US rapper Doja Cat has recorded a cover of Hole’s Celebrity Skin as the soundtrack to a new Taco Bell advert to air on US TV during the Super Bowl.
With a 30-second TV ad during this year’s Super Bowl, which sees Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams facing off in the annual championship play-off game to decide the winner of the National Football League, costing an astonishing $6.5 million, there’s an onus on advertisers to pull out all the stops to create a memorable TV moment. The new Taco Bell commercial, titled The Grande Escape and set to air during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVI - sounds like such a moment, finding Doja Cat leading an exodus from a clown college, and featuring a snippet of the rapper’s tale on the Courtney Love/Eric Erlandson/Billy Corgan-penned title track of Hole’s third album, which emerged in 1998.
You can watch a behind-the-senes look at the ad, and hear the full audio of Doja Cat’s take on Hole’s ‘Fleetwood Mac-go-grunge’ classic, with subtly altered lyrics, below.
Having one of America’s most high profile pop stars covering a ’90s alt.rock anthem during the country’s biggest annual sporting fixture/TV event is another indication that rock music is slowly creeping back into favour in the US.
Rock music has been marginalised in America for several years, and, on the face of it, the fact that not one rock/metal album released in 2021 appeared in Billboard magazine’s year-end chart documenting the 200 best-selling albums of last year makes grim reading. However, there are distinct signs that rock is slowly encroaching back into mainstream culture worldwide.
A recently-published study analysing the state of the music industry in 2021 revealed some interesting findings. Looking at trends in music consumption across social networks, streaming services and radio, the Viberate report suggested that rock music is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Rock was the fourth most-streamed genre on Spotify in 2021, with over 30 billion streams, the second most popular genre on radio stations worldwide, and the fourth most popular genre on TikTok.
In related news, Foo Fighters are to host a special “immersive 180-degree VR concert” on Meta - aka The Platform Formerly Known As Facebook - after the conclusion of this weekend’s Super Bowl.
With the Super Bowl scheduled to begin at 11:30pm UK time on Sunday, February 13, for UK viewers, the Foo Fighters’ VR show will take place at some point in the early hours of February 14.
