of '70s New York City, it's got to be "Walk on the Wild Side." Sung by Lou Reed, who had left the Velvet Underground and included it on his 1972 album, "Transformer," it was produced by David Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson. The lyrics reference people associated with Andy Warhol's artistic scene, speaking to the prior relationship between Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Warhol had become deeply involved with the band in prior years, producing the group's 1967 debut and even screenprinting a banana in his characteristic style and using it for the album cover. With "Walk on the Wild Side," even if Reed wasn't necessarily making bank, the song did help him gain a lot of cultural cred (and it also reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100).

But, as it turns out, Reed needed money more than he did artistic cred. Hence, the song appeared in an '80s ad for Honda scooters and, later, a 2011 campaign for the HP TouchPad. The earlier Honda spot at least draws on imagery of New York City, even if this showed that the once famously anti-establishment Reed could be bought after all. As he told a crowd at NYC's Ritz hotel in July 1986 (via Far Out), "And I gotta pay the rent, too, and can't you take a f****** joke?"

Some commercials that draw on classic rock are cringey, but this entry from Geico may be truly offensive, depending on who you ask. The ad, as it aired in 2013, shows a man made up of hundred-dollar bills, which flutter off him as he rides on his motorcycle. The idea is that this unholy amalgam of human and paper money is saving tons of cash with Geico motorcycle insurance. So much, in fact, that he can afford to let it waft away on the breeze while the Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider" plays.

It may make sense at first — hey, look, a guy riding a motorcycle while a motorcycle-themed classic rock song plays — but only if you forget what happened to two of its members. In 1971, frontman Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident when he was only 24 years old. The following year, bassist Berry Oakley also died in another motorcycle accident — eerily, in practically the same area of Macon, Georgia, in a similar manner. While some viewers of the Geico ad were nonplussed, distanced from the tragic accidents as they were by more than 40 years, others couldn't help but notice the awkward usage of "Midnight Rider."

"Revolution" is a multifaceted Beatles song discussing social unrest and the complexities of political protest. So why was it used to sell Nike sneakers in March 1987? Soon after the ad's release, Apple Records (the Beatles' record company) sued Nike, EMI Records, Capitol Records, and the Wieden & Kennedy ad agency for $15 million. Their argument? No one had asked the surviving Beatles, though it turned out that Yoko Ono (who was then on Apple Records' board) had been okay with the deal. But Michael Jackson owned the song rights after outbidding Paul McCartney — ironically, after taking McCartney's own financial advice to secure someone's song rights. Legally speaking, Jackson had every right to license "Revolution" to Nike.

Before release, the ad's directors, Paula Greif and Peter Kagan, thought they were just using the Beatles' "Revolution" as a temporary "scratch" track that would be replaced by a cover version. However, they were surprised to learn that the ad agency was moving ahead with the original recording, and they would have no more editing power. "We had always finished our stuff all the way to air," Kagan told Rolling Stone. "We went in and saw what they had done. I hated it. ... I might have had a bit of a tantrum."

Even with the dramatic legal and creative upsets, the artistically minded spot doesn't quite work. John Lennon singing about the destructive side of social change and the naïve mindset of some hopeful revolutionaries is far deeper than what the commercial has to say: That you should work hard at sports and buy the new Nike Air Max sneakers.

If you weren't already in the know, the Velvet Underground's 1967 track, "Venus in Furs," was inspired by an 1870 novella of the same name. The book was written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose name inspired the term "masochism," if that gives you any hint as to the content of his work. The Velvet Underground song isn't quite so X-rated, but it is a darkly metaphoric '60s track nonetheless. With its chanted lyrics and eerie drone, "Venus in Furs" puts one in mind of forbidden topics, smoky backrooms, and people whose names you may not care to remember later.

Which makes it a perfect single to ... promote car tires? Supposedly, Goodyear once ran a commercial with this song, though that ad has apparently been lost. But a subsidiary company, Dunlop Tyres, did release a 1993 spot that featured "Venus in Furs." The ad tries very hard to be artistically edgy, with people covered in metallic body paint posing awkwardly, a piano plummeting out of nowhere, people clutching at ball bearings, and a car driving through a color-adjusted landscape. It does try to tie all the disparate imagery together with the phrase "tested for the unexpected." Yet by the end, it's still unclear how frowning children and mysterious masked women — much less a Velvet Underground drone-rock single — were ever supposed to communicate the quality of Dunlop Tyres.

Upon first glance, the 2002 Wrangler ad featuring "Fortunate Son" seems fine, with imagery of laughing people doing pleasant outdoor things while the U.S. flag flutters grandly in the sun. Yet that only underlines awkwardness inherent in using this particular song here. That's because the track was an acid critique of the Vietnam War draft and the inequality John Fogerty saw when it came to who was obliged to serve.

While we can't get into every Wrangler exec's head, it seems they intentionally misinterpreted "Fortunate Son" (movies have also ruined the seething anti-war protest song). The ad omits the more uncomfortable lines that directly reference war, leaving a crass appeal to suburban American consumers via family-friendly and patriotic tropes. Fogerty himself wasn't shy about hating it, but since he sold his recording rights to Fantasy Records, he had no legal say in the matter. 

"When you use a song for a TV commercial, it trivializes the meaning of the song. It almost turns it into nothing," he told SFGate. Even more bluntly, he expressed to The New York Times: "I don't get what the song has to do with pants." Wrangler advertising director Craig Errington also told the NYT that he understood it "as an antiprivilege anthem, as an ode to the common man," but that it somehow wasn't an anti-war song.

There was a time when "Rock You Like a Hurricane" was at least kind of cool. Conceived by the German metal band Scorpions as a crowd-pleasing stadium anthem, it proved to be just that. Sure, getting the lyrics right took many tries and involved an X-rated original title that referenced the wild rock 'n' roll lifestyle of many bands in the '80s. But what eventually came out of that process turned out to be a tremendous hit, reaching a relatively meh No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 but ranking far higher on rock charts and even experiencing a mini-revival via Season 2 of "Stranger Things." Oh, and of course you can't forget its use in a 2014 commercial for digestion-friendly Fiber One cookies, can't you?

The commercial in question features a grocery store employee attracting the awed attention of multiple women as he walks through the store. He thinks they're into him, but the ravenous shoppers are actually drooling over fiber-enhanced cookies he's carting about. Dietary fiber is great and all, but its use here makes the original song seem like it's wheezing its way into the retirement home (which, with apologies to the Scorpions, maybe it is these days).

The '90s Chevrolet commercials utilizing Bob Seger's "Like a Rock" are so iconic now that adults of a certain age may be able to conjure them just by humming a line or two. If you're among that group, you can already see it, flickering on an old television screen: Seger's grizzled, all-American voice over images of hardworking laborers, all supported by a Chevy truck that, as the ad maintains, is "like a rock." Naturally, there are shots of American flags, blue-collar workers gazing stolidly into the camera, while others are hard at work at the steel mill or on the farm. There's even a hefty cow scrambling into the bed of a Chevy, which one presumes will be able to stand up to such wear and tear just fine.

Seger's original song, however, isn't quite so laudatory, no matter what nostalgic online commenters may think. Speaking to The New York Times, Seger revealed that it was inspired by the breakup of a long-term relationship and also "expresses my feeling that the best years of your life are in your late teens when you have no special commitments and no career. It's your last blast of fun before heading into the cruel world." It was never meant to be a one-note promotion of sturdy pickup trucks or a quasi-mythical American heartland — "like a rock" does sound a little on the nose, now that we think about it — but a bittersweet recollection of one's bygone youth.

Neil Young was never one for commercialization. Take his 1988 song, "This Note's For You," an overt protest against commercialization, with Young singing that he "Ain't singin' for Pepsi / Ain't singin' for Coke / I don't sing for nobody / Makes me look like a joke." Though he sold half of his publishing rights in 2021, all of that prior history made it all the more odd when another one of his hits, "Old Man," appeared in an NFL spot. The 2022 ad, featuring Beck covering the track, was directed quasi-cheekily at quarterback Tom Brady, who finally retired at age 45 after that season. 

The focus on an ultra-famous, mega-rich football player doesn't really line up with Young's original interest in more downtrodden or forgotten types. The liner notes for a later compilation album, "Decades," Young wrote of "Old Man" (via Newsweek): "This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there." Tom Brady doesn't seem the sort of person to hang out in that metaphorical ditch. The thoughtful, sometimes regretful song also references the difficulties of touring life and was inspired by tough times for Young, including a divorce and back injury that significantly impacted his ability to perform. Shortly after the ad aired, Young registered his discontent with an Instagram post featuring a shot from the music video for "This Note's For You." In it, Young holds up a glass bottle emblazoned with a label declaring him to be "sponsored by nobody."

According to Kiss frontman Gene Simmons, the band's hit, "Rock and Roll All Nite," began as a tune Paul Stanley hummed to him while they were buying hot dogs and beans. The 1975 studio version of the song was a disappointment, only ever reaching No. 68 on the Billboard Hot 100. Yet a live version released the next year on the group's "Alive!" album managed No. 12 and turned what was once a '70s flop song into a genuine hit that's indelibly associated with Kiss. Simmons and the other members of the band haven't been above licensing the use of their songs for commercials, though — the group finally sold the rights to its catalogue to Swedish entertainment company Pophouse in 2024.

Over the years, "Rock and Roll All Nite" went from a raunchy celebration of life, partying, and rock to support for a bevy of anodyne ads. A brief clip of the song was used in a 2011 Old Navy commercial — maybe you wanna rock 'n' roll all night in budget-friendly clothing? The track was also included in a 2024 Applebee's commercial promoting another round of late-night, half-price appetizers. Could you continue to party every day if you'd consumed mass quantities of discount fried mozzarella sticks the evening before? Then there was a 2014 Android commercial that not only featured the song but also animated avatars of the band smashing a man's phone. One can apparently rock 'n' roll all night, secure in the assurance that their Android phone has automatically backed up their data. Rockin'.

Troubled and brilliant as Brian Wilson may have been, it's pretty clear that he was onto something when he started developing the Beach Boys hit, "Good Vibrations," which readily sailed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 after its 1966 release. He came up with the idea for the song, originally called "Good Vibes," but hired writer Tony Asher to handle the lyrics. Still, Wilson put in a legendary amount of work into the song, even hand-writing notes for musicians during recording sessions. He was so precise that he put the song together from segments recorded at three separate studios. 

What resulted was a meticulously crafted masterpiece that wasn't just about making eyes at a girl — it also spoke to having a quasi-mystical connection with someone. Practically everyone who listened to the track prior to its public debut realized that this was a whole new level of music that went beyond the rock 'n' roll of the day and even the Beach Boys' own prior work. Take all that, then, and try to cram it into an ad for Sunkist Soda. Actually, make that a series of ads, as the brand first began using covers of "Good Vibrations" in its ads in 1978. The campaign was all about having a good time on the beach and sipping on an orange soda, with more frisbee and windsurfing than psychedelia involved in the affair.