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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)."
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)
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)
Dime, as in
"Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?"
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
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
- 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]
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!
/. 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
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.
It made me sick... I had to leave the room...
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
Makes you wonder how many of these anthems were as a result of some Dilbertism in the workplace... Hmmm.....
The RIAA has a really good corporate anthem!
You can download it from Kazaa, Morpheus or GNUTella.
It is all about piracy or something...
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
I found these when i started working for big blue... they scare me severely.
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?"
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.
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
You make a grown man cry
Don't make a grown man cry
You, you {clap clap}...You make a grown man cry-y-y-y
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
... 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!
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
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.