back to article HP gives Lou Reed a right shoeing

We suspect that Lou Reed fans will be queuing up to do to HP what the company has done to Walk on the Wild Side, ie: give it a right shoeing ... This celebration of "Everybody On" magic aired during the Grammys last night, with HP no doubt hoping to seamlessly connect with tuned-in hipsters. It may well have succeeded, …

COMMENTS

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  1. Spot the Cat
    FAIL

    WTF?

    OMFG - that is all.

  2. Return To Sender
    FAIL

    Urrghhh

    By the gods that's awful. I was so stunned I can't even remember what they're trying to sell. Who were they? What?

    1. Marvin the Martian
      Unhappy

      HP

      Weren't they ink sellers? I believe they were. With some sidelines in mickey mouse tech (inc),

  3. Jon Wilson
    Thumb Up

    Heavens to Betsy

    I'm absolutely no Reed fan, but that's just toe-curlingly bad. Can I kick it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      yes You Can

      See above

    2. HFoster
      Thumb Up

      A Tribe Called webOS?

      Please tell me this was a reference to the brilliant A Tribe Called Quest single that also sampled Walk on the Wild Side.

  4. DJV Silver badge
    FAIL

    One word....

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

  5. Peter 4

    FUCK HP

    What a load of shite! Did Lou actually licence that, did he know what was going to happen to his music?

    FUCK HP, now there is a good reason to avoid their rubbish tat.

    P.

  6. War Monger

    Mark Hurd

    isn't the only one at HP to demonstrate poor judgement.

  7. Baudwalk
    Heart

    Quality ad

    Same quality as their Elitebook laptops - i.e. crap.

    *sigh* To think it was only 20 years ago HP still made top quality (with matching price tag) equipment.

    Still, even that voice-over can't stop my feet from tapping to a great tune.

  8. VeganVegan
    Grenade

    Walk on the vile side...

    I suspect that it will take a mighty amount of plucking & shaving for Lou Reed's fans to accept this travesty.

    For HP though, a hustle here and a hustle there just might pay off...

  9. Neil Greatorex
    Happy

    That dog at 0:49

    Gets my vote.

  10. IR

    And all the coloured girls go

    Oh my, that's awful.

  11. MnM
    Badgers

    I love David Bowie

    less so HP, now.

  12. Naughtyhorse

    the

    basdards

  13. Peter Gordon
    WTF?

    Well, i'm a huge webOS fan

    but that ad is dreadful. What the hell were they thinking?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That wasn't all bad.

    The first thing that popped into my mind was the verse about 'shaved his legs, then he was a she'.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Haven't watched it but ...

    ... I'm totally outraged.

    Actually I can guess what it is ... I assume they taken a good song and done a "John Lewis" on it - i.e.stuck it in a twee ad with a singer totlaly inappropriate for the song but who matches the audience they are aiming at (anyone rememebr JL's awful "sweet child o'mine" from Christmas before last)

    1. Colin Miller

      Victoria Bergsman

      That cover was done by Taken By Trees, which is Victoria Bergsman's solo project. She was previously in The Concretes. It isn't the worse cover of Sweet Child o' Mine by a long shot.

  16. Fuzz

    Everybody digg?

    people still do that? I thought digg was pretty much forgotten about and everyone was using reddit. Not sure what that says for webos

  17. Camilla Smythe

    I thought there might..

    be something more 'intrinsic' to the original....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkwD261MHsc

    I assume HP have a reason for getting it so wrong?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Unfortunately, it's not the worst on American TV...

    Xerox has been airing an ad for some time now, featuring some muppet having an argument with a poster-board cutout of Notre Dame's "fighting Irishman" mascot - as if it were a real person. I think the ad might have had something to do with print output costs, but I'm pretty quick on the mute button, so I'm not really sure.

    And running a close second are the penis pill ads from Big Pharma. US law requires that potential side effects be described in narration. So if the potential horror of a trip to the ER for priapism doesn't get you snickering, other side effects like "loss of sight or hearing" will. Not as though we were never told to "stop it or you'll go blind!" when we were younger.

    Sorry HP, you're not even in the same league with those losers. Do try harder, won't you?

  19. tom 24
    Thumb Down

    Are we supposed to identify with...that vocal?

    You should only perform other people's music if you think you can improve on it. Sadly, hubris tends to render this rule less useful.

    I think they should have used "Heroin." No, not the song, the drug.

  20. Jay 2

    They should have used REM...

    ...Everybody Hurts!

  21. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Unhappy

    I...feel...dirty...

    You cannot "unsee" things....I stuck with it for 45 secs just to see how bad it was going to get, now I don't feel very well.

    Can't say the work of Mr Reed was ever on my list of favourites, but don't these ad-men have any moraility or even basic common decency? Why must everything be used and abused in the pursuit of the 'greed for green'?

    A dark day for our cherished rock heritage...

    1. Jan 0 Silver badge
      Flame

      I call for 7 plagues on all ad agencies

      They have tainted so many excellent songs that I loved in years gone past.

      Even when they use the original version, it still diminishes the song by association with their mundane products.

      If they're so "creative" why can't they get new songs performed for the products? Why do the original artists permit them to ruin the artist's reputation. Surely the copyright holder can prevent this?

  22. Z80
    Stop

    Wow

    I came here to the comments before playing the video and after reading a few thought how bad can it actually be?...

    I bailed after 15 seconds.

  23. mark adrian bell
    Unhappy

    That...

    is appalling. God help me if I ever buy another HP product as long as I live.

  24. Graham Bartlett

    Strange

    Surprisingly I thought it wasn't too bad - apart from the "everybody... on" at the end. Unfortunately I'm not in the market for HP kit bcos their kit is mostly overpriced.

    There have definitely been worse covers. Compared to Puff Daddy's godawful mutilation of "Every breath you take" - which apparently some complete morons with the musical sense of a slug actually bought - this is positively benign.

    FWIW, that "Sweet child of mine" cover was an original take on the song too, so in spite of its insufferable tweeness it still wasn't all bad. For me, the most annoying is the Co-op - who you may remember are resolutely against investing in arms companies and non-ethical companies generally - making the gutless decision to use "Blowing in the wind" but remove the line "how many times shall the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned", just bcos they wanted some music to run behind feathers and bubbles and things blowing in the wind. Yes we see what you did there, Co-op marketing people, and no it isn't clever.

    1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Strange

      I don't see what your beef is with the Co-op on that score. Aside from anything else, er, there may have been time constraints preventing the use of the entire song.

      The best cover ever is this reggae version of the Sesame Street theme I found on Spotify, so there.

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