John Lennon has been dead and buried for over 20 years, but the poor man still isn’t getting any peace.
As if having John Lennon quotes plastered on bumper stickers and his songs butchered by every frat boy with an acoustic guitar isn’t humiliating enough, the late-Beatle is now being paraded around in television ads for laptop computers.
Thanks, Yoko.
On the plus side, the ads are for a charitable organization that provides laptop computers to some of the world’s neediest kids, so some of this atrocity is almost forgivable. Still, there’s something very creepy about seeing and hearing a digitally manipulated film of Lennon talking about laptops, especially since computers were still rather uncommon at the time of his death in 1980.
If Yoko Ono stops here with the selling of Lennon, fans might forgive her. Let’s just hope this series of faux-Lennon commercials doesn’t expand to include commercials for electric cars and vegan food, or special performances during half-time at the superbowl.
Then again, this type of post-mortem digital resurrection could hold interesting, or horrifying, possibilities for Lennon’s music. What if this process were used to record his un-released songs with a digital Lennon clone/ voice impersonator? Same thing for Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Elvis and all of the other dead singers who fans still want to hear more from.
Actually, that’s a really horrifying idea and we hope it never ever happens.
Do you think the Lennon laptop commercial is cool or creepy?
Leave a comment and tell us what you think!
Ron Froehlich says...
01.12.09 2:22 pm
i believe that john lennon would not aprove . this kind of money making idea just makes me sick. remember john for what he stood for , not for what someone eles want’s him to stand for. John Lennon has left us with more then enough wisdom to last the world a life time.