Amazing VW ad

For the last year or so, I've been totally into a new genre of music called "bastard pop", or "mashups". Mashups are remixes that take the vocal track from one tune and lay it over the instrumental track from another, completely unrelated tune...often with fantastic, unexpected results.




VW's ad agency has done their own audio and video mashup with the new UK commercial for the Golf GTI. In the ad, Gene Kelly sings his classic "Singing in the Rain" over a remix by the dance duo Mint Royale....and then his face is digitally remapped onto another dancer and he starts breakdancing and bodypoppin' like a mofo. It is simply AMAZING.

More about how the ad was made here.

Half the blogs that react to this ad seem to feel it's a travesty, leaving comments like "he's nowhere near as good as the real Gene Kelly", "too bad the family sold his soul for donut money", and "the music sucks, the dancing sucks." No imagination, no appreciation for a new artform. The other half seem to feel the way I do: a collective Holy Shit, that's too damned COOL.

Hats off to my former client, VW, and respect to their agency, DDB London, for this incredible ad.