It just doesn't 'ad' up...

• by Melissa Bobbitt
• Nov 26, 2012

Photo credit: Frenchkiss Records

A band mate lays a hand on Michael Angelakos' belly. Mmm, he must be well fed and cheery, full of Taco Bell Doritos Locos. Yup, indie faves Passion Pit have lent their catchy tune "Take a Walk" to the fast-food giant for its kooky concoction. Now, this isn't a rant on selling out but rather a scratching of the head for why the big Bell selected this song about an immigrant's suicide to represent its cheesy goodness.

Passion Pit aren't the only musicians to provide questionable material to even more questionable ads. Here are a few memorable ones in recent history:

Post-hardcore band Thursday penned a haunting track on their 2006 album A City by the Light Divided called "Running from the Rain," a tear-jerking narrative in which two teens die in train crashes. In a sad, ironic turn, the epic number became the soundtrack to a Saturn Sky Roadster ad, inevitably showing a lot of driving techniques suitable for stuntmen only. True, the vocals were cut from the commercial, but it still leaves a punk perplexed.

This cringe-worthy reimagining of a Beatles classic is probably brought to you by the last throngs of Michael Jackson's financial desperation before he died in 2009. (He owned 50 percent of the publishing rights to the Beatles catalog.) So now a song about peace is forever connected with baby's strained peas - after digestion. Yuck.

I have no words.