4 Flop Songs That Got A Second Chance In TV Commercials

A hit song can come from virtually anywhere, even a TV commercial. In exchange for a handsome fee, bands, singers, songwriters, or rights holders will allow a seller of goods and services to use their tune from long ago in a major TV ad campaign. Those songs then enter the cultural firmament and maybe get a sales boost — even if they were never a hit song in the first place. Many singles that were ignored by the public and flopped on the charts when they first came out become de facto hits years or even decades later — they're banger rock songs got a second life in commercials.

Plenty of well-known big hits are licensed for use in ads, creating a link in consumers' minds between cool tunes and a product. Other advertisers dig deeper, looking for just the right song to fit the vibe of the commercial and to appeal to the right demographic, and sometimes it's a single from the past that didn't initially get much attention. Here are the stories of how singles by Todd Rundgren, Devo, Nick Drake, and the Heavy were saved from obscurity by an ad.

It's among the classic singles that defines the career of Todd Rundgren, but "Bang the Drum All Day" wasn't much of a hit when it was first released. The prolific classic rock iconoclast moved away from moody and atmospheric rock in the 1970s and into pop in the 1980s. For his wryly named 1982 album "The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect," Rundgren recorded "Bang the Drum All Day." Driven by a bouncy guitar-aspiring synth and an anthemic chorus that encourages listeners to shirk their responsibilities — or at least fantasize about quitting their jobs — the song proved popular with radio DJs looking for something appropriate to play on Friday afternoons. Beyond that, it wasn't all that popular the rest of the week or in record stores. "Bang the Drum All Day" peaked at No. 63 in 1983.

"Bang on the Drum" slowly re-entered the mainstream because of its use at sporting events. Since 1995, the song plays at Lambeau Field whenever the Green Bay Packers get a touchdown, and the Cincinnati Bengals and St. Louis Rams adopted the tradition. Then a cruise line realized it was the right kind of song to push vacation packages. Rundgren's song first popped up in ads for Carnival in 2012 and 2013, and he told SiriusXM that he finally started making big bucks off of the tune then.

After scoring an unlikely Top 20 hit in 1980 with "Whip It," Ohio-based performance art troupe/new wave agitators Devo followed with more singles from their "Freedom of Choice" album, including the title track. That song was full of the band's satirical wit and philosophical leanings, suggesting that many people don't want to have to make decisions for themselves — they actually want freedom from choice, as the lyrics relate. Band members and songwriters Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale were inspired after catching a commercial for Carl's Jr. that boasted of customers' ability to pick from a wide variety of hamburgers which all appeared to be humorously nearly identical. Devo appeared destined to be one-hit wonders who deserved more than 15 minutes of fame: "Freedom of Choice" never appeared on the Hot 100.

It was a twisted, ironic, full-circle moment when "Freedom of Choice" started getting played in TV ads. In 2003, the song propelled a commercial for Miller beer, which, like the Carl's Jr. ad, played with the notion of picking out a product from a lineup of similar competitors.  

With an enchanting and hypnotic voice that could reach the sweetest highs and the deepest lows, folk-oriented singer-songwriter-guitarist Nick Drake only made three full albums, and all between 1969 and 1972: "Five Leaves Left," "Bryter Layer," and "Pink Moon." All of them sold poorly, both in the U.S. and in Drake's native U.K., and none of the beautiful, haunting, and deeply emotional songs on those LPs made it onto the American or British singles chart while Drake was alive. In 1974, the 26-year-old musician died after ingesting a fatal amount of antidepressant drugs.

Drake's music earned widespread recognition and reconsideration in the late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks in large part to an artful and well-received commercial. Following a definitive 1997 biography and a 1999 documentary, a 2000 Volkswagen spot showing a group of youths driving contentedly and wordlessly on a starlit night featured the title track from "Pink Moon." So many people hearing Drake for the first time were stunned in a good way, and they were inspired to buy his albums. In early 2000, sales of those LPs, "Pink Moon" in particular, jumped by about 500%.

With its fuzzed-out vocals, soul-infused party rock meets funk thesis, and a fiery horn section, one might assume that "How You Like Me Now?" is a lost or overlooked gem from the 1970s, recorded by an American group at the height of the influence of Motown Records and the Philadelphia sound. But that tune, a boastful track intended to induce regret in exes and/or haters, is a carefully designed throwback, dating only to 2009, as recorded by British band the Heavy on the album "The House That Dirt Built." The song is bolstered by the use of the actually forgotten 1969 song "Let a Woman Be a Woman" by Dyke & the Blazers. While "How You Like Me Now?" was promoted as a single, it underperformed, and didn't make it onto the Hot 100.

Nevertheless, "How You Like Me Now?" went on to become one of the most ubiquitous and frequently heard songs in America owing to its blanket usage in TV commercials. After it was featured in a Kia ad that played during the 2010 Super Bowl, it's been heard in TV-broadcast trailers for "Dexter," "You're Cordially Invited," and "Crutch." It's also the central music in two long-running campaigns: for Microsoft's Copilot software and Michelob Ultra beer. "How You Like Me Now?" has since racked up more than 225 million listens on Spotify.