AMERICA RUNS ON DUNKIN'

So uh. TMBG did the songs for this ad campaign, you know the one. Two songs that were on here actually got extended for studio use — Got Getting Up So Down showed up on Phone Power.

So I have to watch a bunch of Dunkin' Donuts commercials. The thing is that they're genuinely entertaining? Like, I'm not one for advertising, obviously, but the songs are at least inventive. I don't feel like TMBG loses their soul here, these songs could have been used outside this context and would have fit fine (if not a bit simplistic).

Most of these ads kind of incidentally have Dunkin' Donuts in them. It's like a movie product placement type thing. If anything, it reminds me of the Karl Heindel tracks on TMBG vs. McSweeney's, where the lyrics are about the very literal things happening in the visual medium. Everyone lipsyncs to the TMBG lyrics in all of these. What?

Hell, Karate! could have fit on the kids' albums fine. It screams late-2000s, as does this entire thing, but whatever. This is one of the points where marketing got predatory in the sense of "I don't even know what this ad is about yet" kind of thing.

I'm not from New England and I cannot hope to possibly say anything negative about Dunkin' Donuts as a result. If I badmouth Dunkin' everyone in Boston and Connecticut will attack me simultaneously. You'll never hear from us again.

There's also Songs About Coffee, a thing TMBG put on YouTube that's a compilation of all their work for Dunkin' and some unreleased ones. It's a fun listen; without the context it almost feels like listening to Fingertips.