Slashdot Mirror
Corporate Anthems Go Corporate
Peter Judge writes: "Corporate Anthems are once again online at ZDNet UK.
Last year, the Corporate Anthems page exposed a big bunch of amusing songs composed for corporate promotion. However, the music files had to go offline due to bandwidth limits.
Now, ZDnet UK has stepped in, to host the anthems in all their glory. We hope to flush out and publicise new ones, and will be updating the chart in the coming weeks, according to the 'popularity' of different tracks. We have included more lyrics -- transcribed with some effort (and several lines which surely can't be for real)."
Synergy?
Gosh, must be hard for aspiring artists to write these songs . . . crazy words like paradyme don't rhyme easily!
-Joe
Isn't this going a bit far... well maybe not considdering that companys can be larger than countrys...
You would have to be crazy to be sane in this world. -Nero
HA HA HA HA
SGI's:
"I have a dream, and it's called a graphics pipe/ it really works, and it's not just PR hype".
You have to hear it...
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Not really an anthem, but I was always partial to the oscar meyer song. My bologna has a first name, it's o-s-c-a-r.
sounds like rollerball...
A dream of power and energy.
I go for the gold!
Knife goes in! Guts come out! That's what Osaka Seafood Concern is all about!
Still funny though...
Modeling and rendering, designing analyzing, just pick any two!/ I have one dream and it's two CPUs...
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
the second I though of that all I could think of was the song that played through my head at every staff meeting talking about "reorganization". It was "We're Not Going To Take It" - T. Sister
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
Well, my corporate anthem goes something like this: Oh, I'm a C programmer and I'm OK, I muck with structs and indexes all day, And when they work I shout HOORAY! Oh, I'm a C programmer and I'm OK. I tend to put it in nearly all of my programs and whenever someone reads the source you can usually hear them burst into laughter. I do not know who wrote this poem, but I would like to thank them :) This poem is just too fantastic as it combines Monty Python, C and silliness...
God bless the poets...
"the music files had to go offline due to bandwidth limits"
I love how they celebrate the return of the site by Slashdotting it.
are available here.
>;k
--
Evan "Until the CFO gets the bandwidth bill - then he'll have company"
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
...the Enron anthem had a surprise ending?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
- Do companies actually pay people to come up with these things?
;)
;)
- WHY do companies pay people to come up with these things??
All I can say is...thank God my company doesn't have its own song. Yet... *shudder*
If we did...they'd probably make us techs sing it to the clients over the phone...
Great...now that thought's gonne give me nightmares tonight...
DennyK
Does it enrage anyone else that Devo's sarcastic "Beautiful World" is used by freaking TARGET?
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
Corporate promotion isn't like any promotion, it is usually planned by committee over the span of many months, and well, transcribing can't be as hard as composing the darn thing, so I don't see what the problem is, because ZDnet stepped in and exposed a big bunch of amusing songs, but that was last year, and you wouldn't publicize that unless you were told to by you management or it was for some sort of continuity motif that has to be repeated to create an effect that was planned to start with at the committee planning, over the course of which many other things might have taken place, such as plans for new ones and writing several lines which surely can't be for real just to confuse whoever is transcribing the stuff because of course it would have to be transcribed due to bandwidth limits, and that could be known to begin with so marketing would plan for this in advance like if the company depended on it.
Has anyone seen Demolition Man? That movie predicted that jingles like this would be the rage well into 21st century. They surely can be cheesy at times, but it's better than a lot of crap that's otherwise 'free'
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
How about paradigm?
*rimshot*
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
...is apparently an imperfect science. Unless the PriceWaterhouseCoopers anthem really does go "...How high can you retch?..." ;-)
;-)
Of course, the *real* stuff some of these songs contain is far scarier...
DennyK
I guess they come up with this stuff for team building retreats etc.
It amazes me that corporations hope to improve moral using the same insulting tricks they tried on us in 7th grade. If they just treated people like adult human beings, you'd see results a lot faster than making by making them clap and sing in unison.
But I wonder...
Was there ever an Enron song? I know of some punk bands that would love to do a cover.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I'll hear all of them. I want to be very happy.
Does anyone know the NCR corporate anthem "to Excel" from around 1983/4? a friend and i are interested in purchasing the rights for our band. milligna81@hotmail.com
My favourites: KPMG's is hilarious.
PriceWaterhouseCooper's is just plain stupid-funny, if you know what I mean.
IBM's is interesting. Really old and very, very bad, and it sounds like they actually got some employeers to sing along! Sounds like a song from Merry Poppins. They must have been marketing people...the engineers would never be dumb enough to sing along to that. Unless management gave them free beer on a Friday and they got really pissed-up.
i was wundering if any Slahsdot readers were interestad in sucking my cock. it's a farily decent peice of meat, washed daily, never left out side overnight or driven in salty conditoins. if you aren't in to swalowing, I wuld be happy to take a snowball :)
if anyone's interestad, emale me adn we'll tawk.
/. editors, do not divulge my IP addy to anyone that may call. Please.
MS Theme song (learn it, love it, live it)
1
We build the future piece by piece
The world depends on us
Never can our endurance cease
In our products they must trust
Refrain:
We dream our dream of dominance
Microsoft, we lead and the world follows
We put the computer on every desktop
And each one runs Windows
2
Our battle is arduous
And our enemies are fierce
But the battle belongs to us
Only we can persevere
Refrain
3
With eagle eyes we see for years
With cheetah speed we race
Our code is Business' gears
And Windows is its face
Refrain
From BASIC to DOS to Windows
Our empire grows ever strong
Microsoft will take the blows
And return them right along
Refrain 2x
From the IBM lyrics:
we can't fail for all can see,
that to serve humanity
has been our aim.
Now that's a company we all will support, they exist to serve us, not to make profit or something, nope, just to serve humanity.
Or would they mean serve as in AS400?
waste of bandwidth.
I only listened to the SGI anthem, and found I couldn't hate it. I'm known for mocking stupid music (it's a good/bad habit of mine), but I couldn't seem to do it this time. The song is so lame that it mocks itself, no need for me to help it along. There is no doubt in my mind that they intended it to be stupid. At least, that's what I *want* to believe. Nobody could be as lame as to write a song like that with any seriousness. For their sake, I hope that's the case.
None of these songs could possibly be as horrifying as this little ditty by a certain wacko Attorney General..
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
I think the Ford anthem with Carlotte Church is fabulous.
She is a real cutie. It's a good song too.
hit her over the head with a brick so she passes out
I refused to sing "We've been working on the Cold Stone" then and I won't sing it now (yes, it's to the tune of "we've been working on the railroad" and it sounds terribly obnoxious).
:)
Yes, they also have several other inane songs you're supposed to sing for a dollar. I kinda wish I'd known that you were supposed to sing before I got hired for the job, but our owners were bright enough not to force us to do such silly things
It made me sick... I had to leave the room...
i worked for one of the companies featured in the chart, and was dismayed to know that a corporate anthem was being created internally, they went out and brought the kit to produce the track, the corp vid that went with it was intended to be used to convey what the company was about to potential clients, not sure if it ever worked (or was actually used)... of course the anthem itself is now used as the hold music.... used to be a nightmare phoning in from a meeting *knowing* you would get put on hold and be subjected to it !!
*shudder*
-----
A monkey in every office....
can't wait till someone uploads the RIAA's anthem, then we can all pirate it and burn it to cds/dvds....
ahh, the egg in the basket..
Got an mp3 of this ditty?
Share and enjoy, Share and enjoy
Journey through life with a plastic boy
Or girl by your side, let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves and it gives you no joy
Because it's eaten your hat or had sex with your cat
Poured oil on your lawn or ripped up your door
And you get to the point you can't stand anymore
Bring it to us, we won't give a fig
We'll tell you... Go stick your head in a pig!
They've got no rhythm!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
http://www.google.com/search?hl=sv&q=Devo+Corporat e+Anthem&btnG=Google-s%F6kning&lr=
The best Corporate Anthem there is!!!
I work for DB. Previously I was a happy corporate banker merging companies who didn't want to be merged and doing other useful activities. Thanks to these songs now I want to maim myself. Thanks for pointing out how much I am now a part of my corporation, now that the tune got stuck in my head.
1984
Makes you wonder how many of these anthems were as a result of some Dilbertism in the workplace... Hmmm.....
When I bought my first PC, it came with OS/2 installed. Although the operating system didn't last long, it came with a midi file of that same IBM corporate anthem which I still have lying around somewhere.
It's quite a good tune when the words are removed, if a little dated.
The Register's Corporate Anthem
The RIAA has a really good corporate anthem!
You can download it from Kazaa, Morpheus or GNUTella.
It is all about piracy or something...
hey that worked well! thankyou for your advice!
OUR I. B. M. SALESMEN
Tune: "Jingle Bells"
1. I. B. M., Happy men, smiling all the way.
Oh what fun it is to sell our products night and day.
I. B. M., Watson men, partners of T. J.
In his service to mankind-that's why we are so gay.
I worked at a corpotation that, through mergers and such, was double-branding their product for awhile. After a certain period in time, they decided to retire an old logo. So, they recorded a song to the tune of "American Pie", and sent it to everyone's voicemail, telling them that we weren't going to use the logo anymore.
I guess the idea must have been (?) that nobody's going to forget about the change in policy after they listen to that. Personally, I had to wonder if our CEO just didn't have enough to do or something.
-- dR.fuZZo
Definately my favorite for most annoying/catchy/scary corporate theme... But they forgot to link the Drum n Bass version! check it out here
I found these when i started working for big blue... they scare me severely.
Written by a close friend of mine (in his free time) for the Bureau's centenntiall celebration...
http://www.census.gov/mso/www/centennial/anthem.hThose that contract out for the Defense sector, pick your branch.
Not to be outdone, the National Guard has a theme of its own.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Sorry, couldn't resist. That tune, my god...
We have an ex-employee from SGI working for us, and he's told me that SGI have an event called "Lip sync", where departments have to come up with the most outrageous and over the top songs for their department. Notable entries were "CAD to the bone" ('bad to the bone') and "Drugs do work"...
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah I'm the taxman
I like this one:
It's fun to charter an accountant
And sail the wide accountancy,
To find, explore the funds offshore
And skirt the shoals of bankruptcy!
It can be manly in insurance.
We'll up your premium semi-annually.
It's all tax deductible.
We're fairly incorruptible,
We're sailing on the wide accountancy!
[its from the short film shown before Monty Python's Meaning of Life...]
When I first read the headline for this story, it creeped me out. There's a scene in one of William Gibson's books (it might have been Neuromancer) where corporate employees are expected to get up in the morning and sing the company anthems in unison before starting work. I know the songs are in jest, but think about it: exactly how far away from this are we?
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
IBM, happy men, smiling all the way, oh what fun it is to sell our products our pruducts night and day. IBM Watson men, partners of TJ. In his service to mankind - that's why we are so gay.
I remember when Windows 95 was launched in the UK, it was accompanied by "Start it Up" by the Rolling Stones. Perhaps M$ ought to change it to a 10 minute remix entitled "Start it Up (Again)".
-William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
Could be like brian's song
"If the rules of accounting
Are rules that I could break..."
I dunno, something similar. I'm not exactly bernie taupin.
All I picture from dot coms is "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols.
As a silver car spins slowly the lyrics clearly heard:
At least when VW used Stereolab's Parsec in their New Beetle ad they had the presence of mind to select a song by the leftist group that didn't have any lyrics at all.
'Course, the ultimate folly in recent memory was GM buying the rights to a a Chumbawumba (née the ultra-Marxist Crass) song for their car ad... the proceeds of which were used to lobby against GM. Ha!
Snickersnee3: Build your own 3-watt Luxeon Star headlamp from scratch
All Things Considered from National Public Radio had a piece on these songs last year. It's pretty funny, with a good amount of historical background.
Here's one that I found:
http://closedsrc.org/xpROLSpoof.php
Worked as an IT consultant for KPMG. First thing they did was send you to a week long indoctrination seminar (just consultants, not the auditors, god help those boring slugs). Team building, corporate identity, the usual. Taught the most essential consulting skill - functioning with no sleep and a splitting hangover.
Our late night version of the KPMG song went:
M-I-C-KPMG--M-O-U-S-E! KPMG! KPMG
The subject of corporate anthems immediately reminded me of one of the characters in Douglas Adams book, "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". He worked for a startup company that wrote software to generate corporate anthems based off of the a company's financial performance. Japanese companies tended to produce fast tempo pop music while European companies produces something akin to funeral marches. I wonder what dot coms would generate?
Way back when I first got my Tandy 1000, I got a disk full of BASIC programs and games from I know not where. One of them played "Ever Onward" while displaying the lyrics on the screen, line by line. I played this so often (hey, I was about 12 years old and it was a catchy tune) that I still remember them, but they are not the same as the lyrics on that site. Instead, it was this verse:
There's a feeling everywhere
Of bigger things in store
Of new horizons coming into view
Our aim is clear to make each year
Exceed the one before
Staying in the lead in everything we do
The will to win is built right in
It will not be denied
And we will go ahead, we know
By working side by side
And this was followed by the chorus, and that was it.
I wonder if what I have is a 'bootleg' version? And I wonder if I still have that old 5 1/4" floppy buried somewhere in my house and can find a machine to read it.
~Philly
Dident they have something on athems and stuff in Stalone's Demolition Man? I think a whold radio channel and somthing about Taco Bell?
:)
Well it Wed and need a good chuckle.
*voice hoarse, sweat flinging to the end of the audience*
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!
...was written about 1988 by the Primitives. It's called "Crash."
Download the "happy chouffe song" at the Achouffe website. You can get an mp3 in both French and English
I've only had the "McChouffe" and not the original LaChouffe - it was pretty good, but not worth paying import (USA) prices. But it did come in a cool "magnum" size bottle with cool pics of gnomes on it!
Read more about them at this bbc article.
At my previous employer's annual "Kickoff" meeting, popular songs were lyrically altered to celebrate various products, and employees performed the songs for those in attendance (usually about 5000 people). This was rehearsed with costumes and live bands and a full stage with light/sound system, mind you. One particular performance of Aretha Franklin's "Respect" extolling the virtues of the latest laser printers still makes me ill.
Also, with reference to the post mentioning William Gibson's "Neuromancer": Samsung Electronics actually does this in Korea. According to an article in a recent TIME magazine, employees are sent away to four-week boot camps, awake before 6 AM every morning, and sing the company song.
... and it wasn't pretty.
During a company wide meeting in Santa Monica, a group of consultants swept the stage and told us all how we were going to be a billion dollar company in no time at all (with their help, of course). Part of getting there, however, was having a defined corporate image and a honed sense of purpose.
Intro the guitar player.
According to Head Consultant #1, the guitar player who now graced the stage went through some pretty horrific times, notably a throat cancer that threatened his vocal chords. As he was a singer by trade, this would mean the collapse of his entire world. But, with faith and determination, he got through it and emerged on the other side of the ordeal with chords intact. Mr. Guitar Player, then, was to be an inspiration to us all.
And how did they choose to inspire us? By playing the most GOD AWFUL song I have ever heard - the CyberMedia Theme Song. After the song was played (during which my coworkers and I tried heartily to stifle our laughter while one of us was actually so enraged at the idiocy of it all to be visibly red and shaking), we were all handed copies of the song on cassettes. You know, so we could go home and use it as a depressant.
After arriving back at our branch office in Tigard, Oregon, our small group set to encoding the song into an MP3 so we could unleash it on the world and MAKE SURE that everybody knew what CyberMedia was all about.
That song sucked. And it did such a good job at lifting our spirits that the company was sold to Network Associates not long afterwards.
As one of our group was heard to say during the performance of the song by Mr. Guitar Player: "Too bad he recovered."
Join us now and share the software;
You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free.
x2
Hoarders may get piles of money,
That is true, hackers, that is true.
But they cannot help their neighbors;
That's not good, hackers, that's not good.
When we have enough free software
At our call, hackers, at our call,
We'll throw out those dirty licenses
Ever more, hackers, ever more.
Join us now and share the software;
You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free.
x2
yeah, you'd think they would of used the Devo Corporate Anthem!
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned before, but SGI actually had a theme song for the Indy workstation. This is not the "jazz hit" startup sound, but in fact, a full length instrumental jazz fusion piece commissioned by a local band (at least as described by the marketing people at the demo I saw)
It can be found on the demos that come with the Indy somewhere, and isn't half bad at all.
Calum
Mary Poppins. Merry Brandybuck.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
#EXTM3U / kpmg.mp3/ /www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/pwc.mp3c eWaterHouseCooper 2N F:-1,IBMa rd.wavo .uk/anthems/mediaapps.mp3_ everywhere.m p3e way.m p3p 3
#EXTINF:-l, CyberMedia. mp3r ames.mp3
#EXTINF:236,McKinsey & Company
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/mckc.mp3
#EXTINF:-1,KPMG
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems
#EXTINF:-1,PriceWaterHouseCooper
http:
#EXTINF:-1,Pri
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/pwc.wav
#EXTI
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/everonw
#EXTINF:-1,MediaApps
http://www5.zdnet.c
#EXTINF:-l,Asera EveryWhere
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/asera
#EXTINF:-l,Asera Lead the Way
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/asera_leadth
#EXTINF:-l, Magic Software
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/magic.m
#EXTINF:-l, BlueWave
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/bw.mp3
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/cyber
#EXTINF:-l, InfoGrames
http://www5.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/infog
Ok, no, New Jersey isn't a corporation. However, NJN (a Jersey-based PBS station) used to play the following at the end of their broadcast day, accompanied by an appropriately inspirational video, shot circa 1982:
New Jersey, each day your beauty shines from farmland to the shore;
New Jersey, in this great land there is no place that offers more.
Together, we see the dreams we dare to dream all coming true -
they're my dreams, too.
New Jersey, your cities help to make this nation strong and free;
New Jersey, your courage comes alive in every face I see;
Together, we'll face the challenge of tomorrow and today -
Now we're on the way!
Positively New Jersey, you stand for liberty!
Positively New Jersey, your people hold the key!
Our spirit makes us everything a state could hope to be.
Positively New Jersey - and...
[musical flourish with jarring key change]
Positively New Jersey, you stand for liberty!
Positively New Jersey, your people hold the key!
Our spirit makes us everything a state could hope to be.
Positively New Jersey,
Positively New Jersey,
Positively New Jersey - and me.
[end]
I have this on tape and have shown it to many friends, both from New Jersey and not from New Jersey. The reaction is a mix of horror and uncontrollable bladder-bursting laughter.
And no, I am not making this up.
You are a good company
You can really whoop the camel's ass
You are a good company in Jesus' Name
You are a good company to the max
Microsoft, Microsoft...
Microsoft, Micorsoft...
Microsoft, Microsoft...
Microsoft, Microsoft...
You can dance like the whipping of a monkey's ass
You can rock the concert hall
you are the whooping of Bill Gate's ass
Microsoft, Microsoft...
Microsoft, Micorsoft...
Microsoft, Microsoft...
Microsoft, Microsoft...
Rock over london... Rock on chicago
Windows 98... Where do you want to go today
There are a few great moments several times in the ORIGINAL ROLERBALL where Jonathan E. is pounding his BIG SPIKED glove in anger at "corporate anthem" at the beginning of each game.
Funny thing is, the faces of the rollerballers show how incredibly lame and pointless these songs are.
Kinda like MY face when I read the soulless lyrics of thes horrible, crappy songs.
Well it's not a song, just a cheer... but all the same it was pretty embarassing. If you've ever one into a Wal-Mart early in the morning and seen associates line up for it, you know what I mean:
Gimme a "W" (W!)
Gimme an "A" (A!)
Gimme a "L" (L!)
Gimme a "SQIGGLE" (Gyrate wildly)
Gimme a "M" (M!)
Gimme an "A" (A!)
Gimme an "R" (R!)
Gimme a "T" (T!)
What's that spell? ("Wal-Mart!")
Who's number one? ("The customer!")
What store is number one? (e.g. 3032)
It was rather amusing to see overweight, balding managers trying to do the squiggle!
An "unofficial" anthem I remember from my pre-Wal-Mart days was Working at the Woolco Manager Trainee Blues but this song was eventually banned by Woolco top brass.
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking