It’s a well-organized statement that requires the use of a cover song - it even avoids the very real danger of eye-rolling pretension. The Levi’s ad, for example, takes a 50-year-old Johnny Cash single (and every cultural trope it entails) and hands it over to two relatively unknown performers, effectively broadcasting the message that both the song and the jeans are relics of the past that are worth a modern update. Covering songs is a whole new can of worms, and those worms live in the grimy world of cultural politics. The effort isn’t perfect, however - it’s a cover. And when the music matches up with their sentiment, as it does with their 2006 commercial featuring cover versions of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” the results are enough to make even the most cynical critic acknowledge its poignancy. Levi’s uses this strategy almost exclusively, banking on their history to strengthen their brand. Selling something with a song means getting a customer to attach feelings to a product, and using an old classic is a good tool for that. Many are songs from eras long gone - used for their associative properties. The vast majority are a collection of commissioned jingles and polished pop turds. It takes a certain kind of music to appeal to the world of retail.

Then again, it’s not entirely impossible. To be fair, it’s often hard to see the cultural value of a song that’s been used to hawk dish detergent.

Gotan Project’s 2001 album La Revancha del Tango is good music to shop to, which is a statement that might get taken as an insult from most contexts.

La revancha song